#advicetomanagement

I am amazed that host governments are letting ExxonMobil continue to do less and less in terms of local benefits. Jobs that could be local are now in India. How is this allowed?

If this does not happen, reach out to your representative

Part of the Cigna / HealthSpring acquisition here. Over at Cigna part of the business strategy was buying companies and quickly incorporating them into our BO operations. On the other hand, HCSC seems like a kid in fourth grade trying to figure out a college level manual. How are we still waiting on decisions here almost two years in? When will Igor come up with a definitive direction around AI? The townhall where he said "100 years ago, people didn't know they wanted a car, they just wanted faster horses" was a fancy little tidbit. Well, Igor, using your own analogy, we don't want a car or a horse, we just want to start moving. When are you going to get out of the way and let the team race forward?

We were at 245 summer st. The room was vp’s on up. Lots of mba, egghead types. We were talking about updates to a platform, to include new offerings. I had spent 8 years on the phones and got a new gig. I felt like I could adequately describe and represent the associates who are on the front lines.

The conversation was about logical progression and workflow of a call. I insisted that not all calls flow a logical progression but many times clients get emotional. I cited several examples and case studies to make my points. The discussion became difficult, especially for this one svp bonehead who’s claim to fame was he was smarter than everyone. By the end of the meeting, because of time, the decisions made were to not change a single thing because the logic was good and the back office would just need to get more efficient.

These eggheads do not know what they’re talking about and think they’re superior to the associates.

They want to hire a “confident attorney” to be the enemy of the employees. Yep, they aren’t kidding when they say they hate us. Instead of hiring for an “Employee Advocate”, they want another yes-man who will protect corrupt executives.

https://external-canoncareers.icims.com/jobs/34803/employment-counsel/job

If Verizon actually rebadges this group, that would be a wild decision 😂

How are you going to hand the keys to your network over to a vendor and expect that to end well?

Dan or any Verizon executives lurking in here might want to take a few notes from what happened to Sprint when Ericsson was running their network. We all saw how that story played out. 😂

But hey… I’m sure outsourcing the people who actually know and maintain the network will really help with that whole “delighting the customer” thing. 🤡📶

To ensure fair and objective decisions, review system/login data for attendance, leave, WFH, and actual work activity. Use verified records and job impact rather than assumptions or personal relationships.

...and please, please, stop using the above phrase in modern emails. With respect; I get it, it was once a common phrase. Those years are long over.

Peace.

A group of prominent British actors, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Alan Cu----g, and Benedict Wong, have penned an op-ed urging the UK government to oppose the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger. They express concerns that the consolidation of power could negatively impact independent film financing, news publishing, and the livelihoods of British film and television workers. The actors have formally requested that the UK Culture Minister investigate the potential consequences of the deal. While the European Commission has approved the merger with restrictions, it faces ongoing scrutiny in the United States. The UK minister has indicated a willingness to engage with the matter.

London, United Kingdom

https://www.netflixjunkie.com/hollywood-news-benedict-cumberbatch-alan-cu----g-and-benedict-wong-lead-opposition-to-paramount-warner-bros-merger

Is there an avenue to file a class action lawsuit against EchoStar on behalf of all the affected since 2025? Something Charlie wouldn’t expect would be a smoking g-n, and hit him where it hurts: the spectrum money he has stashed?

Like, some ominous but effective case. Example: in this film The Firm, the whistleblower simply filed “wire fraud” as the case.

Let’s start the talk here. I believe these are the types of billionaires that are meant to fall from the sky. Charlie is a mean, egomaniacal person who enjoys rising above while watching people below him suffer.

Let’s align and discuss possibilities here.

Of course, there will still be the Starlink stock pumpers on here who think we are all flat earthers.
Looks like someone coached Dan about how Starlink CANNOT take away from the terrestrial networks in a very substantial way. Physics!

Per Dan, in the article:
In terms of broadband competition from satellite providers, “it is very difficult for satellite providers to provide a service that's even close to what we can provide with our broadband services,” he said.
He walked through the basics of satellite beams and what they can offer by way of speeds versus ground-based systems.
“We’re like 100 times to 1,000 times more efficient,” he said. “Our speeds and capabilities are much higher, and it’s basically not possible because of physics. Not because of execution, but because of physics.”
The majority of Verizon’s service revenue is in urban and suburban geographies. He acknowledged that satellite does have a total addressable market (TAM) that’s probably between 6 million and 8 million homes in the U.S., primarily in very rural geographies where building out a terrestrial network is cost prohibitive.

