Okay, y'all, we are back for week two of our radically simple series where I am tackling your guys's biggest challenges and giving you super simple solutions that you can go start implementing on tomorrow. And today we are talking about a doozy and that is downsizing. So, leading through downsizing, whether that be through.
playoffs, whether that be through a merger, maybe you've had a bunch of open roles and now we're in a hiring freeze. Maybe you've had a bunch of attrition that's happened, whatever it may be. You have a team that has less people. Then you once needed to do all of the work. So how the heck do you manage it moving forward?
And now here's what I want to say downsizing is a Super loaded conversation for many reasons and if I try to tackle all of them, let's be honest I'm a talker and we would be here all day So I am going to be focusing on Specifically from the angle of managing the workload today. But I want to say, there's a lot of different elements that go into this, about how to improve how you're executing the work, improving efficiency of your team, and most importantly, change.
management. We cannot talk about this without acknowledging the fact that whenever there's some sort of downsizing on your team, the state of your team is now significantly impacted. The trust has plummeted and the anxiety has skyrocketed, which means your team Has every single day they come into work, their focus is gone.
They're super distracted and they're fearing for their jobs, their livelihood. No matter how, much trust and confidence that you have built as a leader, that confidence and trust has gone down. I always like to talk about trust in this concept of a trust battery. So like if you just meet a person, At a, 50 percent trust battery.
So it's 50 percent charged and every interaction you have with that person, that trust battery goes up or down. And whenever there's something like a downsizing or a layoff or things like that, automatically the trust battery of everyone on your team goes down. It doesn't matter if you had nothing to do with it.
It's just that they don't trust the company as a whole anymore. And honestly, rightfully so. So we have to do the work as leaders, even if, we had nothing to do with the downsizing to rebuild that trust battery. So we just have to acknowledge that going into this, that the change management, is going to be crucial throughout this period.
And if you guys want me to do a whole nother episode on that one, you know. Head on over to Instagram, DM me, and I can definitely do that. Now, the second thing I have to do before getting into this episode is just give a big, warm virtual hug to any and everyone who has been impacted by layoffs happening right now.
We've had quite a few, rolling out. You know, I, started a large part of my career over at Southwest Airlines and many of friends and co workers. Were impacted with a big layoff there, and I know that that is far from the only one. So sending all the positive vibes for anyone who's been impacted by a layoff recently.
So with that being said, let's dive in and start talking about how do we as leaders, when we have been put in the situation where, you know, our team has been downsized in some way, shape, or form. And now we have all of this work on our plates, but we don't have the same amount of resourcing. So the first thing we need to understand is that as your team grows, over time, we are constantly adding to our team.
So if we went back and just said, like, let's say you have a, sales function. So at some point. Depending on how big your company is, it might've been a long time ago, we decided that our company needed a sales function. And on that day, it was probably like a team of one. And we said, this is what that, function is going to do.
They're just here to, convert people into sales and that's your job, go for it. And so they do it, right? And then as the company grows, expands, we get more customers, you know, we grow that sales team. Okay. It's not enough for one person to be doing this job.
And so we grow it, we add more work, we add more people, therefore we add more processes. We might add some systems and then it grows. And then next thing you know, okay, well like we're not just doing the basic sales functions anymore. We're starting to push the edge on what we can do in sales, you know, we're, starting to like segment out different, Types of businesses that we're selling to, where consumers we're selling to, you know, we're starting to get fancy with things.
And so we grow the sales team even more. We add more work. We add more systems, more fancy tools. Now we have, you know, multiple layers of leadership in there. We have all these different people who work in different ways, so we're adding more processes, more systems to bring them together, you know, and then we continue to grow and now we're like, Oh, we want to be like the innovator in sales.
We want to be leading edge in the industry, so we're adding even more. We're pushing even more. And so the point I want you guys to see is that as your team has existed, and for some of you guys, you have inherited a team that there has been many, many leaders who have come before you. And over that time, we've continuously added things to this team.
