X-ecutive

D-day

I had recently returned from a successful fixturing trip to Taiwan and China. While there, I learned that the world (inside our corporate organization) was quaking again. My boss, the President had decided to "Leave the organization to pursue other interests". This is a well know and time honored phrase used when an executive is replaced for almost any reason. It is a little unnerving to be on the other side of the world when things begin to quake. The rest of the trip though was uneventful. Upon returning, I learned that the Chairman had assumed the president's position and that he intended to be more active in the daily operations of the business. This was potentially a good thing excepting it came at a time when the company had been struggling to make earnings, maintain marketshare, and redefine itself to continue to be the market leader in a mature and declining industry.

I had survived though 6 previous administration shake ups over the years as we had developed the company, but each previous time I had been in the field building and operating one part of the company or another. I knew that a risk of coming into corporate was that as you get closer to the top you are more vulnerable as things of this nature occur. In hindsight it should have been more obvious what was about to occur.

It was November, the beginning of the culling season. For most people, November is the beginning of the holidays. Inside the workings of a corporation there is no holiday reprieve. The machine doesn't take a break. While the employees are preparing the holiday festivities, the corporation is trying to make sense of next years financial hurdles and deciding what must be done to make earnings. This is especially true in a "public" company. Each year of the five I was inside the corporation headquarters, there was this culling period. It began in about mid or late November and generally lasted through about March. I refer to it as culling although it had no official title. It was a period after budgeting where once the realization that the strategic plans that have been enacted for the year will not make the next years financial objective, the corporation decides it is going to become more efficient. In an organization that is in a declining industry and is the market leader, without significant diversification, having repeatedly already cut human capital for efficiencies sake, the culling can get dicey. This year the culling started early and started at the top. The President was the tip of the iceberg.

Now, something to note here, while our organization is a pure pay for performance company, it is also in a right to work state, and the contracts that executives sign are a double edge sword. They provide a parachute if a release should come without cause but they also allow a release at any time for any reason. The favorite tactic is the "elimination of position". This is a convenient way to cut cost and make changes that is totally impersonal and requires no performance test. When the culling starts it is not always the weak who are cut, it is also those who are nonessential to the new strategic direction of the company. Yes, I know, we all like to think of ourselves as essential but by the very nature of being a high performer, which I was nearly always rated, you become nonessential. A high performer is always looking at succession planning, making sure that if someone in the team were to leave they could be replaced without significant disruption to the organization. This was important for advancement as well, and really just a course of business in developing people. I always took pride in knowing that I had developed someone who could carry on after me. While in casual conversation I had even made light comments that we are all dispensable, I was oblivious that indeed this was the course of the future for myself.

I was in my office preparing for a planned meeting. A few moments before the meeting time, I received a call that said the meeting location had been changed so I headed off to the new location. It was a classic setting, as I walked in, there was the head of Human Resources and another executive. I was asked to sit down. In short order I was told that as a part of "streamlining the organization, my position was being eliminated". Over the years I had herd the phrase many times but it was always directed at others. I was generally the executive with HR rather than the receiving employee. Stunned, I sat dumbfounded. The HR president said "well, it is obvious that you weren't expecting this, are you okay?" Hell no, at that moment I was not okay, I was gasping for air, what had become my lives work for the past sixteen years? It had in an instance been ripped away, torn up, obliterated. I was not okay! I herd him drone on about we are offering you your contracted severance package...yada....yada....yada. I guess there is really no good way to do this type of thing but after sixteen years you would like to think of a parting with some recognition for service and the fact that you had built this organization that was now being taken away. I didn't say any of this though because something inside me was happening. It was strange, I think I went through all the emotions of dealing with the immediate issue of being released in about 3 minutes. Even before the HR speech was finished. I simply said, "well it's been nice working with you", and got up and left. My office was packed for me and sent to the house. That was it. My entire professional life building this muti-national retailer, gone. Over the next couple of days I learned that indeed it was not personal, it had cut through the executive ranks like a knife. Not only the President and myself, but the COO, several other Senior Vice Presidents, and many lower employees were already a part of this season's culling. Happy holidays! It is March now and inside the organization the culling season is still not over. My replacement, a good friend and very capable individual, is dealing with this annual belt tightening now. It is the deepest ever. But as always, the corporation will go on. The structure is already almost unrecognizable from what it had been last fall but hey, that's progress, right? Time will tell. The stock is at a a near all time low, hm..hm.

So that is it, that was the "event". It really did change my life. I don't want to dwell on the tragedy of loss because frankly on my part there was none. It is all a matter of perspective. I know a lot of people go through some difficult time when something like this happens but for me, after the initial jolt, it was like waking up out of a long drugged coma.

posted by Unknown @ 11:18 AM