Healing the Wounds: Overcoming the Trauma of Layoffs and Revitalizing Downsized Organizations

10.5. From Toxic Fidelity to Healthy Self-Responsibility

As part of a significant across-the-board multidivisional layoff, an organization was seeking to lay off one thousand people, primarily professionals and middle managers. The organization was in turmoil, the first stages of layoff survivor sickness had set in, and the members of the top management team were desperately seeking a galvanizing vision to hold onto while the organization as they had known it was disintegrating. In the middle of this chaos, the director of marketing resigned. At the top management meeting to work on the vision, the dinner conversation turned into a group lamentation over the loss of such a key player. It was true that the marketing director was considered a ...