#leadership

Dead yet? Wondering how long the leadership can rest and vest doing nothing but errands for Uncle Hock. Lord knows nothing engineering related could have happened after I left the funhouse of mirrors that is bcom.

Check-out #2 on the list. . .

https://time.com/7333715/best-companies-future-leaders-2026/

Joe IBM and his gang have pushed the outsiders fully out the way of the leaders team so he can continue his takeover of marketing. Sandy Oh-No is either helping plot his succession to CMO or is too busy with her AI characters to even notice the empire building going on. Sad to see things falling a part due to incompetence and egos winning over good leadership but has happened to many teams and this week to ours. Why do they keep moving functions under someone who not done anything and still thinks he works at big blue?.

Anyone in attendance who can share the highlights?

Where is our CHRO when we need her tone deaf and inauthentic posts the most? Culture OS was bragged about and now she’s MIA during the most consequential time in decades? Maybe she’s mad she didn’t get a $4M retention bonus on the backs of thousands of lives ruined like her best buddies. Tough to say, but I am confident AI will guide her in whatever post she does to address us all eventually. And the spineless leadership will all like and repost it.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/ford-workers-told-their-ceo-none-of-the-young-people-want-to-work-here-so-jim-farley-took-a-page-out-of-the-founder-s-playbook/ar-AA1Rm4Kk?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhoverent&cvid=33ecd332359944accd2916f4674dbd4a&ei=13

POV - Say you don’t care about people and have no idea what’s going on without saying it ……..

“I’d like to say thank you to MM for having ran the Atlantic South Market”

• Sampath

Hahahahahahahahaahahahhaah

Each day gets a little worse with BE in charge. There is no communication no big vision. It feels like the last days of a company going out of business where even the shelves are being put up for sale. People are visibly miserable. Like openly talking about how much they hate it here miserable. No one cares anymore. Most are stuck because the job market is cr-ppy. If it turns around this place will lose thousands overnight.

So sick of this guy's poor English and reading from the screen. Like who's letting him speak? Does he actually contribute to problem-solving and decision making or is he just a puppet with terrible english?
This is the guy in charge of US FED/SLED from local law enforcement to our military war fighters.

ML made an external and internal song and dance about stopping doing short term activity at the expense of our long term longevity

From my experience absolutely nothing has changed though

The business has been so starved of investment over a long period of time that the only way for leadership to make a quarterly number and not get fired is by doing these short term activities which just compound the problems but let's them survive another quarter

That obviously flows down

So far apart from sapience and 10 days remote flexibility -- which in this day and age is still well below minimum expectations anywhere else - everything ML said was just empty words with no follow through. Emailing everyone telling them to work harder even though the issue is clearly under resourcing and under investment made that very clear

I think of that Harvard Business Review article from like a dozen years back - "Stop Trying to Delight Customers." It was seminal and is still memorable all these years later. The crux of the article is that "delight" is temporary, unsustainable, doesn't guarantee loyalty, and is less effective than focusing on reducing overall customer effort. Delighting customers with surprise and exceeding expectations is often fleeting, as novelty wears off, but a consistently positive but effort-free experience is what truly builds loyalty. Instead of trying to delight, we should focus on making interactions smooth and problem resolution effortless.

So hearing Kyle talk today about "delight" and every time Dan mentions it, seems to me like a throwback to the early oughts.

Can they just admit they made a mistake and bring back Sudhir?

JS has been dismissed and alot of new faces from brightspeed and verizon have joined.

Or how to run it. Things have improved a little bit since the 2018 to 2022 fiasco, but it's still more than clear how far out of their depth the leadership is.

We didn’t learn anything about changes made and was he drunk, hasn’t slept in days, or showing signs of a stroke?

Something seemed off

it seems the actual CEO is absent from the EC committee, and she seems to only be present as a cheerleader, and absent from any meaningful actual leadership. Does the board make all the seemingly confusing decisions? is it made in a vacuum by Mason or Gibson? I'm genuinely confused as a a newer employee here...

