#leadership

How much is the Jordan brand, and by extension its ego and entourage, costing Nike?

It is that time of year again when management suddenly becomes visible.

All year, there is little to no real contribution. No ownership. No meaningful involvement. As layoffs approach, the performance begins. More meetings. More noise. Sudden interest in high profile accounts. They attach themselves to work they did not do. They claim ownership of outcomes they did not drive. They speak about customers they do not understand.

This is not contribution. It is theater.

Everyone doing the real work can see it. The gap is obvious. The only reason it continues is because visibility is rewarded more than substance.

A textbook case of the Peter Principle. Competence is optional. Looking competent is enough to survive.

The truth is, Oracle was an ocean of innovation once, with mature software development that was run by adults. We believed in being a place for responsible and business oriented work/software, and to be a company that made other companies successful. Kinda like "All ships rise with the tide". A quiet confidence. The Oracle name had cachet. Sure, we lost people during mergers and aquisitions, but those were logical business decisions. Where did I fit? I came into Oracle's influence around 1997, and I was in and out of Oracle several times. The stories I could tell. However, the stories were within the norms of a company that was run by adults. Good and bad. I look around my life, and Orace paid for everything. My life is what it is now, because of Oracle. There was good. There was great. There is no way I can ever say that Oracle was a bad experience overall, but I can surely say there were some horrible times. Things started to go really bad, when Oracle got a case of insecurity and heavily recruited from AWS. Like the AWS folks had some secret sauce to take Oracle into the "new age". The AWS folks - or shall I say - refugees, hated AWS and jumped ship to be in Oracle. Sadly, those people who left AWS, for whatever reason, brought those same dysfunctions into Oracle. You could see it in how they interacted with "Oracle people". Yeah, the AWS transplants felt that the Oracle people were old, without innovation and at every chance, they replaced/cancelled where they could. Those AWS folks HATED Oracle! Crazy right? You left AWS because it was a terrible place to work, then you came and hated the people that hired you? We saw this happen over and over. If you want to see where this layoff cruelty came from, look no further than who came from AWS. Instead of being an ocean of innovation at Oracle, we have islands now...and they are shrinking. I am so sad to see these layoffs. Its horrible to see all the good people gone over the last year or so. These new people who are running things at Oracle, just don't get it. I think Oracle, at least the Oracle I remember (Good and bad) is dying a quick death. The current leadership is not reading the room on the AI narrative. They are doubling down on a plan that won't work because the room has changed. People - as in the general public - are getting tired of AI Resumes, AI videos, AI words, AI decisions created by a machine running on old data. These folks who are running things don't have the experience of knowing how trends go (Blockchain anyone?) So these layoffs. My guess is Oracle will implode soon on this direction. I just hope there are enough adults to want to get back in the game and fix things, and hire these folks back when it does implode.

Audacy has begun a new round of layoffs across its radio operations. The company is also implementing a new regional leadership structure. This new structure replaces traditional Market Managers with Regional Presidents and Vice Presidents. CEO Kelli Turner stated the changes aim to scale opportunities and drive revenue growth. Several employees across multiple cities have been affected by these organizational shifts.

https://barrettmedia.com/2026/04/01/audacy-begins-round-of-layoffs/

If someone has to leave, should have been Eleanour Drew. When was the laat time she produced anything of note that justifies her overall team size? Lofthouse was trying to get something going by cleaning house. Drew is simply promoting people with in seat promotions year in and year out.

Back to Reality.... Trump economy, War heading to " Over". Gas prices coming down. Stocks back in favor...Vz no execution.... honeymoon over, New External Execs sitting in group therapy saying how are we winning with DEI and no clue how to execute besides layoffs.