“It doesn’t pencil out,” he said.

https://www.fierce-network.com/wireless/verizon-ceo-shuts-down-starlink-mvno-talk-touts-strong-q2-comeback

We have too many in-house counsels and law function leaders. I have seen 2-3 in house counsels in some internal meetings. They are tripping over themselves!

The function overall and within business lines has put in place “zipper model” org charts to align with similar hierarchy positions in other functions. This includes 1:1 law-to-business leader relationships. THAT IS NOT NEEDED post 2025!!!!! Other functions have rationalized cost, often serving multiple businesses (what we saw pre-2025). The zipper model is seen not just with the Law org chart, but also on how Law leaders expect to be advised by their senior counsels within a business. They want to be spoon fed, often to participate on an equal footing with other function colleagues.

Also, have you seen how Law function internal approval is sought? Tons of leaders are copied or addressed on emails. These are ornate emails that cut and paste from emails used in the business. It’s a who’s who of the function on these emails.

Law function work appears MOSTLY administrative and coordination in its nature. They are experts in keeping their function leadership aware of issues and managing the real work performed by others, including external counsel.

Can we make real and lasting change here?

AI is not a strategy

Too many dead weight G10+ doing G7 work. Don't even get me started on fellows.

Hope in one hand and relieve yourself in the other and see which one fills up first.

And repeat the mantra "I am a close personal friend of John Donovan".

“You can’t shrink your way to greatness”

• Seth Godin

Dan, you have highly competent employees, functionally adequate systems / processes / tools, a strong band, and multiple engagement points with most customers. Try reimagining the customer experience and lifting walletshare capture through the assets you have. Reducing your human capital now is just the junkie’s next fix but cannot, logically, achieve increased shareholder value. you know it, we know it.

If you work for belk don’t drink the kool-aid served by upper management and executive leadership, people of a certain age will understand this reference.

From Bloomberg (paywalled)

“You really don’t need the latest cutting-edge, incredibly expensive model to summarize an analyst report,” Chief Financial Officer Jeremy Barnum said on an analyst call Tuesday after the firm reported its second-quarter results. “So the idea is use the right model for the right purpose.”

bwahahahahahaha.

Charlie Scharf: oh yeah? Hold my beer while I tokenmaxx.

The main problem is that our government contracts public traded corporations such as the above mentioned to take tax payer government funds and allow these companies to make administrative decisions on what claims get paid or not. The main issue with that is these are profit-based corporations required to put shareholders profits before members. The Medicare & Medicaid Members are secondary to them in regards to being their customer. The shareholders are their priority customer.

It is time for the government to drop these public stock traded health insurance corporations and find a way to contract with not-for-profit, non-public-stock-traded, companies to administer Medicare Advantage and Medicaid.

Any medical device company that thinks AI is here to disrupt it are foolish and wrong. AI is here to disrupt mo--ns like every EVP and SVP at this company that can’t read or reply to emails on time and it’s here to definitely stay in manufacturing and will be utilized in imaging but when it comes therapy, AI will ki-l people and GM is the biggest id--t for not understanding this basic thing. Cathworks will prove it that GM acquired a fu--ing science project while scientia will pay dividends for years to come

I'm constantly asked to train new hires, but I have way too much on my own plate to be doing that. It's not part of my job and I can't keep up with my own work when I'm spending time explaining things to people who should have been better trained before they started. And the new hires are just as frustrated because they're not really being trained properly. They're just expected to pick things up as they go. This is entirely management's fault and they need to do something about it.

Zayo signed a major contract with Mastec. Lord help us.

Motley Fool Money recently warned investors about "AI washing." Companies may falsely attribute layoffs to artificial intelligence. Many job cuts stem from pandemic overhiring or reduced demand. Genuine AI transformation starts with a clear business problem. Investors must verify specific, measurable AI impacts in company reports.

https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/expert-warns-companies-ai-washing-160407514.html

Watch and learn

https://youtu.be/5nbeGkLRSa8

My first move as pretend AT&T CEO would be pretty simple:

Stop chasing “transformational” nonsense and run the company like a telecom company. Wireless. Fiber. Business services. Network reliability. Customer service. Debt reduction. That’s it.