GCAS moving to a functional accountability model, head of CIM APAC is gone and will be overseen by a US head. Honestly this is a good change because CIM APAC has been a disaster for years with no accountability or desire to follow required internal or regulatory processes.

As our company fights for direction under this clueless CEO with the motto of “ Do less with less” and the leadership that has no concern for morale or wellbeing of employees it is alarming of the feedback among the people actually doing the work how unsecured everyone feels!!!! It’s no secret that our GOA wells are declining and we have no major plans in sight to keep the pipelines filled. Something big is brewing and we are left in the dark, word on the street is a major change in 2026 is coming.

While the leadership took this one big unpopular decision , i really hope they flatten the org structure as well

I doubt if most people leaders do enough work compared to an individual contributor.

Mostly they just create unnecessary recurring meetings, present useless slides and cascade down a word vomit of useless jargon

We need more doers in the company and less talkers

It feels as though the Splunk BU has drifted off-course, guided by a weak leadership style that inspires more confusion than confidence. In all-hands meetings, what should be moments of clarity and direction often dissolve into polished evasions—answers that circle the runway but never land.

The repeated waves of layoffs have drained the teams of their momentum, leaving many people quietly eyeing the exits. No one seems to understand how decisions were made, and the cloak-and-dagger secrecy around criteria and RIF counts only deepens the anxiety.

Managers now echo the same rehearsed line “I wasn’t involved; the list was made from above without my input" as if it's become part of the official script. The result? A business unit that feels like it’s running on fumes, with trust evaporating faster than morale can be rebuilt.

How many of you agree that one of the first signs a company's leadership is beginning to fail, from top to bottom, is when feedback is disguised as praise (so you have a chance to keep your job and not be targeted in retailation) and true collaboration is nothing more than an echo- chamber to stoke egos?

Is this the new norm for most American companies? It sure seems so.

Most of the leadership was there, but he was conveniently absent

Be real. Wells Fargo made money in up years and bad years. It was due to the various lines of business they had. It was a highly conservative and well balanced business plan. Norwest Bank, and then Wells Fargo, was a premier place to work and to put your trust. Until the new management and "new profit" centers were brought in. At that point, the bank, which had been steadily profitable, and a great place to work, began to break down. New managers, who's only thought was the latest FAD, were put in place. Accelerate that to today's situation, and you can see that Wells Fargo has become just another Citi, just another big corporation that is only organized to make money for shareholders. Many long time employees have left. Many have been terminated. Many have been laid off.
You can see where this is going. Fast forward to some unknown economic issue, and the bank is caught flat-footed. Losses. Huge losses. Due to new direction and lack of diversification. All straight line responsibility to the "new management" that have arrived, similar to locusts. Yes, locusts. You see, they bring their fellows. you know, the "yes men" who give good subservience but don't call out the risks. And then, everyone is surprised when the dominoes fall.
What a joke.

https://fortune.com/2025/11/30/cisco-chief-product-officer-jeetu-patel-work-life-balance-not-equal-two-exceptions-for-success/

Maybe someone should inform him that you get a "E" for Effort and an "A" for Achievement. No one cares how long you work! At his level, results matter, not time on the clock.

Of how well BFCM went / how JC & MD manned the phones to help out. YOY increases and the usual BS that it was the best year ever ?

So, on Monday we have a Consumer Group all-hands with Sampath. Immediately followed by one with DK for Value. I normally hate all-hands calls, but this should be interesting. Any bets on topics?

a year that's going to the executive board and put it back into the network and customer service.

Farmer destroyed Comerica, and is riding his golden parachute of $140 million out of the burning carcass. The class action brought by HoldCo that highlights Farmer’s misbehavior and frauds is mind-boggling. We need to take action and join that class action. Farmer sla-ghtered our jobs (once Fifth Third takes over, at least 45% of us will lose our jobs).