Added work, added roles, added management, added systems, added processes. And when We downsize the team, we actually have to backtrack on that path I just took you through and now we have to subtract. And I think that this is the biggest thing people don't consider when a downsizing happens.
We are that innovative sales team, but now we used to have, 50 people and now we have 30. What the heck are we gonna do? We got to do all this work. With 30 people. We got to make it happen. People need to work harder. No. When you downsize your strategy, the work that you're doing, All of that has to downsize with you.
So we have to intentionally move throughout that, timeline I gave you and start backtracking down and saying all of this stuff that we have added over time, where do we now need to subtract? Subtract the processes that no longer serve us. Subtract the systems, you know, the seven tools that, are no longer serving us.
Subtract down the impact that we're trying to make. Subtract down the work that we're having to do. We have to go through that process.
And now I can hear some of y'all. I can hear you. I can hear you right now. You're saying that sounds great, Holly, but I've already told, the team that we're not going to be able to get all of this work done. And they gave me everyone's favorite statement.
We just need to do more with less, like make it work. I'm going to let you in on a little secret. So, exec And senior leaders are, whenever you say the words, we're too busy, they've become desensitized to those words. They are allergic to the words, we're too busy. We don't have enough people because they've heard them 5 million times every single day.
And I'm not saying that you aren't understaffed, you very well could be, but I have worked with. A crap ton of teams across a lot of different functions.
There has never been a single team who has been like, Yep, we're adequately staffed. Like, not a single team who has said, Yep, we won't take any more people. We're good. Never. And that is because the work is always coming. There's always more we could do. There's always more we could add to our plate.
There's always, you know, we can make our function more innovative, more strategic, whatever it could be. There's always more. And so we're always like, we just need to add more people. But what we never stop to consider is how could we actually subtract some things off our team's plate before adding.
And that is the thing that those higher levels of leadership are looking at. Everyone's telling me that they need more people, that there's not enough, but no one's done the work to actually say, where can we strategically stop some things? Where could we make things easier to do? You know, where could we do some process improvement?
Where is there administrative work that's been building up? Where are we producing deliverables that aren't making the same type of impact? What they care about is that we are delivering the same level of value. And if we deliver that same level of value by stripping out things that no longer need to be there, then great.
But we cannot deliver the same amount of value that we used to with less people. If we just try to stretch those people across the same amount of work, because that is a recipe for burnout, that's a recipe for increased errors, decreased quality. So. Us doing less is great, but we need to get clear on what less is, and that is where can we decrease the tangible tasks, the steps it takes to do those, that kind of stuff while still producing a similar level of value, a similar output.
Let's get into how we do that. So the first thing whenever there's any sort of downsizing. We always, always, always reconsider our strategy. Whenever there's any major shift in direction, change up, whatever it may be, we always start by reconsidering our strategy. There's a specific element in our strategy that we're going to look at, and that is your team's unique purpose.
Especially in downsizing, we have to go back to the core, which is, who do we exist to serve? And what can only we do for them? What is the biggest problem that only we can solve for them? Because it's likely that we have expanded our scope and how we serve these individuals over time. Because remember that timeline I walked you through.
And now that we have less people, we now need to reconsider that scope. So for example, let's say you're a customer service team. Your core function is to serve the customers. So what we're going to do is resolve their issues. So they come to you with a problem. We exist to resolve their issues.
If we suddenly said, we're not picking up the phones, we're not going to answer your problems. There's going to be a massive gap. That is the solution that only we can provide. Now over time, over that timeline, maybe we started also, upselling. Upselling became a big part of our, function.
Great! And then, you know, we started doing, really targeted, personalized customer service. So, you know, depending on what, you know, level of spend or level, of customer you were, you got different specialized customer service. Maybe we started doing loyalty programs, maybe we started doing like surprise and delight moments, but do you see how our value, our unique purpose has expanded, but how can we stop and say, okay, what is truly necessary?
