#leadership

Farce, folly, or felony ?

Quick translation: No you won't get more people; yes you will get blamed for ELT decisions; we don't care about your burnout.

Thoughts on Amplify this week?

Here's what came to mind... after a painful week, I had to fly in and can't get home fast enough.

It's a cult around this place
Winning, winning, loosing?
Leadership has their heads in the sand
Nothing to address stress of layoffs
Nothing to address loss of market share
Nothing to address sinking services business

Seems to me that with so much a$$ kissing that I witnessed first hand, this week alone reinforced that I have ZERO confidence in this company.

What are your thoughts for those that were there? Is it just me and I can't just jump into the cult?

Cisco enterprise networking SVP jumps ship to Nokia.

https://www.sdxcentral.com/news/cisco-enterprise-networking-svp-jumps-ship-to-nokia/

In townhalls, people keep complaining about GPDS. Leadreship talks about GPDS replacement. But GPDS keep getting fatter and keeps adding more non-value work on engineers.

I would expect major layoffs before the new dude starts in April

He won't want to be the bad cop straight away so it will be done before then

That era has passed. Only leaders with exceptional skills and a high degree of adaptability can save companies and make them prosper now. I'm afraid we don't have that kind of leadership at our disposal.

1st post - I’ve checked in here for a while on and off occasionally and my sentiment is largely the same. Full disclosure - I left a while ago.

What if this forum could coordinate our frustrations and impact (even small positive) change? Yeah, I know - doubters, I hear you already and don’t disagree. If the board has not fired him already, chances are slim if not zero.

You know, there are several thousand views to each post on this forum. This means people take time to read what is here and, I want to believe that frustrated or not, it’s because people care. I am sure some are bots and some are random, but I do believe most are not. (Maybe that’s too optimistic?)

RTO silliness - really sad - just the latest example of clueless leadership - I’m sorry (sincerely).

But, what if?

Give your feedback and hit the arrows to the post up or down (like or not). If there are more downs then ups, this is my only post. Maybe this is just a healthy outlet for frustration - if so, OK! (I know it’s needed)

But if this larger group wants to rally, and feels the promise of Truist pre-merger and the actual failure of achievement of potential due to poor leadership cannot be fulfilled, maybe there are a few constructive (non-violent of course) actions that can be pursued. Whether you were hBBT or hST or even new since then, How do you feel? Don’t worry about comments, just hit the arrow up or down. Let’s see how this forum feels about this post.

If you have work friends that you can trust, invite them to check in here from time to time. Whether a real movement and strategies emerge or not who knows but growing the audience matters.

As Teammates, former or current, known or not……..in Both the Frustration and the Truth, I am yours truly, ___(me)

hero ! Yessssssssssssssss !

Ya'll ready to pull yourselves up by your bootstraps?

I reviewed some quarterly meetings with the ELT and one important question was asked to the CEO.

You have mentioned we have the people to win and emphasize we are a people-first culture.
So, why is cutting people first a yearly action plan for long-term growth and profitability?
After five years of people first cuts, might it be time to rethink this strategy. How about people-second?

Does anyone know if this person was made an example of?

Our company isn't doing great and we were hoping the next CEO would actually be able to help us.
Care to way in on what kind of boss Ayman will be?

Oxy involved in a major divestment or is purchased as a reserves play?
Leadership direction and composition?
Stock price and fundamentals?
Overal morale and employee engagement?

Best guy for CEO!
I bet on Mark!

https://www.usbank.com/about-us-bank/news-and-stories/article-library/us-bancorp-announces-leadership-changes-in-its-operations-function.html

Chief Outsourcing Officer is retiring.

AI??? More like incompetence. They couldn't get their AI platform off the ground as of the end of last year. They eliminated contractors who were working on datacenters related to automation and AI. All I saw was non-stop push back against progress while I was there from middle managers who do nothing but fudge reports. It's just more smoke and mirrors to hide the fact that the executives are out of touch. No one is driving the ship.

slashing costs like crazy (20% of USELESS CORPORATE BR workforce), going lean and "scrappier," obsessing over customer-first moves, and finally turning heavy 5G investments into real subscriber wins against T-Mobile and AT&T.

Critics whining about outages, support drops, and slow growth? Watch the earnings numbers crush those narratives. Subscriber net adds rebound, margins expand, AI plays kick in. Schulman's proven he turns giants around.
Haters gonna hate, but earnings will shut them up. $VZ to the moon under Schooooolman. 🚀

I get the guy is a bank-hopping (literally his sales pitch in his first meeting) likely H1-b, but his use of the English language is rather terrible. He routinely spouts non-sequiturs that diminish what he is saying, but in today's autocorrect-tuned world, nobody catches it. This guy is being paid a bunch of money to axe a bunch of US jobs, and the guy can barely utter competent sentences in the target audience's language.

