Insider Empathy as Restructuring Poison

“‘Everyone needs to take responsibility,’ I warned. ‘We’re not going to survive unless we make tough decisions.’ But although every member of the senior management team knew that job-cuts were essential, they naturally shrank back from making them in their particular area. Over the next few days they would come to me with proposals for cuts, and repeatedly I would send them back again and again to cut further. I knew that I had to be tough for them — that I had to bear some of the load of their guilt. But there was no one I could turn to for comfort myself, no one who had been through this situation and could tell me how far it was really necessary to go. I knew I had to be cruel to be kind, but only much later would I discover that I had not been nearly cruel enough. It is one of the hardest things for an insider to judge the degree of such cuts. The likelihood is that unless he is by nature heartless, he will always err on the side of leniency. Just as I was pushing my manage- ment team to cut, cut, cut, I needed a powerful chairman with the necessary distance from the situation who could push me. It was a role that a more experienced board of directors might have fulfilled, but mine, I knew, would simply accept whatever I recommended. By far the toughest decision was Boom. While most departments”

“Suddenly we realized just how very young we were. Of the senior management team, most of us were still in our late twenties and early thirties and had never had to do anything like this before. So it was almost with desperation that we turned for guidance to our head of human resources, Tony Coleman. In his early forties, he possessed the experience that we so badly needed. A small man about the size of Napoleon, he assured us that he had sacked a whole army of people before. He knew what had to be done. The day before, we sat down with him for a final strategy session. Immediately he took charge, pulling his chair close to the table and making sure everyone was silent before speaking. “This is always a tricky process,’ he said, with a grave expression. ‘But if we handle it oe we can get it over very quickly.’ The textbook procedure, he etulanedds was to tell everyone simultaneously in separate rooms. “You don’t want people finding out before it’s their turn,’ he said. “The important thing is to tell them quickly. You shouldn’t spend more than ten minutes with them at the most. And, above all, keep your feelings to yourselves. Your sympathy isn’t going to help them. Everything you say must be kept on a strictly professional level.’ Kajsa grimaced. “God, that’s so corporate. I don’t see why we have to be that cold.’ ‘People who have just lost their jobs don’t need your sympathy,’ Coleman said. “They don’t care. They just want to know the facts.’ ‘Maybe if they work in a bank,’ she countered. “But these are our friends. We can’t just throw them out.’ ‘What happens after we’ve told them?’ Luke asked, looking equally upset. ‘They have to go home and think about it,’ Coleman replied.”