What is truly the one thing that only our team can do? Because here's the thing, like I said, when we spread our team across all these different things, they suffer. We can't do all of these things well. So you can do, you know, resolving customer issues, upselling, loyalty, surprise and delight, and personalization, but you're gonna do them all, like, half quality.
So is that really effective? Is that really producing the level of value that your team needs. No, because a lot of people, your consumers, would rather have their issues solved fast and right the first time than having a surprise and delight moment. That's like an above and beyond. A lot of them would rather have.
You know, those core issues solved, like let's look at it from the business perspective. I would rather you solve those core issues. So we can keep the customers we have and get those positive testimonials to bring in new customers than you upselling because you trying to focus on upselling and resolving customer issues are as probably going to negative impact my bottom line more than if you just focused on resolving issues.
Do you see how It's great if we can expand our team's unique purpose when we have more people because we've moved through that growth timeline. But now that we have less people, we have to backtrack through that growth timeline and really get at what is the core that our team exists to do.
Down the road, as we simplify how we work, we can totally talk about adding those things back. But right now we need to say, what is the critical core that our team exists to serve? And we need to protect that at all costs. Because once we start letting that, the quality there fall, the errors start to rise, the burnouts start to creep in, our critical core.
here is what's at stake. And all the other things we've added, those are just nice to have. Our critical core is the must. That is the one thing that we have to continue to do well.
A good way to think about this is glass balls versus rubber balls. So I use this in like everyday life, whenever, We have a lot on our plates. Think about what is a glass ball, meaning if I dropped that ball, it would break. Versus what is a rubber ball, meaning if I dropped it, it would bounce back.
If a customer comes to you with an issue, and it is handled horrifically, that's a glass ball. Because that, when dropped, we have just lost their loyalty as a customer. Think about the amount of times where you have had a negative customer experience and you're like, I'm never dealing with that company again.
Versus there are companies that I have had such good customer experiences with that. I'm a customer for life just because of that one call and how quickly you handled that and made my life so much easier. There's so much impact in that. So that's a glass ball. Now upselling, that's a rubber ball.
It's a nice to have. It can definitely help, but it's a rubber ball. It can bounce back, um, loyalty programs and like different tiers. That's a rubber ball. It's a nice to have. It's great if we can have this specialized service. But at the end of the day, they all just want service. So if we have to temporarily pause that, but we're still providing, you know, these great solutions.
Cool. We still have a solid chance of maintaining them. Surprise and delight moments. That's a rubber ball. Great to have, but not critical. The hardest part here is that we become so attached to these things that we like to think everything is a, glass ball because we'd love to have it like just equating this to how I use this in my everyday life like my two kiddos I try and feed them the best that I possibly can but on weeks when things are chaotic and getting a Beautifully home cooked meal on the table just isn't a reality.
I am A okay with pulling out a box of Velveeta mac and cheese and that is dinner because guess what? What's most important is that my kids are fed, they are loved on, they have a roof over their heads. That's what's most important. Those are my glass balls. Them having one night of Velveeta mac and cheese.
We're going to bounce back,
but it's hard for us to get out of that because we feel guilty. We feel like we have to do this. That we're less than if we don't, you are not less than by no longer doing those surprise and delights. I want you to think about it as we are protecting that core.
The one thing that only we can do. I'm making sure that it gets done to the best of our abilities. And that's the best way we can serve our customers. We know that we are the only people who can do this. And so we are protecting that at all costs. And that's a positive is preventing those errors, the poor quality, the burnout happening at the core.
So the second thing that we need to do whenever there's a downsize is now that we've reconsidered our team's unique purpose, their strategy for the time being, we actually need to stop work. So the thing I like to say is that if we have 10 people to do a job, we're going to make the work take 10 people.
We're not just going to be like. Guys, I think we can actually get this done with eight. You guys just chill out. We're good here. No, if we have 10 people, we're going to make the work take 10 people. And so what we have to do is go through and say, now that we have this refocus strategy, we brought it back to the core.