Wow! I read through customer comments on Reddit. Dan claims he’s going to focus on customer experience and customer value. Given that Hans has blasted thousands of holes into the side of the SS Verizon and we are taking on water by the ton, how long will it take to repair the damage he caused? Simply making better offers for customers is not going to cut it. Customer Service (outsourced) needs to migrate back to the US and the network needs massive attention based on the comments of people complaining about how it used to be good and now it’s awful.

I’m not buying into Dan’s comments as they are the same words Hans used, so either it’s another distraction or an actual plan. If it’s real, there is no way to quickly fix the issue so customers are going to continue to flee quarter after quarter.

How long would it take to fix Han’s legacy?

It’s common knowledge amongst the Leadership that Federal approval for the Frontier deal had a condition attached for Verizon to get staff back into the office…Hammocks video was a smokescreen. It has nothing to do with collaboration and everything to do with keeping the US Government on side

AI is a tool, and a pretty limited one at that. It can’t replace humans, and it still needs constant oversight. Probabilistic models can’t deliver consistently reliable results. What’s driving the cuts is the usual mix - greed, poor leadership decisions, offshoring, and a rough economy. And if anyone at the top truly thinks AI can replace the work we do, it’s going to turn into yet another very expensive misjudgment.

Most of these layoffs made zero sense. Some teams were cut down to the point where they can barely function, and what’s worse is that a lot of the experienced, genuinely skilled people were the ones let go. Now whole groups are missing critical roles, people who actually knew how to tie things together and solve problems because they’d built that capacity over time. It’s not just about losing headcount, it’s the quality we lost that hurts the most.

They’re gonna be about half of what they usually are. Blame Ron.

Many are doing factory or punch clock, 8 hours and done. Innovation, extra items, change or update nope 8hrs , no 10plus hrs, no nights, no weekends why because those that had to did it and never complained. I see many in the office that I agree need to be there, but I also see what are they doing (nothing) since not in meetings throughout the day, one group is the so called (ACC monster) The mess up is they bundled the do’ers the ones that they know have gone above repeatedly to keep things going and in react mode when needed at anytime and never complained with the groups that can work 8hrs be done until the next day, those never are accountable. YES SIR that is where leadership sc--wed up, since without those that do the actual support and now 8hrs will unfortunately reflect in these RTO metrics missing just like the missing Employee survey that went missing a few years ago. Something leadership to date has never recovered as in TRUST ( PLE Class) with their managers. I think many that read this agree!

Manager I/II/Sr are all just puppets. Scared little puppets with no real power other than forcing direct reports to work twice as more hours, take on more projects and assignments. All for a badge on the loop and thank you email and a well deserved layoff in couple of months.

It’s these people who are ornamental that should be let go. There are more manager layers for a 4 member team than necessary.

TU had a great run during pe-k and kapoor era. Ran out of hope for any course correction.

Squeeze every cent out of TU- VA and team!!

Many have commented about Maurice failing as a leader. Like a coach who losses games YOU get fired NOT the team! He needs to watch Xmas vacation on how he affects many who trully care about their work and don't have the luxury of $40,000,000 + per year paid to fail!
Maurice do what Japenese leaders do and cut your salary and costs or resign before Many suffer from your failures that are innocent!!!

SJ is the biggest liabilty for Pearson. Future of Pearson revolves around her being replaced by a leader who respects and values staff.

Cisco should have dominated Collaboration. Back in 2004 they bought Dynamicsoft, which had the best VoIP engineers in the world, bar none. So where did all of that go? Only very poor leadership could waste an advantage like that.

Cisco could have doubled its stock price during the pandemic, but it gave the market away to Zoom after years of constant layoffs. The ELT seems unable to do much else. Even when a team is performing well, they still reorganize it to the point of damage, as if success itself is something they do not trust.

225K for Darren. He’s got about 2 million shares now

KAM is just disgusting to me. After 3 years already accumulated 645K RSUs.

JPW and NAC both received 118K shares this year and each have about 1 million shares.

It’s disgusting what goes to the top