Rightsizing, Downsizing, Capsizing

After the bloodletting – now what?

Business shrinking?  Contracts diminishing? If you’re rightsizing or downsizing your company in this economy, make sure you don’t stop with the job half done.

You obviously have to do what the finance person or the Excel spreadsheet tells you.  Nobody can run a business at a loss, and if it’s time to cut, you have to cut.  But the team you’re left with afterwards will be a different team, containing all your best and least-losable people, on who you are now totally dependent for your livelihood.  Yet this team will have just sustained one of the most difficult things that can happen to people at work, and if you aren’t careful, they will be easy pickings for competitors.

It’s absolutely essential that your cuts save enough budget to spend on re-forming and recovery for the team of people you are keeping after the changes.  Set aside about $1500 a head for a team of ten or more.  Then, once the changes are made, get help from someone you trust to re-form new team strategies and spirit.  It’s not enough, by the way, just to do a class, go teambuilding, hire a consultant or have a party.  Strategy is key.

In this economy, competitors will be on the lookout for your most talented people who feel alienated or unsettled after a change and are willing to look at a new job.  Smart business who downsize and rightsize will know that the task is not finished – not nearly finished – until they have made a real investment in re-forming and re-aligning what is, in fact, a brand new work team. Anything else is like putting chum in the water.

If you are downsizing or rightsizing your company, give me a call on 202 257 5593.  We aren’t consultants, so all advice is free.

About John Kolm

Team Results USA's CEO John Kolm is an innovator of 21st century team productivity programs, a best-selling author, and a former intelligence officer. Originally from Australia, John formed Team Results in 1996 with retired business partner and decorated veteran Peter Ring as the end result of an experiment that began in 1993. Driven by frustration with the team development options then available to business and government, and with encouragement from early clients, they applied their academic training and practical leadership experience to build the unique approach to team productivity improvement that eventually became Team Results. The company grew rapidly, expanded to a wholly US-owned branch in the United States in 2005, and now operates as a very successful business in both hemispheres. In 2004 John and Peter wrote the global bestseller “Crocodile Charlie and the Holy Grail” (Penguin, available on Amazon.com), consolidating ten years of work with peak clients into a compelling story about team productivity, leadership in business and government, and happiness at work. The book has been re-published in seven languages and fourteen countries, and a sequel is in the works. John is also the author of numerous articles and papers on team dynamics in the modern workplace, some of which can be found in the News Room at www.teamresultsusa.com . John is qualified in Psychology from the University of Melbourne, and in mathematics and statistics from the U.S. National Cryptologic School, where he also taught on the faculty. Email him at John.kolm@teamresultsusa.com .

View all posts by John Kolm