#changemanagement

Posts mentioning hashtag #changemanagement

Below are all the posts — topics as well as replies — that mention the hashtag #changemanagement.

Mention #changemanagement in your post to continue the discussion!

CXO org

Just my opinion, but after the last organizational shake-up, I wouldn’t be surprised if history repeats itself.

One question I keep coming back to: A.C. championed the “ways of working” in the previous CXO organization. Has anyone objectively looked at whether those same approaches may have contributed to some of the challenges the organization faced?

Hopefully the new organization has a different outcome—but time will tell. 🍿


T5 MANAGERS WHY HAVE THEY NOT BEEN REMOVED

McKinsey have been poking around on cost for years why has the T5 layer of managers not been removed. In my experience they largely work from home, demand lots of travel and are blockers to true change viewi g everything through their personal lens.

At many large enterprises like SAP, having a highly concentrated, top-heavy layer of senior executives (like the T5 band) can become a major drag on agility. While senior leadership is necessary for governance, an over-reliance on a massive executive tier often does more harm than good.
Here are some other reasons why a heavy executive management layer can be a bad idea, a waste of resources, and a massive blocker to organizational change:

  1. The "Telephone Game" of Communication
    When strategic goals have to travel down from the board through T5 executives, T4 directors, and T3 managers before reaching the people doing the actual work, the original message gets distorted. Key details are lost in translation, and the boots on the ground often end up executing something entirely different from what was intended.
  2. Decision Paralysis and Over-Analysis
    With too many high-level leaders wanting to leave their mark, decisions require endless rounds of reviews, steering committees, and alignments. Simple choices that should take days get dragged out for months because too many executives need to "sign off" or feel included.
  3. High Compensation, Low Direct Output
    Executive-level talent commands premium salaries, stock options, and bonuses. When a company carries a bloated executive tier, a massive portion of the budget is spent on individuals who manage and coordinate, rather than those who build, sell, or support the actual product. This is a highly inefficient allocation of capital.
  4. Preservation of the Status Quo
    Executives at this level have often spent decades navigating the corporate political landscape to achieve their status. Because their success is tied to the existing system, they are naturally incentivized to protect it. Truly disruptive change threatens their established domains, making them quiet saboteurs of radical innovation.
  5. Silo Creation and Empire Building
    To justify their premium titles and budgets, senior managers often focus on expanding their "empires"—hiring more people under them and fiercely guarding their departmental boundaries. This breeds internal competition and political infighting rather than cross-functional collaboration.
  6. Detachment from the Customer and Technology
    The higher up a leader goes, the further they get from the actual product and the day-to-day frustrations of the customer. Decisions are often made based on polished PowerPoint decks and sanitized reports rather than the raw, messy reality of the market.
  7. Death by PowerPoint (The "Tax" on Middle Management)
    To keep senior executives informed, middle managers and individual contributors must spend countless hours preparing status updates, dashboards, and presentations. This "reporting tax" drains valuable time and energy that should be spent on actual execution.
  8. Dilution of Accountability
    When a project involves multiple senior stakeholders, responsibility becomes diffused. If a major initiative fails, the layered structure makes it incredibly easy to point fingers, meaning no single executive is held accountable, and the organization fails to learn from its mistakes.
  9. Suffocation of Grassroots Innovation
    Great ideas in tech usually bubble up from the engineers, designers, and customer-facing staff. When there is a thick layer of top-down management, these ideas struggle to get noticed. If an idea doesn't align with an executive's personal roadmap, it is often ki-led before it can even be trialed.
  10. Heavy Friction for Agile Pivots
    In a fast-moving market, companies need to pivot quickly. A massive executive layer acts like a heavy anchor. Reorganizing, shifting budgets, or changing product direction requires untangling a complex web of executive egos, personal OKRs, and political alliances, making rapid adaptation nearly impossible.