Listening to yesterdays call even if everything goes great over the next year where is the upside? Where's the growth coming from? Best case scenario sounds like incremental growth in na partners but dtc continues to "right size" and bleed out china will continue to take on water emea is lost. And news flash things are not going to go perfectly shipping will only get more complicated. it might take years for tariff relief to actually help the bottom line. our dear leader doesnt seem to think much of sportswear and especially not the swoosh. 20s incoming

I hear they let the CIO Kim M go . Had to be over this cluster of a deal with outsourcing IT. Wonder which dope from her staff they will put in place now.Hopefully they go to the outside and get someone to clean up her mess.

Dear Mr head of wealth, it’s now been 5 months. What in the actual f are you even doing? Why make an announcement with a timeframe of knowing more just to retract yourself like a turtle? It’s amazing the type of leadership we have here and it’s very apparent that these leaders literally don’t do anything.

Absolutely no governance, no scope control, constantly swapping quality of releases for quantity of how much they can squeeze in.

Senthil finally got a guy on his team who knew how to fix things. He documented all of the processes, identified break points and had built a coalition between product, engineering and test who agreed on the plan and were starting to fix things.

Gues what happened next (drum roll) Senthil decided to RIF the guy who was fixing the problems, the guy who could lower Salish’s blood pressure, the guy who could restore work life balance to engineers and testers.

No one is picking up the work. Hope is diminishing that T-Life will ever be a healthy team.

Don’t believe leadership when they say they care.

AI is good but our core tech and management are managed by those old school people, non competent guys. Why?

Jon McNeill, the former president of Tesla, has released a new book, "The Algorithm," which outlines a five-step framework for Elon Musk's high-growth business operations. Which is not applicable in OpenText.

Step 1 | Question Every Requirement
Answers like "department regulations" or "it's always been this way" are not acceptable. Even safety or regulatory requirements must be re - examined for their necessity.

In OT, permissions are limited and prevented us from doing things.

Implementation method:

• Ask: Is this requirement mandated by law, safety, or physical laws?
• Find the name of the person who initially proposed this requirement.
• Requirements with no clear source are assumed to be deletable.

—————

Great article in Politico today on Frank continuing his work style and Brooklyn bully boy tactics at the IRS.

Tech bosses say AI will make us work less. So far, that's mostly meant fewer of us will be working for them full-time in the long run. So be distrustful of anything you hear from leadership.

🚨 Introducing Our New Senior Leader Management Guide 🚨
“If you can’t lead… just list.”

Why waste years developing leadership skills when you can simply do the Optum method, rules for thee and not me.

Step 1: Lead with Lists
Not sure what your team does? Perfect. You’re exactly who this guide is for.
Just make a list. Lists = leadership. It’s basically the same thing.

Step 2: Stop Meeting Your Team
Historically, leaders wasted countless hours talking to employees, understanding workflows, and building trust.
Thankfully, we’ve evolved and are 100x
As a leader, you already know what’s happening. Why verify?  That sounds like work.

Step 3: Need More Collaboration? Easy.
Create a list of people who don’t come into the office, don’t worry you don’t need to fly into town to check we can use AI to send you.
Bo-m—collaboration problem solved.

Step 4: Eliminate “Old Leadership” Habits
In the past, being effective required showing up, engaging, and making hard decisions.
Now? Just update the list, you never need to come to town, or if you are low level leader you can just stay in your fish-tank office, no need to actually meet the team.

Step 5: AI Adoption Strategy
Becoming an AI-first company is simple:

• Say “we are an AI company” in every meeting
• Tell your team you don’t computer but they will make us an AI company and AI is the future
• Add anyone who doesn’t “AI” to a list
• Do not define “AI”

And don’t worry if you can send an email or use AI to write a sentence you are the leaders we are looking for!  —
true leadership is about vision, not ability or knowledge .

Step 6: Performance Management
Forget nuanced feedback.
Just categorize people into:

• On the List
• About to be on the List
• Doesn’t know they’re on the List yet

Step 7: Communication Excellence
Why overcomplicate messaging?
Every announcement can be summarized as:
“Per my last list…”

Step 8: Strategic Planning
Q1 Goal: Make a list
Q2 Goal: Refine the list
Q3 Goal: Make a new list
Q4 Goal: Wonder why nothing improved (add self to list, just kidding leader don’t go on these lists)

Remember: leadership isn’t about people, context, or outcomes.
It’s about maintaining a clean, well-organized list.

