Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

This post is from 2014, but layoffs are again in the news. Almost every day another company talks about cost-cutting and rumors start to fly. Contrary to what you might think, there is a right way and a wrong way to handle a layoff.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

The need for a layoff can happen to any company of any age or size, but most companies and managers bumble the task and end up doing far more damage than necessary.

The damage is not just to those laid off, but also to those left behind, themselves and the company.

As most of you have read, Cheezburger Networker just laid off a third of its staff, but great credit goes to CEO Ben Huh for bending over backwards to do it with the least damage possible.

• • He cut his vacation short when he realized what had to be done, as opposed to delegating it and staying away until it was over.
  • He was honest, open and candid with his entire staff, thus avoiding the kind of rumors that typically circulate.
  • He did everything possible to ensure those laid off found new positions, including personally reaching out to other companies and setting up his own job fair.

In short, he did everything I recommended in 2008.

I only know of one manager who got his jollies laying people off (he always tried to do it just before Thanksgiving or Christmas) and he was, without doubt, a sadist.

Most managers, like Huh, find them to be tremendously emotional and not at all fun.

“Often, when faced with a problem, you want to run in the other direction. It’s like seeing a lion in the jungle. But I have to do what is best for the company, even if it sucks emotionally.”

There’s one more required action after a layoff and that’s dealing with the empty space, which can’t be ignored, but can be done positively without spending big bucks.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Poking through 11+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

When I wrote this a decade ago it resulted in a comment and my response, which are included today. The reason I included my response is because, in these days of bad examples, lower self-control and less personal responsibility the responsibility of leaders is even greater. As you will see in tomorrow’s post.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

What responsibility?

A lot.

My focus isn’t meant to be just race or gender issues, but on the attitude that I’m/we’re-right-so-you-should-do/think-our-way-or-else. It’s not the ‘we’re right/you’re wrong’ that bothers me, but the ‘do-it-our-way-or-else’ that shows the intolerance for what it really is.

During my adult life (I missed being a Boomer by a hair) I’ve watched as hate and intolerance spread across the country masked by religion, a façade of political correctness or a mea culpa that is supposed to make everything OK, but doesn’t.

Various business, political, religious and community leaders give passionate, fiery talks to their followers and then express surprise and dismay when some of those same followers steal trade secrets, plant bombs, and kill individuals—whose only error was following their own beliefs.

No longer are we all entitled to the pursuit of happiness if our happiness offends someone next door or living at the other end of the country.

I remember Ann Rand saying in an interview that she believed that she had the right to be totally selfish, where upon the interviewer said that would give her freedom to kill. Rand said absolutely not, in fact the reverse was true, since her selfishness couldn’t take away anyone else’s right to be selfish. That about sums up my attitude

I just wish there were fewer followers for all the Ellsworth Toohey types in today’s world.

1. Kathy Says:
   I don’t know if you can blame abstract entities such as leadership business or religion or politics for the actions of individuals. I’m tempted to put the blame on the person taking the action. There is a big difference between hearing someone talk and acting on the content of the talk. We hear people talk persuasively all the time about the importance of saving for retirement or flossing our teeth or using sunscreen, and many, many people who’ve heard these persuasive speeches do none of the above. So, I’d say, no matter what people are saying to me, in the newspaper, on TV or over coffee, if I take the action, I’m responsible for the result. I always had the choice.
2. Miki Saxon Says:
   Kathy, I agree that it is the responsibility of followers to think, but we live in an age where many people have opted out of thinking, and merely follow the lead of any person with whom they are comfortable (see the 9 post on followers) For that reason I do hold the leaders, who aren’t abstract, and incite their followers through passionate rhetoric responsible for the outcome. I think they are responsible for the results of their comments.

Image credit: Sean MacEntee

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here

The need for a layoff can happen to any company of any age or size, but most companies and managers bumble the task and end up doing far more damage than necessary.

The damage is not just to those laid off, but also to those left behind, themselves and the company.

As most of you have read, Cheezburger Networker just laid off a third of its staff, but great credit goes to CEO Ben Huh for bending over backwards to do it with the least damage possible.

