LONDON -- No one likes to be the barer of bad news. But that's no excuse for the consistently horrible way that redundancies are communicated.

A reduction in force...

Corporate synergies...

A big restructuring...

Rationalisation...

Inefficiencies...

"You have a new text message..."

There are many ways of doing it. Most of them are poor. And the end result is some pretty serious symptoms:

LOSS OF TRUST

People feel they have been misled. You don't have to be affected directly by layoffs to feel the pain. "Has the deal changed?" Uncertainty breads fear. "How come no one is talking about this?" Things happen in whispers. And when the whispers start, they're not about good things.

DISILLUSIONMENT

People stop recognising the business they joined, and start becoming suspicious of it. "This isn't the same anymore." And people don't feel that they have changed... So it must be the business.

BREAKDOWN OF BUSINESS CONTINUITY

People stop doing the little things they need to do to keep the business going. "No one really cares if I do this." The need for any discretionary effort disappears. "They sack people at random here anyway." A slow decline of effort... and productivity.

         ***

So... That's where communications comes in. You can have the most amazingly executed merger, or acquisition, or divestiture, or lay-offs and no one will ever know. Because it's not the systems and processes that make successful businesses. It's not immaculate execution or flawless operations. It's people.

Here's how we make it work. (And we do make it work fairly painlessly for businesses that want to keep it together.)

CONTEXT

Tell employees that they and the business have changed. There is a reason for this change. It is rational, understandable, and eventually quite acceptable. It is not a secret.

CONCLUSION

There is an objective hidden in here. There's something people can see and understand. It's not about simply heading out into the dark. (And it's not about: executive bonuses, payback, boardroom testosterone, the influence of evil consultants, analysts tantrums, weak leaders, broken promises, or making *your* life hard.)

THINGS YOU CAN DO

It doesn't just happen to you or around you.  It happens with you.  Here are things that you can do to help, ways in which this will affect you, etc.  Get involved.

***

Every now and then, in moments of great sobriety and rectitude, I get asked what exactly management consultants are good for anyway.  And this is a good case for an answer.  When a company does something that it hasn't done before: a merger, a restructure, an acquisition, or a downsizing, then consultants are invaluable.  In changes that affect people, we can save you an absolute fortune in lost productivity, by doing it right the first time.

/df