No media empire. No satellite TV fantasy. No “synergy” PowerPoint garbage. No paying billions for assets and then selling/spinning them off later at a loss.

The basic plan would be:

1. Aggressively pay down debt instead of trying to look clever.
2. Keep investing in fiber, because that actually fits AT&T’s core strengths.
3. Protect the network craft workforce, because contractors and outsourcing can save money short term but can wreck service quality.
4. Simplify management layers, because AT&T has always seemed ridiculously top-heavy.
5. Stop abusing loyal customers with confusing promotions that reward switchers more than longtime customers.
6. Make executive compensation depend on long-term debt reduction, free cash flow, network quality, and employee retention, not just stock-price optics.

And yeah, I’d probably cancel half the consultant contracts in the first week.

But the hostile takeover part might be tough. AT&T’s market cap is massive, and I’m currently a little light on the tens of billions needed to pull that off. Also, I suspect the board would object to my official turnaround slogan: “Stop Doing D-mb Sh*t.”

Although I’m no longer with Centene, I still care deeply about its mission and the people working to achieve it. That’s why I’m taking the time to write this.

One pattern I’ve seen across large organizations is the belief that the next framework, consulting engagement, or AI initiative will unlock better execution. Those things all have value. They bring fresh ideas, experience, and structure. But none of them can replace organizational clarity.

When priorities change faster than results can be measured, it becomes difficult to know what actually worked. Strategies get replaced before they can be fairly evaluated, and organizations end up changing multiple variables at the same time. At that point, you’re no longer learning from the strategy. You’re learning from the interruption.

From the individual contributor’s perspective, people stop asking, “Is this the right direction?” and start asking, ”How long until this changes again?” Eventually they stop optimizing for outcomes and start optimizing for adaptability. That’s not resistance to change. It’s a rational response to uncertainty.

The same challenge applies to outside consultants. They can bring experience, structure, and proven approaches, but they can’t create clarity where it doesn’t already exist. If priorities, success measures, and strategic direction continue to shift, even great recommendations struggle because the organization is still redefining the problem they were brought in to solve.

Landing the plane…

If I could offer one piece of advice, it would be this.

Create the conditions for success before looking for the next solution.

Define what success looks like.

Decide how you’ll measure it.

Give your managers and teams enough stability to execute.

Give the strategy enough time to produce meaningful results.

Then let the data, not the calendar, tell you what needs to change next.

Frameworks matter.

Technology matters.

Consultants matter.

• Employees matter most.*

Every reorganization, every strategy shift, and every new operating model is experienced by people who care deeply about the mission and genuinely want to do great work. When people lose confidence that today’s priority will still matter tomorrow, the organization loses something much harder to rebuild than a process. It loses trust.

To everyone still there, don’t lose sight of why you chose this work in the first place. Your knowledge, your compassion, and your commitment to members still matter. Those things don’t disappear because the organization is going through change.

I sincerely hope Centene succeeds. The mission is too important, and there are too many good people working every day to make a difference. My hope for leadership is simple: create the clarity, stability, and trust that allows those people to do what they’ve always wanted to do…serve members, support one another, and do their best work.

✌️

• AI helped me tighten the writing. The observations, opinions, and experiences are my own.*

3 weeks ago they warned of $140+ oil. Now we sit at $70.

Billionaire Michael Dell's "generous" donation to children's investment accounts is just another front in the deep state's war on self-reliance, and I have the conspiracy theories to prove it.
In a shocking turn of events that has absolutely nothing to do with the deep state’s insidious plot to indoctrinate our youth, billionaire Michael Dell has announced a $6.25 billion “donation” to fund so-called “Trump Accounts” for children. Coincidence? I think not. Let’s break this down, folks—because if you’re not questioning this, you’re already asleep at the wheel.

First off, “Trump Accounts”? Really? That’s what they’re calling them now? I’m sure the name is just a happy accident and not at all a calculated move to make conservatives warm up to what is clearly a socialist wealth redistribution scheme. $250 per kid? That’s barely enough to buy a single share of GameStop, and we all know the elites don’t want your kids learning about the free market. They’d rather they grow up dependent on government handouts—or in this case, billionaire handouts.

