Meridian Coaching & Consulting Blog

Last night in my MBA class on leadership we were discussing the topic of change and change management.  The students first identified areas of change that impacted their businesses recently and then ranked those items in terms of importance and impact.  They then discussed how those changes had affected the organization’s performance and its’ people.  They then discussed how the change event had been managed, the impact that leadership had made and how it could have been managed differently.

Nearly 75% of the students had identified layoffs or potential layoffs as the change event that was most important to their colleagues and had the most impact on the organization.

Only one of those students felt their management had built trust and confidence by their handling of the current situation.  What did they do?  First, they had the foresight to anticipate this looming trend.  Three years ago they developed a plan to manage what they saw as a looming down-turn in one aspect of their business.  They began reducing staff through attrition and slowly divested themselves of both assets and liabilities associated with this line of work.

Secondly, they were transparent about their initiatives.  They informed staff about what they felt was going to happen and what plans they were going to take to prepare the company.

The result was that they built trust and instilled confidence in their staff.

The other extreme was the company that called in the local police force on the day the announced layoffs and had the police remove people who were being laid off and to provide security in case of violence.  You can image the long-lasting results that came from that action and the message that management communicated.  And somewhere down the road these same managers will complain that people aren’t more motivated.

It was a good object lesson for the students and emphasized how important it is for  leaders to carefully consider how to best manage the present while anticipating the future.