Thread regarding Frontier Communications Corp. layoffs

Frontier CTO needs to go

Frontier's longtime CTO is a huge part of the problem faced by the company.

He's a micro manager who does not communicate, he does not build teams, he does not invest in talent. He empowers the wrong people and is solely interested in securing and defending his kingdom. Scores of critical decisions that need to be made quickly get stuck at his desk, or at the desks of his direct reports, who are not empowered to decide things themselves.

His decisions are shaky, his leadership is abysmal. He and a few of his handpicked bad lieutenants brought you the botched April 2016 cutover. It took an army of dedicated and bright team members to manually patch the myriad holes caused by terrible leadership and execution.

His scorched earth approach is legendary, HR won't touch him, they are terrified of him, even when an employee steps forward with solid evidence of some malfeasance. Say buh-bye to that whistleblower, as soon as a plausible opportunity presents itself.

The workplace culture that he's created has had a corrosive effect on morale. He's bullied and dominated his peers and his direct reports to the point that his org has a bizarrely wide scope of control that they should not. And his approach is responsible for a steady and voluntary brain drain where talented tech staff have left, or his weaker peers have jumped out or have been discarded.

None of this is a secret, anybody internal with eyes and ears open knows that much of the dysfunction comes from IT. It is time for a fresh start and time for a new perspective from an outside hire.

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| 3821 views | | 3 replies (last June 20, 2019) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+YE9MkOY

3 replies (most recent on top)

Of course, you're talking about Steve Gable, the CTO. As a former employee, I knew an engineer who worked near his office, and he said that Gable never, ever spoke to him. Like he was beneath his notice - this employee was just a peon engineer to Gable. McCarthy is the same way. He visited my building once after a new team took over from Verizon. He walked in with his entourage, shook the hand of a manger or two, then walked out. Everyone else on the floor had been told to make their work desks spic and span - the real white glove treatment. Make things look spotless for the CEO! Then McCarthy just basically pokes his head in and leaves. How much would it have meant to the day-in/day-out workers to have him just walk by and say hello? But that was too much to ask of him. CFO Perly McBride had the right idea - he bailed last year and went to Comcast. He saw the writing on the wall. Now if the board of directors will just fire McCarthy and Gable, the company might just survive before bankruptcy comes beating on their door.

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Post ID: @10qsc+YE9MkOY

Everything in the original post is 100% spot on; I couldn't have said it better.

Sadly it is too far beyond repair.

C'est la vie

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Post ID: @2jqf+YE9MkOY

I totally agree but I know for a fact they are not trying to save the company just preparing it for Bankruptcy like Sears Did.

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Post ID: @1fey+YE9MkOY

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