And let’s talk about the income cutoff: $150,000. That’s suspiciously specific. Why not $149,999? Because they needed a round number to hide the fact that this is really about tracking families. Mark my words, this is just another way for the globalists to catalog who’s “middle class” and who’s not. Next thing you know, they’ll be implanting microchips in these accounts—wait, actually, that’s probably already in the fine print.

But here’s the real kicker: 80% of Texas ZIP codes qualify. EIGHTY PERCENT. Folks, that’s not generosity—that’s an admission that the economy is rigged. If 80% of families are making under $150,000, then who’s hoarding all the money? Oh right, the same people “donating” it back to us like some kind of twisted charity tax write-off. Wake up, sheeple!

And of course, the urban elites in Austin, Dallas, and Houston are mostly excluded. Convenient, isn’t it? The very cities where the tech overlords and government puppets live get to opt out of their own socialist experiment. Meanwhile, the rest of Texas gets a measly $250 per kid—probably in digital currency so they can phase out cash and control your spending.

This isn’t philanthropy. This is conditioning. They’re training the next generation to rely on handouts instead of hard work. And by the time these kids grow up, they’ll be so used to government (or billionaire) intervention that they won’t even question it. Well, I’m questioning it. And you should too. Because if there’s one thing the elites hate, it’s people who can still think for themselves. Stay vigilant, patriots. The tofu-pushing deep state is always watching.

Laptops in the company still have attuids assigned to their computer name. Use ADUC or the PowerShell activedirectory module to search for computers belonging to anyone in your leadership chain. Once you find their computer, you'll want to perform a ping on their computer name, followed by nslookup to see which domain controller they are connected to. It will tell you if they are connected to VPN and are therefore not in the office.

Subsequently, make a PowerShell script that automates this whole process, and now you have a way to track RTO compliance of executives. You can run it every 20 minutes to track who is doing less than 8 hours in the office.

Once you find someone, lodge a complaint with HR indicating that you believe they are violating RTO policy.

As a fresh grad. when I joined CDC design Verification (DV) , team used to have a great, merit based culture where technical decision were driven by logic and data.
Recently, a leadership change at the top for DV ruined this dynamic. The top lead lacks a technical verif. background, makes unilateral decisions, and pushes aggressive deadlines just for his upper visibility and no techincal contribution for him.
We went from a collaborative team to a strict "no questions asked" environment.
Feeling highly demotivated and could sense the same with my peers and leads.
need advise - is it worth speaking about this to the lead? is this kind of one man pushing his view normal across Qualcomm or is it a major red flag and i should start looking outside QCOM?

https://presentofcoding.substack.com/p/please-switch-to-python

Stata can’t. SAS can’t. SPSS can’t. MATLAB’s answer is “call Python from MATLAB.”

even where these tools have some capability, it requires calling Python, or expensive licenses, or both.

I’ve rarely met anyone who learned Python or R after switching from Stata or SAS and said, “I wish I were still working in those.”

Probably the only way out of this mess is to make FOSS illegal or legally cripple its usage within the country and, if possible, around the globe. There are movements afoot…

One upper management leader once mentioned that competitors (Cadence) were more efficient. A few colleagues who once worked at Cadence also said the same. Why? Have our leaders thought about the underlying reason, or they know the answer but they can't change since such reform will damage their own benefits?

Last week my tram was told that they are monitoring our AI usage and those that are not using it at are risk. We were shown a dashboard that tracks general ChatGPT usage and Codex usage.

This week an email comes out instructing us on the proper use of AI, which model to select based on usage cost.

So wait, you want us to use it but in the same breath you are worried about the usage cost?

Id--ts

I have a PhD for 20 years now and most of my papers are in AI. I worked for 5 years at Fiserv as a product director before I left! This lady keeps referring to AI, but she is simply talking about workflow and automation. This is not AI. Can someone please educated her? Is she just another Gibbons?

Listen to the Bloomberg Talks interview with Dan. They literally ask him what changes will average customer see that will make an impact and Dan literally couldn’t answer. Totally embarrassing- it’s so CLEAR he has NO PLAN for any real changes. Just AI, AI, AI. Literally no plan at all!!!

