It’s never the staff of an organization that’s at fault, typically the leadership. I’ll give a few examples:
- Sun Tzu & Emperor Wu – For those who have read the story, the leadership of the troops to be led by Wu’s concubines is all that changed. The troops remained the same.
- Kenya Airways – Rose to be one of the most profitable companies in East Africa with basically the same employees. Leadership changed.
- Safaricom – It was initially a department in Telkom Kenya. Leadership!
- Apple – The nearly bankrupt organization never laid off all its employees, merely changed the structure.
I believe an approach which begins with getting rid of staff isn’t only myopic but also shows a fundamental inability to inspire / work with diverse people:
- Were any of the employees incompetent?
- Were any of the employees too expensive? (e.g. Were they being paid more than they were generating?)
- Was there gross misconduct on the part of the employees?
If this is not the case then firing the employee effectively makes the organization “toxic”. How?
- Talented individuals will avoid it because it’s evidently & openly a caustic environment.
- Only people who have no alternative will work there given that management has no consideration for tenure.
- Organizational culture / information/know how is lost… You can’t document relationships (relationships with suppliers, customers etc).
Such moves, in my opinion do more harm than good to organizational culture.
The Kenya Airways matter is still in court, right?I wonder how it will end.