Recently a friend of mine’s role was made redundant, in fact the whole project was shelved and she was given 2 week’s notice.

 

My friend is very well versed in the ways of organisational restructuring, change management and people engagement and her comment to me was:

 

“It was done so badly”

 

I saw my chance to explore her statement and elicit her view so I asked her “what are the 3 big things that were done badly?”.

 

Here is her explanation:

 

  1. We were asked to do work which raised our concerns and tweaked our radar.  Work such as ‘summarise all the work that you’ve done to date’, ‘document the processes you follow in detail and send me a copy’ etc., which led us team members to believe something was up but there was no related communication nor clarity – it was all ‘secret squirrel business’.

 

  1. We were treated as though our feelings did not matter and had no place in the company’s decisions. Management were already starting to avoid us.

 

  1. The news was finally delivered to us, at the last minute as an aside during a regular team meeting, playing it down, as if it wasn’t that important. We found this disrespectful and amateur like. The manager did not take up the Leadership challenge.

 

My friend, in retrospect, could see the plans to close the project down were months in the making.  It wasn’t a core business project and my friend is mature enough to understand how a business works and sensible enough to understand the rationale, but the business and the team manager lost an opportunity to separate from the team in a way that built bridges and continues to engage them. Rather they chose a path that disengaged the team members and left everyone with a sour taste.

 

Every day we all have ‘ Leadership moments of truth’ which require us to step up, even if it feels difficult or uncomfortable.  It’s an opportunity for an invitation to demonstrate we are a leader, not just a manager.  Don’t let these moments pass you by, these define you to your team, your organisation and especially to yourself.

 

For more information on how Career Life Transitions can assist your organisation contact us on info@careerlife.net.au or (08) 6336 8620.