In the 1990s, “downsizing” became a popular catch phrase.
When executives announced they were downsizing their organization, 当投资者庆祝这些“臃肿”的组织减少了“不必要的员工”时，他们公司的股价会飙升.”
Rightsizing, de-layering, business re-engineering, 精简组织，这些是当前和政治上正确的一些做法, 正如一些人所争论的那样，这是传统商业实践中通过裁员来提高利润的术语. With decades of experience in dealing with changing economic conditions, 缩小规模成为一种条件反射，目的是“适当规模”公司以保持财务业绩, investor confidence and share price.
The executives never take responsibility for the situation. External market factors, the previous management, or some force out of their control are standard excuses.
至少有一次，你难道不想听到一位高管说:“推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜真的做错了. We made a lot of mistakes in our assumptions about the business and markets, and unfortunately our people are going to have to pay for our mistakes.”
Regardless of the cause, 高管们用裁员或裁员之类的术语来贬低裁员的人性化. When talking to other CEOs, 他们说，“这很困难”，但“推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜过得更好”，因为推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜能够“摆脱一些性能问题”.”
你很少听到有人同情地谈论那些被解雇的个人和家庭成员的生活受到的影响，因为他们的自我价值受到了损害，收入也大幅减少! 他们很少考虑对那些留在组织中目睹与他们一起工作的人的破坏和待遇的人的影响.
在2009年的经济衰退期间，Barry-Wehmiller被迫考虑裁员.
At our January Board Meeting, several Directors asked “Don’t you need to lay off people?” At that point, 推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的执行团队认为，推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜积压的订单和前景是合理的，足以让推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜度过这个挑战，而不会影响到推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的员工. However, within days customers began calling to cancel orders. When the phones stopped ringing, we faced a 40% drop in new equipment orders. Suddenly we found ourselves facing the challenges we thought we could avoid.
To preserve financial performance, 推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的高管们准备像往常一样做出反应:办公室和工厂的团队成员裁员，新订单大幅下降. But something had changed in our organization along the way.
In 2002, a group of team members had gathered to create our vision of leadership, our Guiding Principles of Leadership. 推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜阐述了一个简单的衡量成功的标准:“推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜衡量成功的标准是推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜对人们生活的影响.”
This vision created a ‘true north’ for the organization that did not exist before. 这种“真正的北方”使推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜能够以一种不同的责任感面对经济危机，对推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜所照顾的生命负责.
当失去订单的影响开始袭来时，我独自一人在欧洲出差. 我立即花了一些时间思考如何在推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的视野中最好地应对这场危机. New thinking emerged. I asked myself, “What would a caring family do when faced with a crisis?”
我很容易就找到了答案:家庭成员都要承受一点痛苦，这样就没有人会经历巨大的损失.
我向推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的管理团队提出挑战，要求他们通过共同牺牲来确定度过危机的方法. We would not simply lay off manufacturing team members, as was the traditional practice; every team member throughout the organization would share the burden.
最终，推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜决定让每个团队成员休4周无薪假. We also suspended executive bonuses and 401K match.
To further assert our commitment to living our Guiding Principles, 推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜继续投资于推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的领导力发展和持续改进计划. 推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜鼓励团队成员利用空闲时间到推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的企业大学上课. We used gaps in the production schedules to accomplish major improvement events. We continued our signature recognition events, 团队成员找到了创造性的方法，让他们在不花很多钱庆祝的情况下变得有意义.
Because our executive team had clarity about what we believed in and how to act, implementation throughout our global organization was simple. Within 10 days the furlough plan was rolled out company-wide.
The reaction was astounding–far better than we anticipated. The furlough plan revealed that we cared deeply about our team members. 他们感到一种压倒性的解脱感，因为他们可以依靠自己的工作和收入. Furthermore, they were happy to offer up four weeks of income, 知道这样做不是为了让公司更赚钱，而是为了防止其他人失业!
Team members took the furlough when it was most valuable. Some relished being off in the summer with their school-age children; others used it to perform volunteer work. 一些团队成员挺身而出，“花时间”帮助那些经济状况紧张、无法承受失去四周工资的同事. 不过，还有一些人需要哄骗才能抽出时间，他们只是更喜欢在没有报酬的时间里工作.
9个月后，推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜看到推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的业务远远领先于更广泛的经济复苏. In fact, our fiscal year 2010 was a record year in earnings! So we again asked how to respond in alignment with our beliefs. We decided to not only reinstate the 401K match, 但增加它作为一种方式来表达推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的感谢和回报团队成员的牺牲.
Looking back, 很明显，推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的共同愿景和对“通过推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜对人们生活的影响”来衡量成功的坚定承诺，为推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜提供了一个“内部指南针”，去寻找超越传统商业规范的解决方案. 推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜认识到，推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜触及员工生活的最根本方式是保障他们在推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜这里的就业. 真正致力于“真正以人为本的领导力”意味着设计一种能为推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜组织中的每个人提供可持续成功的业务.
当裁员发生时，人才和士气的流失对企业文化的影响可能是毁灭性的. Our experience was just the opposite.
尽管推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜以推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的指导原则为中心的领导之旅已经持续了七年多, many team members still weren’t convinced of our sincerity. 在这个艰难的时期，“言出必行”更坚定了推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的信念，加强了推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜的文化，这是推荐全球十大博彩公司排行榜无法通过挂在墙上的框架使命宣言来表达或宣布的.
How do you walk your talk?