Big Change, Part II: Expanding the Executive Team

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Four weary senior executives came home from their 2-day “huddle” with a decision to close a regional office and eliminate 11 jobs in their company – the only solution they could find to solve the problems identified by a recent financial audit. The decision to decision to “outsource” the company’s marketing and communications responsibilities was daunting on several fronts.

“It’s worse than just restructuring,” Matthew, the CEO, said. “We will be losing people who are good people, good workers, good talent. It’s sad, and we will have to learn how to manage contracted firms to get the work done. It will be cheaper, but I wish we didn’t have to take this road.”

All 4 executive decision-makers were apprehensive about how to bring the company’s other 7 managers on board with their plan. One of those managers would lose all 11 of the staff members, but all of them would face changes in their job responsibilities. And all of them would feel bad about bringing this kind of news to a team that had worked together for many years.

What pattern of conversations is going to have everyone move forward? The newly defined “Executive Team” went to work (with a bit of facilitation assistance).

  • Closure conversation: A summary of the financial audit was presented to give everyone the facts of the situation. There was very little discussion about this, as they all knew that expenses had been greater than revenue for quite a while.
  • Initiative conversation: Matthew announced the decision to close the Dayton office, eliminate the jobs of 11 marketing and communication personnel, and bring in a private firm specializing in those functions. There was silence for a bit, then questions, then a break for lunch. Not everyone was interested in eating.
  • Understanding conversation: How can we make this announcement about the office closing, tell staff they’re being laid off, support new employment opportunities for 11 people, solicit bids for marketing firms to take over the necessary functions, terminate the employees, and bring on a new firm? The discussion took all afternoon and the next morning. It produced a list of tasks, results, and timelines for what was needed over the next 6 months.
  • Performance conversation: Who will do what, and when? Each task needed an owner or “point person” as well as a partner or two on the Executive Team. This increased the “reality factor”, as one participant said, and the specifics about each task, result, and timeline were adjusted accordingly.
  • Closure conversation: We have decided what to do. We will keep this confidential until we make the announcement to the staff in Dayton and the other staff being terminated. We each have our own tasks and timelines, and we will have Executive Team meetings once a week to stay on the same page and update our progress.

The Operations executive noticed something as everyone was packing their briefcases to leave for the day. “You know,” he said, “I have been so focused on the logistics of this change that I forgot to invite one person to attend these meetings. I didn’t ask the HR person to be here. I’ll bring her on board tomorrow when we’re back in the office.”

Uh oh. More on that later.