The guy he replaced was significantly more capable as both an idea man, and a communicator. This ship is sinking fast.

In all my years here, the leadership has never been worse. They consistently make poor decisions that demoralize everyone. How do they keep their jobs while the company suffers?

Please remember this if you’re second-guessing yourself. You were not fired. You were removed because of lousy leadership that can only make itself look good by getting rid of as many people as possible to make the numbers look better. That’s all this is about.

Stinkey thinks hes cute and funny, or when he tries to be. Our stocks have plateaud, people are leaving, ones staying will retire in 2 to 3 yrs or so, cant hire youngsters because nobody wanna work here.... on top of forced 5 days without a SEAT. Leadership is solving the wrong problem. To all of yall who played his townhall yesterday, and mute the sound, Kudos to ya!

Pretty clear Bill only cares about share price.

He gets a question about ICE and he just waffles and rambles about how we need to be calm.

He gets a question about culture and he barfs out a word salad about safety.

Kate & crew attached themselves so easily to Naas . . I wonder what they pivot to next since DW (Dave Ward) bolted on 1/23/26 ?

Let's see how this plays out.

Asplund Leadership Consulting!

Year 1
Comms overload
Ameanable
Pay rise

Year2
Comms wind down
Grumpy
No pay rise

Year3
Limited Comms
Angry
No payrise

Year4 (if they make it)
Whats comms?
Who knows how they feel
No payrise

Credible estimates are that 10-15% of employees (7,000-10,000 people) will be laid off over the next several months, with the process beginning today (1/29). Cigna is in the mess we’re in because we:

1) have no actual long-term strategy,
2) have significantly under-invested in our systems and products for years, focusing only on short term earnings, and
3) have let our operating expenses get too high, primarily due to the systems inefficiencies caused by #2.

The CEO, President, and CFO are directly accountable for all three factors. Yet it is all of us who are paying the price for poor, out-of-touch leadership, incompetence and personal greed (prioritizing short-term stock price performance over long-term company viability to maximize their own incentive compensation).

The main reason cited for all the layoffs is that our expenses are out of control. Hmm… who was the CFO the majority of the last 5 years while that was happening? Oh right, it was Brian Evanko. So he let it get out of control - and then got promoted to president?? It was maddening to hear him tell us in the December town hall that our expenses were out of control, as if he had no idea how it happened and it was a surprise to him. The lack of self-awareness and accountability was stunning.

In 2024 David Cordani made more than $23 million and Brian Evanko made over $10 million. Since the odds are very low that they’ll get fired by the Board of Directors for chronic mis-management, does anyone want to bet that at least their 2025 bonuses and incentive awards will get cut as part of the overall cost cutting and poor company performance?
Hmmm, no? Me either. I expect they’ll just reward themselves with more massive bonuses and stock awards rather than being held accountable for the situation they put the company in.

Good luck to both those who will lose their jobs and those who will be left behind to try to salvage this mess with far fewer resources and devastatingly low morale. We’ll each know which group we’re in soon.

When the fake review scandal $hit hits the fan.

Does anyone believe this business can recover, or has years of ineffective leadership taken it down too far. Rumors are that this business is next on the spin-off list after MMS.

When they tell you 3% is all they had in the budget for you this year.

Not sure how true this is but my director said they heard rumors - just rumors - that a 10k WFR is planned for the next 3 months. At least half of which will be in February and March. I do know they are part of a leadership TEAMS chat because they told me so. I asked which orgs were being hit, or likely to be hit and was told that from what they have seen in the chat, ISG, CSG, Sales/ISR's are being targeted, along with higher level Maverick folks.

idk how true this is but this is just what I was told this morning.

Phillips 66 owns a refining system that should be capable of delivering durable, peer-leading returns. The assets are advantaged, the footprint is diverse, and the workforce is experienced. Yet over the past several years, refining has remained a primary source of earnings volatility and inconsistent performance, rather than a stabilizing value engine.

That outcome ultimately sits with leadership.

Under Rich Harbison, Phillips 66 refining has not consistently translated operational capability into shareholder value. While individual sites often perform well, the system as a whole has struggled to demonstrate sustained margin capture or downside protection relative to best-in-class peers such as Valero.

This is not simply an operational issue—it is a commercial and leadership failure.

Phillips 66 frequently points to favorable market cracks and commercial optionality as evidence that refining should perform well. But market cracks do not create value on their own. Value is created when trading, optimization, and asset operations work together to capture those signals consistently and manage volatility when conditions turn.

That responsibility extends beyond refining leadership to the commercial organization.