Tech Companies Embrace "Continuous Tuning" Through Layoffs

Many technology firms are implementing frequent workforce reductions, often termed "continuous tuning," as they navigate evolving business priorities and invest heavily in artificial intelligence. This trend, observed across major companies like Microsoft, Amazon, and Meta, signifies a shift from cyclical layoffs to a more persistent strategy. Companies cite the need to reallocate resources towards AI development and adapt to technological advancements as primary drivers for these adjustments. While some layoffs are attributed to post-pandemic restructuring, the increasing mention of AI alongside workforce cuts on corporate calls highlights its growing influence. Experts suggest this approach, driven by uncertainty and competitive pressures, is likely to become a norm in the tech industry.

https://www.businessinsider.com/why-tech-companies-keep-doing-layoffs-ai-2026-7


New and Improved Fiserv Coming Soon

Honestly-the uncertainty of this company will greatly improve with new leadership who already know our clients, products and technology. I loved ML but I don’t think he had the tools to manage such a complex environment from a technology perspective. I never knew Dvy but was excited and petrified of her AI roll out plan, she was only here 6 months so not much time to make any meaningful changes. I’m glad we can now roll out AI with a little more thoughtful approach internally. I believe we finally have the right C suite in place -they are far from perfect, But having the understanding of internal Fiserv is a huge knowledge bonus! These guys now have the authority to make the necessary changes Fiserv clients have been looking for in breaking down silos within the company. Clients need to know that this is a really a good thing! Moving forward truly as one Fiserv! Finally!


Business AI & Platform, the new organizational mess...

During our welcoming call, the new leader introduced himself, but obviously he forgot how we landed there, he was the CEO's executive assistant couple of years back. Note aside, If we observe this move, 3 previous executive assistants has been graduated that position with a nee executive position and big fat check.

The continuous organizational mess is masked with messages around "this is not about correction but an opportunity… this is the right path for us, to work closely”. One thing is having aspirations, but the reality is that we are not a AI-native organization, nor we can ship products every 3 weeks. Former BTP is a very large legacy organization, with strong figures that will navigate change with power politics, some are leaving like MA, but we have leaders and middle management that is obsolete and will continue to imped velocity.

Experimentation was another resource to minimize the impact of errors, of careful strategies and execution plans. Whereas experimentation is part of innovation, it is not just the means to justify mistakes for a company with such large scale. We expect leadership that has been there and done it, that are not headless moving forward.
There is an abysm between a Vision at Sapphire VS what needs to be done, the L1,L2,L3, L4 details are what matters the most: application to products, migration, infrastructure, guidance for customers, and how all the work is going to be prioritized and aligned.

HPOM theme surged into the Q&A, the failure of this program with the large amount of negative feedback was ignored and we were invited to "not draw conclusions yet".

Overall the Q&A section was answered poorly, a fresh face with a smile is not enough to lead one of the most transformational changes SAP is pushing forward. “I think… (pun intended)"

are executives empowering us? are they moving the obstacles for us? is it true that getting job done matters more than our roles? What are your thoughts?


LP's Golden Parachute Expires on 12/31/26

https://investors.xerox.com/static-files/101bb5f2-18b8-4db1-897e-52c1c92a3bc7

So, LP has a golden parachute, that pays out for 24 months, or in one lump sum, at 2x his annual salary. This expires on 12/31/26 if there has not been a "Change in Control" of the company (i.e., CH 11).

CH11 before 12/31/26 = LP get 2x salary lump sum and a yet undetermined bonus.
CH11 after 12/31/26 = LP gets nothing.

Maybe there is a filing where they extended that date? If there is one, please share a link, but as this stands, LP can (will) get a multi-million dollar payout if this all goes bust before 2027.

Bonus: This was filed years ago, so it will probably hold up in court. The one they filed on 7/2/26? Not so much...


America's Test Kitchen Faces Workforce Changes

America's Test Kitchen has undergone multiple rounds of layoffs and operational shifts since its acquisition by Marquee Brands. These changes include the closure of ATK Kids and Cook's Country magazine, alongside a strategic pivot towards digital content and influencer collaborations. Company leadership asserts these adjustments are necessary for adaptation in a changing media landscape, aiming for organizational right-sizing rather than simple cost-cutting. Former employees express concerns that these shifts may dilute the brand's core mission of rigorous recipe testing. Despite these internal shifts, the company's flagship television show remains a primary driver of subscriptions.

Boston, MA

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/09/business/americas-test-kitchen-layoffs-strategy/


Go Bill

I’ll probably be in the minority, but I think Bill Brown is exactly the leader 3M needed.

