slight tangent here: I did some research into the lead consultant driving the change and his prior work; I was fortunate enough to have one of my contacts set me up by myself in a room at his company (HP) to see a speech that this consultant gave to an internal conference at HP. In it he laid out the steps they used to re-make IT at Delta Airlines. It was evident we were on that same path between steps 1 and 2 of 5 phases.
Everyone knew that a re-org was taking place and that it would likely lead to layoffs or to work moving from NY to Texas. I was no longer privy to the decision-making process though it was easy enough to anticipate the upcoming steps. There was a tremendous amount of distress in the work force and part of my role ended up being to help people think about it and how to handle things.
So, why was it an unethical re-organization? you ask. A few reasons:
- I believe they deliberately minimized communications during the process rather than increasing them. This led to a lot of people acquiring new jobs just in case they were affected...probably 150 people left voluntarily who might have required severance. It was so bad that paid recruiters were eating lunch in the cafeteria with teams raiding the talent.
- they brought in a new CIO to implement the master plan...who had done it before for the lead consultant...who went on to do it again in the future. Though he was deceptively introduced as an employee, I believe he was in effect a consultant.
- it was done without regard to the dependence of the various business departments on IT. As they drove people out of the organization, the ability to support or improve the many systems naturally deteriorated. The costs of hiring temporary consultants to fill the gaps were passed on to the business units....and they had no idea it was coming nor had they budgeted for it. At one point (perhaps in response to one of my less-than-tactful questions about this), the sham CIO scornfully said - "what can they do about it? they are a captive audience"
- and finally, to the lie you mentioned. Part of the poor communications strategy was to have the lower level managers aware of what was coming before it was announced (which the workforce quickly found out). These less-experienced managers were told that if info leaked, they would be fired immediately without severance. However, they were not given any guidance about how to respond as they were constantly asked questions by the concerned staff. My replacement basically locked himself in his office (which had a glass window) and outrightly lied to people when questioned. By the time all of it was implemented, he had no credibility with the team he still had to manage.
From watching all of this and coaching very upset people, I recommend never to lie to your staff....say "you know I can't comment on that" if necessary. Sometimes, that will reveal information but it is far better than losing the trust of the staff forever." --Lee, 1/8/23 email |