You are laying people off because the company failed to hit its plan. If individual performance were the only issue, then you’d be taking a different measure. Company performance failed. This distinction is critical, because the message to the company and the laid-off individuals should not be “This is great, we are cleaning up performance.” The message must be “The company failed and in order to move forward, we will have to lose some excellent people.” Admitting to the failure may not seem like a big deal, but trust me, it is. “Trust me.” That’s what a CEO says every day to her employees.
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