He came in with a plan, had the courage to make the tough decisions, and is executing it without wavering. That isn’t easy, and it certainly isn’t popular.

Yes, the layoffs are painful, and my heart goes out to everyone affected. But leadership isn’t about avoiding difficult decisions—it’s about making them when the long-term future of the company is at stake.

Bill was hired to transform 3M, not to preserve the status quo. From what I’ve seen, he’s earning every cent by making the hard calls that many before him avoided.

History will judge whether he got everything right, but no one can say he lacks courage or conviction.


Cha cha changes (expect a rough ride)

BUCKLE UP -
There is no legal limit on how many times a company can alter a Voluntary Separation Program (VSP) offer before you sign it. An employer can revise, amend, or even cancel the offer entirely anytime prior to your acceptance.However, after you and the company have both signed the agreement, it becomes a binding contract. Neither party can legally change the terms post-signature unless the contract specifically includes a modification clause allowing for it, or both parties mutually agree in writing to an amendment.


DXC: “Strategic Transformation” (Now Featuring Fewer People, Same Amount of Confusion)

DXC has all the energy of a company that accidentally put “innovation” on its PowerPoint template and has been trying to live up to it ever since. Every restructuring is announced like it’s the dawn of a bold new era, yet somehow the biggest breakthrough is discovering another department that can be renamed, outsourced, or merged into an acronym nobody understands. If corporate strategy were a game of Jenga, DXC would be the team proudly removing load-bearing blocks while assuring everyone the wobbling is actually “operational agility.” It’s the sort of place where “doing more with less” eventually becomes “doing less with absolutely nothing,” but somehow there’s still time for three meetings, four status reports, and a mandatory training module about embracing change.


Bloomberg this morning

SAP SE is divvying up responsibilities for its product and engineering functions in its second top-level reorganization this year, people familiar with the matter said, as Europe’s largest software company grapples with staying ahead of rising artificial intelligence competition.

SAP has decided to split the responsibilities of Chief Product Officer Muhammad Alam among existing executives as Alam prepares to leave the company in March, rather than name a new CPO with those duties, the people said, asking to not be identified as the plan hasn’t yet been shared internally. Chief Executive Officer Christian Klein will take over most of Alam’s teams, while Chief Operating Officer Sebastian Steinhäuser will handle industrial AI, the people said.

A spokesman for SAP declined to comment.

Growing enterprise interest in AI tools from OpenAI and Anthropic PBC has put SAP and other traditional software firms under pressure to adapt. Klein is reorganizing the company to focus more resources on AI development, something he sees as key to the German enterprise software company’s survival.

It’s come alongside several executive board departures in the last few years, which have shifted reporting lines and responsibilities. In March, Klein gave another board member his sales responsibilities and took on greater oversight of AI strategy. He said in an email to employees at the time that “we once again need to transform SAP end to end, going all in on AI.”

SAP’s shares have declined about 35% this year.

Read more: SAP CEO Says AI Transition Will Require Short-Term Pain

The company is fending off criticism from some partners and customers that its early AI tools aren’t worth the expense, and others who say that they may look outside of SAP’s ecosystem for AI capabilities. In March, Klein pushed to expand access to AI tools to customers who hadn’t yet migrated their all of their legacy systems to the cloud, prioritizing the newer technology.

SAP will continue to search outside of the company for a new executive product lead, two of the people added. The company will target candidates in the US, its largest market, where Alam is the only executive board member, they said. Alam, who took the role leading SAP’s global product and engineering organization in 2024, also oversaw SAP’s software applications including product strategy and development. It’s unclear how the role will be structured under the new CPO.


July 1 announcement

The July 1 announcement is just a few days away. Are we going to hear about massive change, or will it just be a repeat of what we heard a couple weeks ago? Will they announcement headcount targets or kick that down the road? Personally I’m getting tired of the LT breadcrumbing us.


Reorg

After reading through some of these posts and thinking back on prior conversations I’ve had over a year ago I think I have an idea of what is going to happen.

I’ve heard for almost 2 years now that the ultimate goal was of course to bring in AI but also to merge everyone between each LOBs. Claims, UM, OPs, etc. They want one group of people for all LOBs that are cross trained and can work everything.

I’m thinking that’s what this will be. Clean house and get rid of people then reorg who is left into the 1 team per department for all LOBs.