Leaders stay safe in your offices or if we care about you remote.

This guy can go back to wherever he came from. These new policies are id--tic.

Sorry, it never works.

Define the problem first. Not the "What number what you want" first.

Id--ts.

So much nonsense from our fearless leader. Economy- great! Employment-great! We are making sure that these plebs are sitting on sidelines and begging for giveaways. We are national bank, mentioning California big no-no. This is making normal person”s blood boiled. Such a disgrace.

(An exclusive look into the thinking of our leadership)

From 2017 to 2024, a directional comparison of VP promotion outcomes relative to the Director+ feeder available population suggests non-white males were roughly 4× more likely to reach VP than white males. Non-white females show a similar pattern at roughly 4×, while white females were approximately 2.4× more likely than white males.

This pattern reflects a higher share of VP level promotions relative to representation within the Director+ population, which serves as the primary pool of VP candidates.

These differences reflect variation between promotion outcomes and underlying representation within the leadership pipeline.

Estimates and analysis are derived from publicly available information.

I am unsure if the layoff decisions were the same unilaterally across all orgs, but I was told that people knew yesterday afternoon and leadership had a say in it. In at least my organization they picked some high earners and some people who due to re-orgs were sort of put into bad spots.

Got the morning email and still have no information on whats next and we only get benefits til end of next week. How nice.

Just received an email for a sales blitz for Alpharetta, Irving and Temple Terrace. I'm not sure about Alpharetta, but I know for a fact Temple Terrace is being decommissioned within the next two weeks. Items are already being auctioned on ASI 3 auction catalog lmao. This is how bad our leadership is. They sent an email for a sales blitz for a building that won't even have any furniture within the next few weeks lol

They've proven to be incompetent again and again. Plus, they'd save much more money with fewer people. Win/win.

Energized — or at least pretending to be — by the first global People Team town hall of 2026, the leadership proudly announced it was “hosted live from 240G.” What they didn’t mention was that 240G looked like the cafeteria equivalent of a pep rally held for a team with a losing record: rows of empty chairs, a few confused junior staffers clutching branded notebooks, and a camera crew desperately angling shots to make the room look less… vacant.

The official recap described it as “electric.”
The broken elevator nearby disagreed.

A handful of interns were strategically scattered across the room like decorative houseplants, nodding enthusiastically on cue. Their job was simple: create the illusion of engagement, clap when leadership paused and avoid asking any questions that might accidentally require honesty or Non-Disclosure Agreements.

Then came the fireside chat — minus the fire, the warmth, or the chat. Leadership spoke passionately about “leading with empathy,” which was bold considering empathy hasn’t been spotted anywhere near the Executive Committee or People Team since the last time someone accidentally turned on their camera during a reorg meeting.

And here’s the part that truly captured the spirit of the event:

Even the universally likable Jose Minaya, or the company’s designated empathizer James LeGrand, or Eliza — our glitchy, ever‑smiling Employee of the Year — couldn’t generate a single watt of real or AI‑curated warmth in that room.
Not even a flicker.
Not even a screensaver‑level glow.

Still, the script marched on.

“Trust and empathy aren’t soft skills,” the speaker declared to the echoing cafeteria.
Correct — they’re missing skills.

The narrative continued:
“We must 'lean in' as one team.”
A curious statement, given that half the team was offshored, a quarter was interviewing elsewhere, and the remaining quarter was refreshing this website forum like it was a stock ticker.

The part about “keeping the human experience at the center of everything we do” landed especially well with the three employees still awake. Nothing says “human experience” like a mandatory town hall about empathy delivered by leaders who haven’t made eye contact with an employee since the last compensation cycle.

