#325: Always remember, never say never or always
With the rash of layoffs recently, this is a lesson for both leaders and team members
This chart is from September 2021
Hope for the best, and prepare for the worst.
Take a look at this list of companies above. Out of the Top 25 companies in the S&P in September 2001, only seven remained 20 years later. Some have been decimated, like GE, and others have just slipped in the rankings. They may still be viable but no longer the strongest or most prominent.
As a leader, you don’t want to be among the 18 companies that slipped down the rankings or disappeared. What are you doing to maintain your position, grow and change with the market? Are you developing new products and services to continue your growth or pivoting to a new industry or market?
As an employee, there isn’t much you can do other than your job to help the company from falling out of favor. However, just as with these great companies, stuff happens. In the blink of an eye, and beyond your control, you could be out of a job. If that were to happen to you today, as it is with tens of thousands of people throughout the country, how do you handle it?
It’s just business
No matter what your culture is or how strong your team might be, businesses evolve. Neither leaders nor team members should take things personally. Decisions must be made for efficiency, profitability, changing directions, and long-term growth. Leaders can’t demand loyalty if they won’t guarantee it themselves. The only way you, as an employee, can get guarantees is if you continue to offer value.
As leaders, what are you doing to add value to your team? If you can only secure their position if they add value, what value are you looking for in the future, and do they know it?
Team members, it’s up to you to ask for direction and support. If you are interested in staying with the organization you are with today, what direction are they headed? Do you have the skill set to secure a future position?
In John Maxwell’s 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership, he talks about the Law of Process. I have written about it many times, and it’s appropriate to remind you now. If you had lived this law, you would have focused on continuous improvement and professional development. You would have been looking past where you and your company were today and where you wanted to be in the future. What skills do you need to grow in your company or a new and upcoming industry?
For those of you that have invested in learning new skills, networking, or even developing second sources of income, being laid off is just a speed bump on the road to success. As you can see from the list of companies, there are new industries that you can explore and put those skills to work. At the height of its prominence, GE had nearly 400,000 employees, now around 150,000. Those 250,000 people didn’t just disappear. They weren’t all low-wage, unskilled labor. Some were in finance, engineering, R&D, or other high-paying skilled positions.
Where would you go if you were the unfortunate one to be let go because of a turn in the market? What are you prepared for or preparing for? Many of you are managers and leaders in your organizations. What are you doing now to prepare your team for the worst? The value you add to them today will help you both in case of a seismic shift in markets or industries. Wouldn’t you feel better knowing your team was well prepared to work elsewhere when you gave them the bad news?
The only thing worse than training and losing employees is not training them, and they stay. Zig Ziglar
Over my years of coaching, I have heard many managers complain that they are tired of hiring and training people for their competition. I heard Lou Holtz talk about this once. When he was on top of the world at Notre Dame, he lost his top coaches every year to other big schools to become head coaches. A reporter asked him how frustrating this was, always having to replace these key staff members.
Holtz responded that he was the luckiest coach in college. Having his staff constantly being recruited for head coaching positions, every year, he would get 100 resumes from the top coordinators in the country, knowing that working for him could launch them into a head coaching position. He could pick the best of the best.
Whether you are heads or tails, it’s up to you to be prepared for the next flip of the coin. It’s never too late to start on a path of continuous improvement.