I thought I’ve read that they have done it this way before however and that it didn’t go well? Ya know be because each LOB is vastly different?

Could this be what is happening?


Can the Phoenix rise from the ashes?

The past 5 years have been such a mess for this company. Clients, Staff, and investors have all suffered through what Kelly, Bill-n-Bo (at the time), and the boards though would be a huge payday for them. SunTrust and BB&T were culturally and mission entirely different. Both organizations lost so many good bankers who went on to the new rising stars in banking, Seacoast, Pinnacle, M&T, TD, 5/3rd, Huntington. Clients left too, when they lost their trusted banker (can't name those here). Those people and clients will never return. I hope the organization is now turning the corner for everyone's sake. But...be sure, more changes are coming for clients and staff.


Rate of Change

When will ELT and Sr Leaders slow down the type and quantity of change they are shoving down our throats?! I understand that change is required in any organization, but for fcks sake give us a change to digest these changes and understand them before you dump more on us!

Change fatigue is real, and is the main reason I want to leave but probably won't because of the amount of $$ I have wrapped up in my LP. Plus, I don't want the tax hit from having to sell it if I leave and work for a competing firm.

But seriously... just fckng leave us alone for a hot minute.


Mike left

Lmao Mike came in, penalized the teams leaving hard workers out of their jobs and sending layoffs. Now he is out in 13 months tell me he didn’t do well in his job. The leadership changes that took place lately and continuous after Frank left clearly tells that the company isn’t doing so good, it’s like having puppets in positions that don’t make sense.


Glide Path to the Trash Bin

UnitedHealth Group managed to squeeze $12B in pure profit out of the healthcare system last year solely through value extraction. Like Sears, Circuit City, and other notable companies that found themselves in the trash bin of history, they are relying on their size to keep employers, providers, and members with them. At a time when healthcare costs are skyrocketing, they could be creating value in the healthcare system and — gasp! — earning some profit for themselves. Instead, they push out anyone who wants to innovate or question the dirty tactics and legally dubious actions. Hemsley was supposed to make it better. Instead, he’s made the company culture worse and is putting short term gain above not only UnitedHealth Group’s interests, but the already strained healthcare system.

Know this, there is an avoidable trajectory here; but persist down this road and some startup will eat your lunch just like Amazon — a nobody at the time — did to Sears and Circuit City. Change course before it’s too late. Hire some technology people that actually know technology. Hire ethical business leaders that will follow the law. UnitedHealth Group could be the reason the healthcare system gets better or the reason it crashed. Choose wisely.


If You Thought the Transition To FIS Went Bad, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.

Read the GAO Report on Accenture's botched takeover of the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). GAO-24-106319. Everything in it is a page right out of the transition to FIS. Except then, we had iron clad procedures in place & they were all working before the transfer. Now, everything is on the fly, process hadn't been updated for years, and 9 month transition is a MASS-IVe failure in the making.

**'But AFS (Accenture) Federal Services completely botched the migration of TSP’s services due to an array of technological and staffing shortfalls that have virtually brought the services offered by TSP to participants to a screeching halt.

  1. Despite AFS’ promise to “improve the customer experience,” AFS Managing
    Director Owen Davies admitted that AFS “made that process really cumbersome, it was very hard for a vast number of users,” and that “[w]e made it overly complex.”**

Sec

What a waste. Millions and millions of dollars. Same issues, thousands of incidents. Thanks tech leaders. Your message of automation for the issues vs root cause is ridiculous.
Also - what again is sre embedded doing vs asking for status of incidents?
From what I hear their leaders have told them to wait as they have no idea what to do either.
This reorganization is yet to make sense. Fast but no clear direction for teams.
Also, AB seems like a real di-k.


“VP roles were given out like candy”

Have read this a lot..

The problem with this logic is that it is exactly the strategy used to hire them in the first place (internally from other BUs using Spotify model) what your missing is that this is was designed to fail and there was extreme internal resistance that became louder in late 2019… convenient right?

Have you ever heard anyone at the firm say “fidelity doesn’t like two VPs in one room” before they humbly announce a lateral move to a different adjacent org? Take a look at some of your peers at any pay grade that started to make lateral moves during the fall of ‘25 water cooler talk.

