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I recall an example from earlier in my career where an employer was looking to prune bad apples in the company. They failed to deliver the news correctly, and

I recall an example from earlier in my career where an employer was looking to prune bad apples in the company. They failed to deliver the news correctly, and although many knew in their hearts it wouldn't affect them, we were all professionals, majority engineers, and used a logical thought process to resolve it internally; The news didn't specify who wouldn't be affected, and although the intended number was meant to be rather low (half a dozen people) in a ~100 person company, everyone started looking for other jobs to cover themselves. Everyone has bills to pay etc and it's unwise not to plan ahead. Logically thinking, there was no harm in having a backup plan. Well, come time to prune, the expected numbers are pruned, and then, the unexpected (to the employer) happened, tens more people left. The bad news had given everyone with the "get-up-and-go" a kick to look elsewhere and realise actually we were all being mistreated. The company quickly lost some of their best talent.

lysp 8y ago
And ironically some of the good staff probably left, leaving the company remaining with some of the bad apples.
- pc86 8y ago
  Well as they said the folks who needed to be terminated were terminated, they just lost more in the process. Presumably the folks who left voluntarily after this would be on the higher end of skills as they were able to quickly find another position. So the worst performers are terminated, the best performers leave voluntarily, and the company is left with all the mediocre folks and an overall decrease is skills and abilities.
gvb 8y ago
That is a good point that I didn't see in my quick scan of the 44 rules... If you have a target audience, give a specific message to only that target audience. Do not give the message to a larger group than the target audience. I've seen (and been guilty of) giving a vague, non-specific message to "everybody" when only one or two people were the actual target of the message. This causes incredible problems with those in the audience that are not the target of the message. Ironically, the one or two people that are the problem typically remain oblivious to the fact that they were the target of the message.
- mistersquid 8y ago
  If the employee pool is larger than 20-30 but there are only "one or two people [who] were the actual target of the message", the problem might be bigger than those one or two employees. Unless (or even if) those "one or two" are outright sabotaging team effort or egregiously incompetent, management delivering a vague message to everyone suggests broader problem in the company. The problem may not strictly be a managerial one. For example, the team and its managers may be driven by decreasing revenue, changing market, new legislation, etc. In any case, it's hard to imagine a situation where "one or two" non-malicious mediocre employees would merit a broad message to the entire team. EDIT: Change "an" to "a".
  - alias_neo 8y ago
    You're close to the truth in the second paragraph there. I don't want to go into too much detail, the company is doing well now (I believe) and I harbor no ill-will. There were issues throughout the ranks, the company grew quickly and had issues adapting. I think the exodus gave them an opportunity to begin again without those that had been jaded by experience.
- alias_neo 8y ago
  Indeed. In some cases the opposite was done; the message was given out as a whole, and some were told off-the-record that it didn't include them, this is another problematic approach. Clearly this is how I became aware of the situation.
gwbas1c 8y ago
I wonder if something else was going on that prompted the mass exodus?
- alias_neo 8y ago
  There were many things, perks had been removed over night due to new ideas within the finance team, a lot of the team realised they were being grossly underpaid, and finally, those who were close to their colleagues were left without those they could count on in and out of work.
  - merlincorey 8y ago
    A tale as old as time[1]. [1] https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
    - alias_neo 8y ago
      Yikes. If that didn't predate my experience, I'd say it was the same one. Insane! Soda one jut one of the many small perks that disappeared when this co got it's new CFO. They stopped all company team building "fun days", "soda" went away entirely, not even cheap, and the office was in the middle of nowhere so no shops to pop out to to get your own.
- EpicEng 8y ago
  Sounds like there was ("realized... we were being mistreated"), but the impetus to leave was the poor communication on layoffs.
bena 8y ago
They waffled. They wanted to preserve people's feelings by not letting the specific people know. That way, it looks like they're looking at everybody, when really, they wanted to get rid of these six guys. Let me correct. They weren't looking to preserve anyone's feelings. They were looking to preserve people's opinion of them. Because one thing I've found is that anytime someone says they did something "to not hurt someone's feelings", it's not the target's feelings they're worried about, it's their own. They don't want the target to have a negative opinion of them. Because they don't want to be the bad person. Or what they perceive as the bad person. But it leads to treating people like children. Which is disrespectful and causes resentment when things finally come to a head. Be simple. Be honest. Be direct. Be clear. If anyone harbors ill will towards you after that, that's their hangup, not an actual reflection of you.