But the finale was the real masterpiece:
“Grateful for the dialogue, the challenge, and the continued partnership as we build what’s next — together.”

'Together.'
A beautiful word.
Almost poetic.
Especially when spoken in a room where the chairs outnumbered the humans 12 to 1.

In the end, the event achieved something remarkable:
It was the symbolism:
A leadership team preaching trust and empathy to an empty room — the perfect metaphor for a culture where the words are loud, the actions are quiet, and the audience has already left — truly and metaphorically.

Kurt C. Small will be taking over as the new CEO. At least I don't see anything on Google about him being known as a "layoff guy" or anything, but who knows...

Can Dan or Sam offer a VSP already! Heard people were let go last Thursday. Nothing was communicated to our group. We were surprised to hear of anything. On top of that what happened to leadership communicating additional layoffs around the business?

And we’re going to a consolidated D&C org

Hey, here’s an idea! How about we stop giving the pinnacle award to the same people year after year?! This is a massive expense for the company just to send the same people on a weeklong vacation every year.. and it’s terrible for morale. Why are they not checking the reports for previous years to see who has already received this? At the very least they should have a five-year waiting period before they could be nominated again… but to send them just about every single year is very frustrating, incredibly unfair, and lazy on the part of senior leadership responsible for selecting the pinnacle winners.

—Ensure they are putting in 8 hour days, 40 hour work weeks
—Ensure they are doing more than just attending (unnecessary for them) all day back to back meetings and not any real work
—Ensure they are not favoring some of their employees while harming others. Giving growth projects to some while starving work for others that work for them (unfairly).
—Make sure they are not just protecting their own careers but not their staff
—Check and see if they were the cause of pushing out some excellent employees within the last couple of years that had excellent work ethic.
—Check to see if they stood up for employees being pushed out that asked (even begged) for their leader’s intercession and advocacy but those same leaders would not lift one finger or one word to help.
—If these Directors and Associate Directors are not properly doing their jobs , then cut them loose!

MB out as hse!

Why does leadership expect us to be in the office if there’s never enough seating?

Why do people reserve seats everyday and never show up?

Why are we even allowed to reserve seats in the first place for weeks out??

I heard through rumors one criteria to be laid off was if you was with company less than five years
Nester Castor: 10+ years

Eidos Montreal announced 124 employee layoffs. These cuts are due to changing project needs. Studio leader David Anfossi is also stepping down. He served the studio for 19 years. This marks the third wave of layoffs since March 2025.

https://kotaku.com/eidos-montreal-deus-ex-sequel-layoffs-2000683242

With so many useless leaders under Shannon who don’t contribute to opentext success . Why are the still here ?

Remember around 2020-21 When a certain VP got fired for letting her son resell Nike shoes in bulk that were purchased on her corporate credit card... I didn't realize she changed her name and is now the CEO of Footlocker. Talk about failing upwards

Anyone in Housecalls get the gaslighting email from leadership last week? Seems in many and I'm guessing most markets, APCs are complaining of the unrealistic expectations this year and how goals are more difficult to achieve. Basically told; we hear you, metric, metric, metrics, some untrue BS, you should be grateful for your job, complete your notes while you're in this disgusting run down homes, with potential insects or parasites, cigarette or weed smoke, for the benefit of company. If you can't see all of your overbooked day, call your lazy and never advocating manager to cancel a patient. Because, as a masters degree trained professional, youh can't make you're own decisions on how to manage your day!! Oh to surely add how important boundaries and mental health are to minimize burnout. 😡 all this with less pay than last year.

Who is the most prominent bullsh-tter in the history of Walmart at the level of Senior Vice President to date?

Nike should be out of DJIA and don't mix with prima donnas.

Get out DJIA and start from bottom with hungry attitudes without worrying about trying to meet financial expectations of DJIA members.

Being in DJIA is hindrance to NIKE. Seems like Nike management is worried about it instead of strategic execution.