I see your posts, i hear your sentiment. but what you are enraged about isn’t the firms gross incompetence. It’s actually quite worse, because it was strategic and now associates are left pointing the finger at the right people but for the wrong reason.

The existing tenured VPs on teams actively pushed back for years against the re-org and likely didn’t tell you about it. It was near impossible to fight — as PI was proving the model worked in their BU. The main argument of why the success wouldn’t transfer for AM tech is based on the end users and stakeholders. 100% internal technology with a specific set of elitist stock pickers, research analysts and traders as internal customers.

And then expecting those exact investment professionals to engage in this new silly structure was down right embarrassing. Asking someone who has worked as a product manger (industry title) to become a squad lead (not even a title used by Spotify itself anymore) was evidence in itself for some people aware enough that they jumped ship or took a lateral move.

Covid became the catalyst for this shift to formally take place, yes. But dont let your ignorance (and outright bigotry) distract you from the real enemy here. False sense of transparency from upper executives. Tenured VPs shielding delivery teams from all this happening only made them less prepared for the blow.

Fidelity wants to remain known for not following suit in layoff trends throughout changing economies. This is a decade long plan to control costs in a different way that other competing public firms cant take the same approach. If you want someone to blame, this is a “privately owned” cop out.

Thats it. The VPs you keep bringing up that you all seem to want to interrogate hypothetically. They were brought in so that there wouldn’t be outraged when they were phased out. Every single AM tech leader knew this. Patterns were recognized. New roles were presented to people with confusing titles and responsibilities. Delivery teams divided.

Asking chat gpt to come up with reverse interview questions about new VPs merit is sophmoric. This was why they were placed originally — upper execs paid for the Spotify consult and needed to see it through, and covid allowed them to execute this. knowing it would fail and THAT was a valuable point enough to justify future layoffs.

There are MANY cases of well accomplished VPs choosing a demotion, strategically. To stay at the firm, embrace the change for a temporary 5-7 years until the next wave of “leaders” try to make an impact. When Kathy and bill were here, this was well understood but not widely discussed because there was an actionable conversation happening about what long term associates LIKED about why they stayed for so long. There was a long run of success with their combined approach, and unfortunately gave a lot of younger employees a sense of stability that would soon change.

All of the outrage of covid hires and thinking you can reverse engineer something that was intentionally designed to fail in the first place is a waste of your time. Stop being tricked into thinking they actually believed this re-org would work. Or that it was a disguised effort to implement DEI.

Your leaders didn’t tell you the truth, stop whining about DEI when it was intentionally used to distract you and blame your peers, and not the execs.


USA Stock Market Growth /Quality

The Stock Market exploding. high quality/Growth/ visionary CEOs driving success.

Verizon BOD hires more Europeans to run a USA centric business. At some point failed leadership, expense reduction strategies will require change.

One thing for certain... current Vz Executives all waiting to get a buyout offer under guise of " seeking new opportunities " mantra.


ExxonMobil Is Rewiring Its Enterprise For The Energy Future

ByJudith Magyar,Brand Contributor.

“Digital transformation often gets mistaken for an IT upgrade,” said Kurt Aerts, business venture executive at ExxonMobil. He was speaking at the ASUG Best Practices event for Oil, Gas and Energy in Houston, Texas. “Our ongoing transformation is a powerful reminder that true change means transforming the business at scale. It’s not about implementing new systems — it’s about fundamentally changing how an enterprise operates and creates value.”

Not just another systems project
This philosophy underpins the company’s multi-year transformation that integrates people, processes, systems, and data across an organization with $350 billion in annual revenue, about 60,000 employees, and operations spanning upstream, chemicals, fuels, lubricants, and low-carbon solutions.

One of the key steps in ExxonMobil’s journey, which began in 2017, was to reframe the mindset. “We don’t want to optimize, we want to transform,” said Aerts.

Process transformation requires challenging deeply ingrained ways of working and prioritizing adoption of industry standards for each process area and service offering such as Record-to-Report, Source-to-Pay or Order-to-Cash, to drive globally consistent execution. This takes a governance model designed for clarity and speed of decision making — two prerequisites for meaningful transformation and to prevent the common trap of consensus-driven optimization.

