Six Steps to Creating a Positive, Productive and Thriving Team after a Downsizing
There may be nothing more excruciating for a leader than to have to lay off members of its team, particularly when the laid off team members are vital and productive. In the life of a corporate entity, however, restructuring is sometimes the wisest strategy and this may mean that employees lose their jobs.
As the leader, your responsibility is to handle the downsizing in the most constructive manner possible and to pull the new team together to be deeply and passionately committed to your team and company’s future. How can you do that?
The following six steps provide a valuable guide to navigating the downsizing process with power, intention and compassion.
Maintain “the big picture”. Be very clear in your own mind what your vision for the company is and what you, as a leader in this company, want from this downsizing. Get enough emotional distance from the day-to-day challenges that you are able to envision what is really important. When the process is completed, and everyone has moved on either outside the company or within the new company, what have you and others accomplished? Make a list. As an example, you might determine that your top three goals for this restructuring are: to increase your company profits by 50% in the next 12 months, create a thriving and committed workforce, and build a company that consistently operates in alignment with its mission and vision.
What are your big picture dreams and commitments?
Be visible, be available and listen to your pre- and post-layoff teams. Because this is such a difficult time for everyone it is natural for a leader to want to hide out in management meetings or his/her office immediately before, during and after the announcement of the downsizing. Layoffs are painful: who wants to have to address employees’ distress day-after-day during a downsizing? Particularly when you feel that nothing you do will “fix” the problem for them. An employee is getting laid off, or their closest colleague is getting laid off and they are grieving the loss of their friend, as well as dreading the additional work they will be asked to take on. As a leader, what can you do?
Recognize that grieving is normal in a downsizing and grieving appears in the form of anger, depression, bargaining, guilt, lack of motivation, anxiety... name the emotion and you might just see it in your organization at this time. The way to deal with grief is to accept that it is normal and allow it the time it takes to run its course. Patience and compassion are the keys to a healthy and productive grief process.
Your responsibility is to really listen when your employees are expressing their feelings. Your job is not to fix anything. The situation is difficult, people are hurting (or angry or scared or whatever else they are feeling) and you are there to listen and provide any information and support you are able to offer. Your job is to inspire confidence so whether they are being laid off or are left to recreate the restructured company, they feel that they can count on you to be “on their team”.
Communicate, communicate, communicate with your team. The importance of this step cannot be over-emphasized; all members of your team need to know how the decisions were made and to be assured that a reasoned, rational process has led to this result. The members of the team need to get their information from you. Gossip is rampant at times like this. If your team believes that you will be honest and open and share information with them at the first possible moment, they will trust that you are on their side. In this way you maintain your role as their “inspired leader”.
Inspire passion and commitment in your post-layoff team. Having faithfully applied steps 1-3, your team feels they can trust you. Now is the time to step up to your role of facilitating the creation of a new and thriving team and company. To do this you must feel passionate about the future of your team and your company; you must be honestly and fully aligned with the direction the company is heading and the company’s mission, vision and goals. If you are, your enthusiastic commitment will spark enthusiasm and commitment in others. It is upon these sparks that the new company will be formed.
Remember, you never stop doing steps 1-3. The human experience is not linear. Members of your team may go in and out of the emotions associated with grief. Members of your team may again develop distrust. As their leader, your role remains to maintain the big picture, be available, listen and communicate with them.
Empower your team to increase its productivity. Now that your new team is beginning to assemble and get inspired about the next steps, it is time for you to encourage them to develop a plan to increase your team’s productivity. Empower them to address all of those things they have seen over the years as ineffective or inefficient. Encourage them to cancel unproductive meetings. They are in the trenches day-after-day; respect their experience and perspective and work with them to make your company into the razor-sharp productivity machine you know it can be.
Empower your team to create off-the-charts “positivity”. Now that your team is in the post-downsizing rebuilding stage, allow your employees to create the type of team they want to work in. What would they like to have in their workplace that would encourage a sense of “team” with their co-workers: a weekly lunch together? Friday afternoon ice cream socials? A social hour together at 4 pm on Fridays? Would a team-building workshop strengthen their bonds, improve their productivity and encourage them to feel like the people with whom they work are “like a second family”? The sky is the limit and now is the perfect time.
Learn about the Organizational Flexibility Model—a transformational process moving beyond change management integrating the six-step capabilities into your organization. Result, a resilient organization less exposed to change.