The Existential Threat -- what is Verizon's strategic plan or more importantly an imminent plan to diffuse the potential diminishing of the wireless market share??

The products, service plans, rendered by SpaceX and Amazon -- technologically satellite internet??

Mr. Schulman you are a friend of Elon's so we-ponize to create powerful combinations!!!

To make the most effective use of AI, you pretty much have to be an expert in the domain you are working so you can write effective prompts AND AI must have enough relevant information in order to provide quality output. There is a lot of info in telecom that cannot reasonably be put into AI (confidential info, or spread across many emails, and across many documents (each containing PPI), etc.). For example, take a cell site design: To use AI you would need to upload many plots from Atoll, upload traffic usage and drive data (if available), upload maps, upload ongoing surrounding project info and their status', etc.. You would also need to tell AI what you want as far as standard equipment (and that is always changing and has dependencies), and on and on it goes. The list of things AI needs in order to provide quality output goes on and on, depending on the domain and the intricacies of the required output. The end user also must be knowledgeable enough to recognize garbage.

If you are a non-tech type (not intending an insult here), and you took some of the AI courses available from Google (and probably other AI vendors), you have seen some pretty powerful stuff. AI can do some amazing things. Yes, AI can summarize data. AI can create graphics, videos and audio output. AI can tie together data and create powerful dashboards. AI can write code. AI does all of this much faster than humans. Those AI courses leave the user thinking AI can do most anything. Those AI courses also inspire users to want to buy the creator's product (AI subscriptions). That is intentional! Google, and other AI vendors want to make money on their products. They are not going to talk much about the pitfalls of their products.

Taking those courses is like watching a very long, well produced commercial. If you are a tech type, you may be familiar with at least some of the inner workings of AI and understand it really is a probability machine (really A LOT of little probability machines). It takes in data, creates relationships amongst that data based on probabilities it "learned" from training data. Some of the magic is taken way, but it is a good thing to understand in order to make better use of the tool.

Dan Schulman's educational background is in economics and he has an MBA. Guessing other C-suiters' educational backgrounds are similar. AI works well for economics. You can upload many disparate spreadsheets and as long as there is some semblance that the data in each sheet can be correlated with data in the other sheets, AI will handle it like the Harlem Globetrotters handle a basketball. I am sure Dan was drooling at the mouth when AI vendors showed him what they could do for VZ. But, give AI a bunch of data without concrete direction, and design requests that could have many tradeoffs that are not seen until design time, it will provide output that is not concrete. There will be a lot of garbage output.

To best use AI, yes, you can use conversational prompts, but, you must be very precise. Think of training your dog or you child:). Dogs and children do not understand the concept of "sometimes." You must think like a programmer and tell AI exactly what you want. The issue with more complex problems is that exactly what we want is not known until we get deeper into the design. We have not seen all of the dependencies and tradeoffs until we get deeper into the analysis. By the time we get that far into it, it is faster to just do the task ourselves rather than try to put all of that info into AI.

https://www.globalbankingandfinance.com/exclusive-ousted-bp-chair-met-activist-shareholder-elliott/

Don't know about you, but AM is growing on me. The company needs someone who is willing to give it a kick up the **.

On Monday, June 1st, Copilot moves to token-based billing with major adjustments to token-cost multipliers. Some models will cost 60x more per token than others. Most of what users would call the "useful" models will become exceedingly expensive in comparison to the others.

Guess I’m finally going to start using AI as much as Sandeep has begged for.

Get ready to open your wallets, you d-mb fu--ing ghouls.

In bewilders me how Humana gets away with the extreme various ways they try to manipulate investors instead of simply focusing on the mission of providing better (and more cost effective) strategies and services to its members.

I believe, in an attempt to raise investor expectations as to the stock price and earnings per share, they manipulate the stock price by buying back their own stock, have other corporations to temporarily buy their stock, and probably (possibly) pay off financial new’s journalists and financial analyst pundits to say they believe Humana’s future stock will raise to such and such.

I just hope the investors and potential investors are wise and discerning enough to not take news articles and temporary stock price spikes at face value. But instead do some digging and exhaustive research analysis of their own.

It is my belief that Humana, and Medicare Advantage, are treading water, buying time, with the knowledge that the good business days are numbered and the end is only a couple to a few years out (maybe five years, at most).