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Is there a better alternative way to shoulder responsibility that will not just have the tone "and 10 years in because I made a bad bet and we had some negative

Is there a better alternative way to shoulder responsibility that will not just have the tone "and 10 years in because I made a bad bet and we had some negative growth for the first time I'm excusing myself/being excused from the company. Good luck with the 2nd best choice being thrown in to try and fix it" instead? This of course assuming the upper echelon of management has the majority of their real compensation set via ownership value, performance based bonuses which are now severely minimized, or that kind of typical outcome based thing rather than mostly from direct salary equal to last years (there's not really a reasonable way to take a massive payday for tanking the business for the year to the point you have to fire people. Places that do that are, IMO, severely misaligned as well). It's one thing to empathize with someone that gets let go for no fault of their performance, even if it's because data entry clerks were replaced by electronic records technology rather than an erroneous business strategy bet pinned to a single person, but it's another to actually have an answer which provides a better outcome to the situation and health of the business vs saying there is a best candidate for fall guy which meets some definition of "sounds nicest" and leaving it at that.

kstrauser 2y ago
Interesting points again. But still, the end result was that management executed so poorly, in ways they enumerated, that they had to fire a third of their staff. That’s very often the death knell of a company. Of the remaining 70%, how many want to stick around to see if their turn is next? A lot of the most experienced staff are likely to look for more stable roles, as that’s typically how such things play out. And who’d blame them? Are there other systemic problems that are going to bite the remaining staff in the rear, and will anyone know before it’s too late? Outside severe outside happenings, layoffs are ultimately failures of leadership. I don’t know how many times we let those leaders make the same life-affecting mistakes.
- zamadatix 2y ago
  I agree the end result was not good, I don't really think that's a point of contention to anyone, but this kind of answer still does not even attempt to explain why then immediately firing leadership on that fact alone is supposed to always be the best thing for the remaining employees/company or even a responsible next step. A huge forecasting miss like this is a clear bad mark on leadership's track record but there still needs to be a link to why that means leadership must immediately be let go for the business to do right by the interest of all employees. If the business has already received a likely death knell then it's only that much more important to understand what the best choice for the business is instead of a purely reactionary choice. Whether leaders make life affecting mistakes is a red herring. As immediately appealing as it sounds to say "we only ever let management that haven't had to do a layoff before run the company!" it really makes no sense when you think deeply about it. Even the greatest CEOs may have to do a layoff in their careers so you're not preventing layoffs at your company by perfect selection. Even decent CEOs that just play it safe can cause more life-affecting impact by not hiring people out of an overabundance of caution (impact not only in those not hired but those at the company who missed out on a lot of growth/the business falling behind competition willing to take reasonable amounts of growth risk). Even some of the crappiest CEOs may not need to do a layoff multiple years in to stagnating the business and letting employees naturally attrition so you're not guaranteeing this selects and rewards only good management options. When you look at upper management and whether they should be replaced the only real consideration is "do I think someone else can deliver more to the business in the next x years". If you've had to lay off people 3 times in the last 10 years but you don't think there is anyone else that could handle that goal better then you let those leaders make the mistakes 3 times because it's the best option for everyone. If you've never had to lay anyone off you still might think it's worth replacing the leader anyways, again because it's the best option for everyone. Nowhere does a connection with firing leadership because it sounds like the most self caused reason to get rid of someone with a layoff actually help employees. Well, with current proposed reasonings at least. It's perfectly possible there are other reasons not listed that I haven't considered yet.

kstrauser 2y ago

Interesting points again. But still, the end result was that management executed so poorly, in ways they enumerated, that they had to fire a third of their staff. That’s very often the death knell of a company. Of the remaining 70%, how many want to stick around to see if their turn is next? A lot of the most experienced staff are likely to look for more stable roles, as that’s typically how such things play out. And who’d blame them? Are there other systemic problems that are going to bite the remaining staff in the rear, and will anyone know before it’s too late? Outside severe outside happenings, layoffs are ultimately failures of leadership. I don’t know how many times we let those leaders make the same life-affecting mistakes.

zamadatix 2y ago
I agree the end result was not good, I don't really think that's a point of contention to anyone, but this kind of answer still does not even attempt to explain why then immediately firing leadership on that fact alone is supposed to always be the best thing for the remaining employees/company or even a responsible next step. A huge forecasting miss like this is a clear bad mark on leadership's track record but there still needs to be a link to why that means leadership must immediately be let go for the business to do right by the interest of all employees. If the business has already received a likely death knell then it's only that much more important to understand what the best choice for the business is instead of a purely reactionary choice. Whether leaders make life affecting mistakes is a red herring. As immediately appealing as it sounds to say "we only ever let management that haven't had to do a layoff before run the company!" it really makes no sense when you think deeply about it. Even the greatest CEOs may have to do a layoff in their careers so you're not preventing layoffs at your company by perfect selection. Even decent CEOs that just play it safe can cause more life-affecting impact by not hiring people out of an overabundance of caution (impact not only in those not hired but those at the company who missed out on a lot of growth/the business falling behind competition willing to take reasonable amounts of growth risk). Even some of the crappiest CEOs may not need to do a layoff multiple years in to stagnating the business and letting employees naturally attrition so you're not guaranteeing this selects and rewards only good management options. When you look at upper management and whether they should be replaced the only real consideration is "do I think someone else can deliver more to the business in the next x years". If you've had to lay off people 3 times in the last 10 years but you don't think there is anyone else that could handle that goal better then you let those leaders make the mistakes 3 times because it's the best option for everyone. If you've never had to lay anyone off you still might think it's worth replacing the leader anyways, again because it's the best option for everyone. Nowhere does a connection with firing leadership because it sounds like the most self caused reason to get rid of someone with a layoff actually help employees. Well, with current proposed reasonings at least. It's perfectly possible there are other reasons not listed that I haven't considered yet.