What can we actually stop or pause here? Now here's where we can get ourselves into trouble. we have to remember that our team has incredibly low trust right now. So you know me, I'm all about with them, not to them, bringing our team into the solution. This is a scenario where any time we've had a layoff or something like that, and we start asking people.
What are you doing? What's the work? Tell me about it. Let's lay it out. Let's talk about where we can stop. Red freaking alarms are going off in their head. Why do you want to know what I'm doing? like, I'm definitely sure as heck not telling you that there's work on my plate. That's not critical and that we can stop because if you see all the things that we could stop, then I'm next.
It's no matter how rationally we explain, Actually, we're trying to find, you know, where we can simplify and make things easier so you don't burn out. Like, they just watch their friends and co workers lose their livelihoods. And so, of course they're operating at, like, the highest level of caution.
So bringing them into a room together and asking them to lay out all of their work is going to be horribly unproductive and probably cause a lot of anxiety for everyone, no matter how trusting Your team is so the way that I like to do this is we're still gonna do it with our team always because they're the ones who know the work best and You sitting in a room and deciding what work to stop and what work to keep going and then?
Pushing it onto your team is also going to have that same visceral reaction We're just gonna reframe it a little differently we're going to be doing some of that change management up front and be having the conversation around. Hey, we have a lot of work to do with less people. So I really want to be working with you guys to find ways that we can, you know, get some things off your plate and make sure that we aren't going to be on the brink of burnout.
So we're still going to have that conversation around how can we optimize? How can we remove, how can we get strategic about stopping work? Great time to use that glass ball versus rubber ball analogy. Steal that, talk them through that as well. But the way that I like to frame this conversation is say, okay, guys.
I want us to go back to day one of starting our function. So you know, we're a marketing team, let's go back and pretend that it is day one of starting a marketing function at our company. And we are going to talk about. three growth horizons for this function. So if you've never heard about the concept of growth horizons, go ahead and Google it.
That way you can see the visual that I'm referring to, but essentially this is how a lot of companies think about. Scaling their company. They have growth Horizon one, which is like just standing up the foundations. Then we have Growth Horizon two, which is expanding the value our function can create, and then we have Growth Horizon three, which for the purposes of this conversation.
Is how can we optimize, innovate, become more of that leading edge function. So I want you to outline these three growth horizons for your team on a whiteboard, on a mural board. And I want you to ask them starting with growth horizon one, this foundational elements, what is the work that you would add back in?
To outline the foundation of our marketing function. This is the work that we do not function without. Like, we cannot be a marketing function without this. This is the work that creates a significant impact on our customer. Like I said, the customer experience example. If we just suddenly stopped answering the phones.
our customers that would be significantly impacting to them. If we're a sales team and we decide to just stop selling, to just stop, talking to our different accounts, that would have a significant impact. If we're a marketing function and we just decide to go silent, that would have a significant impact.
But the thing here is we really have to challenge ourselves. What is foundational? What can we not operate without versus what is that next growth horizon? That expanding our value because expanding our value is about what improves our ability to perform, improves our ability to serve our customers. It allows us to make a bigger impact.
So like for marketing, Maybe we're looking across our different marketing channels and we are saying, you know, ads are our strongest performer. Like that is where we are making the biggest impact. So like that is foundational to who we are. Like that's our foundational type of marketing. Social media is a nice to have.
Sure. It's adding, it's expanding our ability to make an impact. We're bringing in more customers because of it, but it's a nice to have. If you've never heard of the concept Pareto's principle, I love to use this a lot. What it says is that. 80 percent of your results come from 20 percent of your effort.
And that is what we're trying to get at in this horizon one, this foundational horizon, where is the 20 percent of the effort driving 80 percent of your results. So for this example, social media might be in that like 20 percent of results. It's a nice to have it's adding your impact, but it is not critical.