Under Brian Mandell and Mark Hughes, Phillips 66 has expanded its commercial and trading footprint and repeatedly described it as a differentiator. The implication is clear: stronger trading capability should enhance margin capture and smooth earnings.

The results do not support that claim.

Despite periods of attractive market cracks, Phillips 66 has failed to consistently convert market structure into superior refining returns. Upside capture has been uneven. Downside exposure has been abrupt. Trading appears unable to reliably translate market opportunity into durable value at the enterprise level.

When trading cannot deliver the value implied by the market environment, it ceases to be a hedge or differentiator and becomes just another source of noise layered onto an already volatile business.

This raises uncomfortable questions about focus and accountability.

Valero’s advantage is not just asset quality—it is clarity. Its leadership team is singularly focused on refining and commercial execution. There are no competing internal priorities, no portfolio narratives to balance, and no ambiguity about what success looks like. That focus shows up in more consistent margin capture and more reliable shareholder outcomes.

Phillips 66, by contrast, splits leadership attention across refining, marketing, a growing trading organization, midstream, and chemicals. In that environment, refining leadership must be forceful and commercial leadership must be exceptional. Instead, the system appears fragmented, with no one clearly accountable for turning market opportunity into sustained returns.

This is not a workforce problem. Refineries run. Traders trade. Commercial teams work hard. The issue is coordination, discipline, and leadership effectiveness at the top.

When refining volatility continues to dominate results, when market cracks fail to translate into value, and when trading is invoked more often as an explanation than as a solution, accountability becomes unavoidable.

Phillips 66 has the assets.
It has the markets.
What it lacks is leadership leverage.

Until refining and commercial leadership are held accountable for profitability, volatility management, and peer-relative capture—not just activity and presence—refining will remain a source of frustration rather than a foundation for shareholder value.

The assets deserve better integration.
Shareholders deserve better outcomes.

speaking only from my own expereince, i find myself conflicted about how easy it feels to change roles at amazon once you are inside the inner circle.
on one hand, that fluidity creates opprotunity and can feel empowering, but it also leaves me wondering whether rigor and claritiy are getting lost at senior levels...
i rarely see an l8 write a single one pager that clearly articulats direction or strategy, and instead watch strategy turn into a collage of documents owned by l6s and l7s defending their own space.

i may be missing context or blind to constraints, but it makes me question what strong leadreship really looks like here and whether i fully understand the system i am part of...

Mary is making things happen over at GM, actually announcing subscription REVENUE numbers. $2 BILLION current, $$5 BILLION future commitments.

From Business Insider:

Mary Barra, GM's CEO, boasted major gains in the company’s subscription base.

General Motors said its in-vehicle tech services generated nearly $2 billion last year.
GM sells three main subscription products: safety features, in-car internet access, and hands-free driver assistance.

GM told Business Insider it plans to add features through updates over time, reducing the need for new car parts.

General Motors has been pulling a Tim Cook and boosting its software and subscription business.

During the automaker's Tuesday earnings call, CEO Mary Barra highlighted the rapid growth of GM's in-vehicle software and subscription business.

In the past nine months, GM's software generated $2 billion, and customers have already signed up for about $5 billion in future subscriptions.

The company said it now has 11 million subscribers for its OnStar safety system, up 34% from a year earlier. Another half a million customers are also paying for Super Cruise, its hands-free driver-assistance system.

Now, that's still just a fraction of its total revenue, which was $45.29 billion in the last quarter alone. But the margins on those services are also higher than on cars sales.

GM says its software business keeps roughly 70 cents of every dollar it brings in. That's a rare level of profitability in the auto industry, as many car sales generate just four to 10 cents per sales dollar.

"We are also executing plans to grow software and services like OnStar and Super Cruise to generate even greater revenue during and after each vehicle sale," Barra said on the call. "We think there's a growth opportunity there with very attractive margins."

"Software and services are becoming increasingly important to how customers experience GM vehicles and how we deliver value beyond the initial purchase," a spokesperson told Business Insider.

The company also said it will keep adding features and services to vehicles over time, rather than relying on hardware upgrades.

"As vehicles become more software-defined, we can introduce new digital experiences through updates and optional services rather than hardware changes," the spokesperson added.

The subscriptions push comes as automakers look for new ways to make money after cars leave the dealership lot — especially as Detroit automakers roll out new electric vehicles.

Any news on how the meetings are going?

https://www.campaignlive.com/article/verizon-fiercely-committed-diversity-inclusion-across-spectrums-says-ceo/1684973

They should make a Nobel prize for acting

That is not easy to do when most Financials are hitting all time high with the S&P, Congrats FIS Sr. Executives !!!!