Leaders with no leadership skills. It's really not complicated. We have incompetent people leading the company and that has been true for years. Even when there is change, it's never for the better. I don't expect to see an end to layoffs any time soon. They'd have to think of a different strategy to boost numbers, and we all know they have no idea how to do that.
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We’re really serious in our ethics training, and we know how to stay legal,, but we have no ethics on how we treat our employees!!!
Serious on training is very different from serious on execution. Lying and stealing are core competencies in Cisco's culture.
Leaders also want to become ICs because they know in their position they are certain to get laid off. And then they avoid their leadership / manager level job - and only yells at the top of his voice on our open floor design when he cannot keep track of what he had asked you to do. **
My director keeps managing his properties from his work machine - while at work in full view of everyone else.
My other director - yes we have 3 ppl in mgmt roles managing like 8 people in all - is busy micro-managing and yelling at everyone and trying to show off their skills at the global team.
** Best part of this is this wannabe tech lead aka mgr and a mo--n starts complaining how loud others talk while his own voice will be reverberating around the halls.
Cisco‘s leadership problem is all around the culture of how we treat our people. It is essentially almost the same as a cast system where the ELT will not allow anybody in their circle. Th ELT floor is locked and when there is an in person, all hands/Beat check in, the ELT walk-in like they are royalty, then skirt out and avoid contact with people other than a few pictures with people to make them appear personable and to make them feel important.
The Cisco ELT just says what they say in the moment that’s going to work in their favor. We’re really serious in our ethics training, and we know how to stay legal,, but we have no ethics on how we treat our employees!!!
Well said, it is not only at the ELT but at all levels. Baboons get promoted by baboons.
It is all well networked like mafia. Cisco promoted all unskilled in 2020 and converted all blue badges since exodus of lot of good leaders.
Recently I see so many got promoted while layoff on peak. In my group all buttering managers became Directors and buttering Directors became VPs.
CX data lake engineering is one of the example due to her bad leadership the whole team zapped. Neither technical nor business knowledge of these leaders have become directors
Clueless Chuck is the biggest problem
I think the OP's point is a general consensus. However, an important factor that created by this problem was that many teams in CISCO contained high % in-competent individual contributors also. It is very common that many so called software engineers in CISCO not only have out-of-date skills but also have low ability to learn the new skills. If you ever worked in any CISCO software team, you should find people cannot/do not know how to write proper code, create proper design, and debug the problem they created!! So you can blame on the in-competent leaders but unless CISCO starts to serious about getting rid of those cancer cells TOGETHER, it will not move the needle.
After reading all these responses, it’s clear none of you understand the process of a company in transition. Cisco must transition as their lunch (networking) is being eaten. Cisco banked on Fcoe and fcip which neither played out as predicted.
Mo--nic imbeciles at the helm. No clue about technology. Primary concern of the ELT is sleeping outside like the homeless. When things go wrong, cut costs.
Toxic from top down. No recognition of hard work or merit . My so called leader dint invest time to train, mentor or help when required . Instead brought a team of goons with him to boss over other people and make life miserable . Instead of honing skills or learning things it always is about watching back .
Leadership at Cisco often means you post photos of yourself on LinkedIn to try to tell people how important you are. "Look at me with my team" is so common, then a year later many are LRed. It is sickening knowing how Cisco "leaders" actually treat people. It is all about profit these days and filling the pockets of those on the ELT. I don't know how some ELT and HR people can sleep at night knowing what really goes on in Cisco.
Cisco "Leaders", just stop stabbing people in the back that helped you !!!
Leaders with no leadership skills.
- Technical leadership has no technical skills.
- Managerial leadership has no management skills.
- Software monkeys have no software skills.
- Testing doesn't notice whole subsystems don't come up.
- IT can't even manage Cisco gear.
- Marketing can't figure out what the customer needs.
- Acquisitions are becoming too complex for Cisco to absorb.
And so on...
Promotion based on factors other than merit have led to the decline of the culture and the overall leadership quality within the company
For the bazillionth time, run Cisco's 1990s code through static analysis when everyone thought things were great and you'll find they knew nothing about software even back then.
Not only will DEI disappear entirely...
And all the problems that lead to 40 years of technical debt will remain completely unchanged. As an old, straight, shiny white guy I'd fire the whole company if I thought I could hire competent people to replace you.
When applied to hiring, DEI violates US federal Equal Opportunity laws. And once the new Admin takes over, the EEOC office will have an appetite to listen to Equal Opportunity complaints again.
Not only will DEI disappear entirely from the Executive branch, it will start to fade away from the private sector too. Cheers!
The downside...applying DEI to firing & LR's would also violate the law, so it must be performance based, which means at most two cycles of performance mgmt before they can be shown the door.
shh, Just don’t tell anyone in ELT you voted for Trump. That is a firing offense.
Conviction is subjective, dependent upon the source ideology. Ideologies come and go, just like civilizations and countries. It is time for a change in governing ideologies. It will shift back to other ideologies with time. Once enough of the people have had enough, things hopefully change; well at least the leaders hopefully change with time. That is hopefully the one thing overall still worthy of our system.
The best one can do now is to digest that, yes indeed, there are others that have opinions different than our own; and those others have had enough of high-and-mighty enlightened ones attempting to set the tone of what is right or wrong.
We all are different, there are no guarantees in this world, nature itself is an opportunist. Deal with it. Sorry.
"Leaders with no leadership skills"?
Like the convicted felon we elected to lead us?
Cisco's biggest problem is that is has too many problems
The election results show that most Americans are rejecting the DEI initiatives. Like many companies, I wonder if Cisco will wind down this effort now that it is falling out of favor.
Promotion based on factors other than merit have led to the decline of the culture and the overall leadership quality within the company
Stock price in a vacuum is irrelevant. Companies aren't measured just by their stock price but by how their stock price performs respective to the market and their competitors. It's like a race it doesn't matter how fast you run it matters how fast you run compared to the other people who are running. At least in the eyes of the investors
They are essentially skilled masters of their own individual destinies.
Create your own baloney personal brand, become connected and empowered within the stew, then develop a pathway to siphon as much money into your own pocket; based all on spouting your visions of innovation and growth.
In another life, they would have been politicians; many also not being re-elected. The general people have had enough of tales of magic.