So given what we just went thru and the fact that most of the poor performance and visibility it is a a result of what the former COO (Maria) as well as the prior poor decisions from Gerri have been AND NOW are now being amplified by Rachel (trying to change 45 years of forecasting with a new SFDC process in 90 days) is there any ideas on how to bring these issues to senior management w/o being targeted?
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Yes, DE&I is a problem. I repeatedly saw promos and assignments made not related to job performance but because they checked the right boxes from a DE&I perspective. Look around, you know them well. Woke will eventually go broke. Unfortunately the damage has been done.
OP, quit whining about DEI, that is not the problem. Use some logic: Corporate greed is the issue and Cisco has a hard task of reinventing itself in modern times. The traditional networking hardware business is not enough to sustain the growth the company needs. Don’t make it this easy for the billionaires by making excuses for them. You are helping the very people responsible for layoffs every time you put the blame on something petty like this. People are getting LR’ed because some analyst decided jobs needed to be cut for stock price to go up. That’s it. Hoping Cisco will succeed with long term cloud transformation - it is a hard task.
Worthless V2MOM and a racetrack is all I will remember from Maria.
This took a lot of cycles from many employees and did not add anything to the bottom line. All operational and delivery changes failed. Lots of work to be done to recover and go for real growth. Hopefully we get an inspiring leader instead of command and control.
DEI can be bad or can be good. Using DEI to increase the size of the talent pool to attract talents and to obtain the best talent based on merit or performance is good. DEI to select purely to satisfy a quota, satisfy a check mark or to show that the company is in with the DEI trend is bad. Cisco was more of the latter.
A lot of undeserving promotions and hirings were done, not based on merit. Academia did the same and it impacted its brand and some of their graduates. Some are pulling back by instituting the SAT. A lot got through with work and also with colleges during this period unfortunately. Some took major advantages.
@2olw+1reN8xg6 My comment was removed, so nobody has the background of what I was saying. Of course women can be leaders. Strong leaders! Good god, I’ve seen amazing leadership from women in my 30 years experience in this industry. I did not mean to offend.
A place to look for such leadership are veterans who are women and who became senior non-commissioned officers (NCOs). They came from being low-level enlisted, might not have had any university when they started, and became exceptionally great leaders despite such hardships. They weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouths, and had no networks to help them. Those kinds of people are not “girl bosses.” They are women and exhibit those qualities they are deserving and have merit. I’d follow them to war.
DEI is absolutely devastating and just gives those kinds of people a bad name.
We aren’t afraid of girls, just don’t want to report to “girl bosses.”
And why can't women be "bosses"? If you won't let them lead, then you''re afraid of girls. What I'm afraid of, and gender doesn't matter, is having leaders who can't lead. MM was certainly a failure at leadership.
But, Cisco put up w/ MM for a few years because she slashed operational expenses to the bone beginning in CX, and then later across all of Operations. She just didn't deliver on the increasing of revenue part of her job and only managed to increase profits by cutting costs until they couldn't be cut any further. It's amazing how companies, and people, will support leaders who are bad in the long run for short-term goals.
Wokey Wokey Hokey Pokey!
So an all white ELT will make Cisco skyrocket to the moon? I’m white and here to tell you that a lot of you need a hug.
You bring up excellent points, and they are all true. It needs to be visible. You are correct, though. You are a target if you say anything true in Cisco anymore, contrary to the party line. However, the way the company is going, everyone's a target until they get rid of the people Maria brought in and promoted.
Rebecca wasn't a DEI hire. Not all women or people of color are. But some ARE.
https://m.economictimes.com/tech/technology/cisco-plans-to-tech-a-ride-on-indias-digitisation-wagon/articleshow/107891027.cms
DEI isn’t the problem. The issue is poor leadership and a failing company. Until things turn around. This will forever be the problem.
People were complaining about RJ too. She was known for constant layoffs and thinking the cloud was a fad
DEI isn't the problem, MM was. Rebecca Jacoby was a strong female leader and was the SVP of Operations until 2018. From what I recall, she was very well respected and did a great job.
More than often when people are laid off, it’s a failure of leadership.
I don’t think she did a good job but playing the race card is such childish behaviors.