lysp 8y ago

And ironically some of the good staff probably left, leaving the company remaining with some of the bad apples.

pc86 8y ago
Well as they said the folks who needed to be terminated were terminated, they just lost more in the process. Presumably the folks who left voluntarily after this would be on the higher end of skills as they were able to quickly find another position. So the worst performers are terminated, the best performers leave voluntarily, and the company is left with all the mediocre folks and an overall decrease is skills and abilities.

gvb 8y ago

That is a good point that I didn't see in my quick scan of the 44 rules... If you have a target audience, give a specific message to only that target audience. Do not give the message to a larger group than the target audience. I've seen (and been guilty of) giving a vague, non-specific message to "everybody" when only one or two people were the actual target of the message. This causes incredible problems with those in the audience that are not the target of the message. Ironically, the one or two people that are the problem typically remain oblivious to the fact that they were the target of the message.

mistersquid 8y ago
If the employee pool is larger than 20-30 but there are only "one or two people [who] were the actual target of the message", the problem might be bigger than those one or two employees. Unless (or even if) those "one or two" are outright sabotaging team effort or egregiously incompetent, management delivering a vague message to everyone suggests broader problem in the company. The problem may not strictly be a managerial one. For example, the team and its managers may be driven by decreasing revenue, changing market, new legislation, etc. In any case, it's hard to imagine a situation where "one or two" non-malicious mediocre employees would merit a broad message to the entire team. EDIT: Change "an" to "a".
- alias_neo 8y ago
  You're close to the truth in the second paragraph there. I don't want to go into too much detail, the company is doing well now (I believe) and I harbor no ill-will. There were issues throughout the ranks, the company grew quickly and had issues adapting. I think the exodus gave them an opportunity to begin again without those that had been jaded by experience.
alias_neo 8y ago
Indeed. In some cases the opposite was done; the message was given out as a whole, and some were told off-the-record that it didn't include them, this is another problematic approach. Clearly this is how I became aware of the situation.

gwbas1c 8y ago

I wonder if something else was going on that prompted the mass exodus?

alias_neo 8y ago
There were many things, perks had been removed over night due to new ideas within the finance team, a lot of the team realised they were being grossly underpaid, and finally, those who were close to their colleagues were left without those they could count on in and out of work.
- merlincorey 8y ago
  A tale as old as time[1]. [1] https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-earth-%E2%80%93-soda%E2%80%99s-are-no-longer-free/ https://steveblank.com/2009/12/21/the-elves-leave-middle-ear...
  - alias_neo 8y ago
    Yikes. If that didn't predate my experience, I'd say it was the same one. Insane! Soda one jut one of the many small perks that disappeared when this co got it's new CFO. They stopped all company team building "fun days", "soda" went away entirely, not even cheap, and the office was in the middle of nowhere so no shops to pop out to to get your own.
EpicEng 8y ago
Sounds like there was ("realized... we were being mistreated"), but the impetus to leave was the poor communication on layoffs.

bena 8y ago

They waffled. They wanted to preserve people's feelings by not letting the specific people know. That way, it looks like they're looking at everybody, when really, they wanted to get rid of these six guys. Let me correct. They weren't looking to preserve anyone's feelings. They were looking to preserve people's opinion of them. Because one thing I've found is that anytime someone says they did something "to not hurt someone's feelings", it's not the target's feelings they're worried about, it's their own. They don't want the target to have a negative opinion of them. Because they don't want to be the bad person. Or what they perceive as the bad person. But it leads to treating people like children. Which is disrespectful and causes resentment when things finally come to a head. Be simple. Be honest. Be direct. Be clear. If anyone harbors ill will towards you after that, that's their hangup, not an actual reflection of you.