• He cut his vacation short when he realized what had to be done, as opposed to delegating it and staying away until it was over.
• He was honest, open and candid with his entire staff, thus avoiding the kind of rumors that typically circulate.
• He did everything possible to ensure those laid off found new positions, including personally reaching out to other companies and setting up his own job fair.

In short, he did everything I recommended in 2008.

I only know of one manager who got his jollies laying people off (he always tried to do it just before Thanksgiving or Christmas) and he was, without doubt, a sadist.

Most managers, like Huh, find them to be tremendously emotional and not at all fun.

“Often, when faced with a problem, you want to run in the other direction. It’s like seeing a lion in the jungle. But I have to do what is best for the company, even if it sucks emotionally.”

There’s one more required action after a layoff and that’s dealing with the empty space, which can’t be ignored, but can be done positively without spending big bucks.

Image credit: HikingArtist

Every day we make choices and, as kids, learning to make wise ones is one on the most important things that should happen as we grow.

But it doesn’t always happen.

The great thing is that you can change and learn to make good choices at any time in your life—it is an integral part of leading yourself.

One of the most important choices anyone makes is found in the people they choose to have as part of their life.

Although I could write my own ideas of what that means, I’d like to share something I received from a friend. I can’t find who the author is, so I’ll credit the prolific Anon.

Everyone Can’t Be in Your Front Row

Life is a theater – invite your audience carefully. Not everyone is spiritually healthy and mature enough to have a front row seat in our lives. There are some people in your life that need to be loved from a distance.

It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you let go, or at least minimize your time with draining negative, incompatible, not-going-anywhere relationships/friendships/fellowships!

Observe the relationships around you. Pay attention to: Which ones lift and which ones lean? Which ones encourage and which ones discourage?

Which ones are on a path of growth uphill and which ones are going downhill?

When you leave certain people, do you feel better or feel worse? Which ones always have drama or don’t really understand, know and appreciate you and the gift that lies within you? When you seek growth, peace of mind, love and truth, the easier it will become for you to decide who gets to sit in the FRONT ROW and who should be moved to the balcony of your life.

You cannot change the people around you…but you can change the people you are around! Choose wisely the people who sit in the front row of your life.

Copy the last sentence and tape it to your monitor and the bathroom mirror; forward the post to every person you care about—not with a lecture, but with a hug; discuss it’s meaning with your kids—they are never too young to learn this.

Take a long, hard look at who sits in your front row; if you don’t want them there you don’t need to have a major confrontation, just quietly lower their priority in your life and assign them to a seat at the back—even if they have you in their front row.

I know that I’m in the front row of several people who sit in the rear of my audience, but I say nothing, because nothing would be gained. They would be deeply hurt for no reason; they have little-to-no impact on me because they are far back and where they choose to seat me is none of my business.

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Image credit: Rob Stemple on flickr

Today is National Honesty Day. Look it up and you’ll find lot of talk about being honest today.

You’d think people could manage one honest day a year, but it’s doubtful they actually will.

These days honesty seems to be more a matter of convenience, i.e., telling the truth when it doesn’t get in the way to whatever the agenda is, or bending the truth to further whatever—and it gets more acceptable every day.

In schools, honesty is considered quaint.

And it’s a global problem, “A 2006 study of cheating among US graduates, published in the journal Academy of Management Learning & Education, found that 56% of all MBA students cheated regularly – more than in any other discipline.”

Carolyn Y. Woo, Dean of Notre Dame Mendoza College of Business says, “I believe that our current crisis is caused by a failure of values fuelled by perverse incentives, which trumped sound judgment and overwhelmed regulatory enforcements.”

At all ages and all levels it seems to boil down to ‘dishonesty pays’.

Of course, I could be out of touch and cheating has been exempted from dishonesty and moved to a category all its own, but I think I would have read about that. But even if it has there’s plenty of other dishonesty going around these days.

Back to today’s holiday.

Even if every person on the planet was totally honest today it wouldn’t solve anything.

We don’t need one day of honesty and 364 days of the other stuff, so here’s my idea.

Let’s cancel National Honesty Day and starting in 2010 celebrate National Dishonesty Day instead.

That way, we can all be honest 364 days of the year and lie, cheat and steal to our hearts content every April 30.

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Image credit: MissTurner on flickr