Thread regarding Cengage layoffs

@OP new Microsoft person announced today!

@pb there have already been layoffs this month.

@p3 well they're talking about this month specifically.

@ma what do you mean. They’ve been laying off in every department since late April. It never stopped.

@k1 which department?

@k0 another phrase you love to wear out.

More layoffs coming this month. this is not a prediction... its a fact

@jw you do such a great job and licking boots... try your ar-e.

@j9 the comments never pointed to being against using ai what are you even rambling about. I guess you used ai again and it hallucinated.

@j9 ohhhh touched a nerve. no one is against AI. It’s apart of our daily lives and needs to be used and integrated. But your ai slop is not original thoughts and is easy to spot a mile away. You sound like every other person on LinkedIn. Sorry you are unable to convey your own original thoughts without an artificial intelligence machine writing it for you. Low iq which is a theme for Cengage.

@fr Hilarious. Who even are you?

The only thing more predictable than your comments is your nonstop defense of MH and every questionable decision he makes. You show up to dismiss criticism, but never seem to have an actual solution.

Since you're apparently so concerned about AI, why don't you do the industry a favor and tell everyone to stop using it altogether? After all, based on your comments, anyone who embraces one of the biggest technological advancements of our lifetime must be doing something wrong.

The reality is that AI isn't going away. The people and companies that learn how to use it will move forward. The ones who spend their time complaining about it from the sidelines will get left behind.

As for calling my post "AI slop," that's rich coming from someone whose entire online presence seems to revolve around defending management and attacking anyone who questions the status quo.

Maybe if more people spent less time bootlicking and more time adapting to where the world is headed, companies like Cengage wouldn't be struggling to stay relevant.

@fq this person loves to post Ai slop. Reads just like all the Ai LinkedIn posts. So authentic.

"More and more, it feels like it's about who you know."

Well of course, dear. What a silly, long-winded post you have wasted our t8me with! This is how business works, and at all levels. I joined your organization because my boss migrated over and she hired me, and we're were on the lower rungs of the organization at that time. Have you really not understood this until now? The practice is not good and it's not bad. It just is.

Hey MH, Can you feel it?! Something feels different , Can you feel it?

To the left to the left,

@bt the problem is they are trying to hire “tech” people in these higher up positions. NK and MH act like this hasn’t been tried many times at every single publisher. It never works because the tech sales model is nothing like publishing. Tech sales are very transactional, one and done, while publishing sales is very relationship based and continuous. Professors can get all these same books and platforms from any publisher- it very much comes down to the authors and which rep will give them the most support. And which courseware su-ks a little less. NK thinks he’s doing something novel- it’s worked absolutely nowhere and the tech people are out in 24 months bc they aren’t the saviors they thought they’d be.

The best thing to do would be scrap the model completely and rip the band aid off and stop selling to bookstores completely. They won’t do that.

"I don't think the problem was ever promoting from within. The problem was who was being promoted. For years, leadership seemed to recycle the same circle of people from Pearson. The same names. The same networks. The same thinking. It wasn't necessarily meritocracy, it was familiarity.

Now the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. Instead of industry veterans getting opportunities, we're seeing people brought in from completely outside publishing who have little understanding of Higher Ed, faculty adoption cycles, bookstore operations, academic freedom, or the customer relationships that drive this business.

So the underlying issue hasn't really changed. The names changed. The resumes changed. But the pattern didn't. It still feels like leadership is hiring people they know, trust, or have worked with before, rather than the people with the deepest industry knowledge.

The result is predictable. The old leadership circle created one set of problems. The new leadership circle is creating another. One was overly insulated by publishing insiders. The other is overly confident in outsiders who think they can learn a decades‑old industry on the fly.

Meanwhile, employees and customers are left dealing with the consequences of both approaches."

For years, I thought Cengage promoted TOO much from within. Led to some people in high positions punching above their weight. Funny seeing the pendulum swing the other way.

@OP "Looks like another prediction came true. Honestly, what else should employees expect at this point?

It doesn't seem to be about understanding the market. It doesn't seem to be about spending years learning the industry, building customer relationships, proving yourself in different roles, or demonstrating that you understand what it takes to succeed in Higher Ed.

More and more, it feels like it's about who you know.

When someone with more than a decade of institutional knowledge can be replaced by a friend or former colleague from a previous company, it sends a message to the entire organization. That message isn't 'we're promoting the best talent.' The message is 'relationships inside leadership circles matter more than industry expertise.'

That's how organizations lose institutional knowledge.

That's how customer understanding disappears.

That's how teams end up being led by people who know the org chart better than they know the customers.

The irony is that leadership keeps talking about growth, execution, alignment, and performance. But those things don't come from hiring people who are familiar with each other. They come from hiring people who understand the business, understand the market, and have a proven track record of delivering results.

Unfortunately, Cengage seems to be moving further away from that standard, not closer to it.

And if leadership continues replacing industry experience with personal networks and corporate acquaintances, employees shouldn't be surprised when the same problems keep repeating themselves under different names and different org charts.

At some point, people stop believing these decisions are about merit and start believing they're about maintaining the same leadership circle. Once that happens, trust disappears fast.

The scary part is that many employees have already reached that conclusion.

MH, NK. BE and WM are on borrowed time at Cengage.