Transforming the core
Aerts went on to describe ExxonMobil’s three core pillars of transformation:

Processes are now harmonized to industry standards enterprise-wide versus being executed differently by business or geography.

Systems are modernized from 12 heavily customized ERPs to a unified, cloud-based platform on SAP S/4HANA.

Data is being turned from fragmented, trapped information into harmonized consistently defined enterprise assets.

In the past, answering a simple question such as ‘how much do we sell to Walmart’ required hours of aggregating and reconciling across 12 ERPs. Real-time, enterprise-wide visibility will speed up the process considerably. “Harmonized data is becoming ExxonMobil’s new gold standard — the foundation for predictive analytics, AI, and faster decision-making,” Aerts explained.

Managing scale and risk
Large-scale transformation requires effective risk management. ExxonMobil’s approach balances value capture and risk mitigation.

Deployments are phased by the existing ERP ecosystem, not geography or function, to manage complexity and provide business continuity. A layered governance structure — from a sponsor committee of senior executives to operational design boards — supports accountability, transparency, and alignment at every level.

Aerts shared some lessons from the frontline, stressing the importance of foundational principles. When challenges arise, these principles help keep decisions aligned with strategic intent. Next, he reiterated that data matters most, because clean, consistent data is the real enabler of transformation. And finally, the team learned early on that an out-of-the-box approach really works. Industry-standard configurations deliver agility and prevent the drift toward customization that burdens future upgrades.

“We were able to achieve significant simplification,” he said. “For instance, we reduced about 1,400 company codes to under 1,000, and profit centers from more than 15,000 to fewer than 500. This has eliminated significant complexity while increasing transparency across financial reporting.”

ExxonMobil’s key metrics reflect the disciplined execution of the transformation, and is exceeding its targets on its two principal objectives:

80% target on Fit to Standard: a testament to the commitment to adopt industry standard processes.

90% target on Clean Core: enabling instant upgradeability and system resilience.

Ultimately, ExxonMobil’s enterprise transformation is about creating competitive advantage. By harmonizing data, simplifying systems, and standardizing processes across business lines and geographies, the company is positioning itself for faster innovation and improved experiences for employees, suppliers and customers.

Shaping the future
Transformation is also about visionary leadership in an industry that is adapting to societal needs on how energy is produced, distributed, and consumed. ExxonMobil has a long history of collaboration with SAP to address functionality gaps and ensure the solution is optimized for the oil and gas industry. In essence, ExxonMobil’s journey offers a blueprint for global organizations facing the same challenges, especially lack of agility caused by legacy systems, fragmented data, and decentralized processes.

Aerts concluded: “A successful transformation isn’t about replacing tools; it’s about redesigning processes, data and systems to deliver industry leading performance in efficiency, effectiveness and the experience of our employees and customers, while ensuring agility for adjustments required due to changes in the market.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sap/2025/11/04/exxonmobil-is-rewiring-its-enterprise-for-the-energy-future/


How often does this happen?

I was selected for a in house project to replace a old computer system. Being old we had low on parts, also the reliability was very low. If I’m going to do this right why not find out where the bottlenecks are and get a wish list and try to do my best.

When the system was ready for testing I set it up next to the system that was on line and testing can be done. Some people were excited and others started claiming I was planning on taking peoples jobs.
Needless to say the rumors got started. The system did go on line and worked well.


How do you see your career in five years? My Five‑Year Plan? Watching Everyone Else Leave First.

Corporate environments today are not the stable, lifelong paths they once claimed to be. So often we see people changing assignments, leaving the company, being put on PIPs, or facing layoffs. Stop repeating corporate talking points “At ExxonMobil, we hire for careers. ”Instead let employees build adaptable skills and navigate change effectively. This brain washing needs to stop


City seeks civil service rule changes for layoffs

Methuen police leadership seeks a civil service law exemption. This change would base demotions on time in rank. Current civil service rules consider total employment time. The City Council gave initial approval to this proposal. State legislature adoption is still required for the change.

Methuen, Massachusetts

https://www.eagletribune.com/news/merrimack_valley/city-seeks-modification-to-civil-service-rules-in-the-event-of-layoffs/article_d3b0ce4f-8d7e-4094-87bc-c6abaef5b5b0.html