So we're going to start out by outlining, I love to use sticky notes, outlining what is foundational. Then we move on and we talk about this expansion. How can we expand our value? How can we improve our ability to perform, provide more value, more impact, be more proactive versus reactive. And then we talk about that third horizon.
How can we become leaders in our function? How can we scale? Optimize, differentiate. These are the things that are nice to have. They are. Not critical, but they allow us to go above and beyond, to be the best in class and the benchmark in our industry. So the reason why I love doing this activity in this scenario is because it allows us to subtract through adding.
So remember how I said everything we're doing here is about how can we subtract back through that timeline that we talked about? To get back to a level of, you know, maturity that matches our level of resources at the present date. So scale back. And the thing is that our brains just don't do well subtracting.
So like if I told you to go buy some new clothes. Like, that would be really easy for you. If I told you to go into your closet and start taking clothes out, that's a little bit harder. It's just our brains are, it's much harder for us to let go of things versus adding things. And so by doing it in this way, by starting with the foundation and saying, where can we then add into those other growth horizons.
It's easier for our brains to compute. The other thing is subtracting and removing work seems very final. This is saying, okay, we just need to reassess our growth horizons. So if we go back, you know, maybe we were that leading edge, sales function, but now we need to go back more towards the foundations and refine.
So let's go back to the foundations and say, where would we start and how would we move through these growth horizons again? And for some of us, this is a really cool opportunity to rethink how we would grow this function from the ground up. Because like I said, a lot of you guys inherited this team after many, many leaders before you had it.
And that means there's a lot of buildup in, you know, work that we're doing that we probably don't need to be doing, deliverables or outputs we're developing that we don't need to, processes, tools, systems that we have that we don't need to be doing. And so this is our opportunity to look back and say, how would we do it differently?
How would we do it more strategically? How would we do it more efficiently? How would we make it simpler? And so. Really positioning through that lens and how you move through the growth horizon is up to you and your team. So we might scale back to our foundational elements, these critical few, for a month.
And we really focus on these, we refine them, we strip out everything that's not these. You know, we get really optimize our ability to deliver on the foundation and we feel good. And so we're like, let's start adding in some things from expansion. Like, let's grab a sticky note and add it in and see how that feels.
Feels good? Okay, grab another sticky note, add it in, see how that feels. For some of you guys It may be a year where we are hyper fixated on that foundational elements. How can we do this well? How can we optimize well? How can we make sure we protect this critical core? But why this activity is so good is it gives you the path ahead.
We know where we're going. Once I get these down, I love to print this out. And everyone on the team has it. This is our path, y'all. I understand we have to go back to the foundations and that feels defeating for some of us. Maybe some people whose roles were more on the innovative side of things, the thought leader side of things, you're having to do some of this foundational work, but we're going to optimize and build this foundation.
To where we can get back to that. And here's our path in doing that. So it gives a clear path forward and it brings some structure, some clarity in a world of unknowns, that brings security to people is like, they see the path ahead and I like to track it. Hey guys, we're at day one of starting our foundations.
And we're going to start stripping back the work and like really hyper focus on optimizing our foundation. So we're like right here at the very beginning. And then once a month we're talking about how are we feeling about this? Do we feel good about our foundational elements? Is there things that we can strip back more?
Things that aren't serving our foundation? Is there areas where we could deliver faster, better, smarter? Okay, great. We're moving through. We're halfway through foundations. You know, we're getting close to where we can add things back in. What can we simplify more? What can we make feel easier? But right now you have a path and that's what gives your team that feeling of safety.
Y'all, this is not an easy place to be in. And there is so much that goes into navigating through any sort of downsizing. These are the first two steps that I would be taking behind change management and rebuilding that trust to start to get the workload back under control and in alignment with the, capacity, energy, and skill set available to me.
In my team. So I want you guys to go do the work. Let's start to put these into practice. Let's start to play with them. Let's start to adjust them and make them work for our teams. And if you're going through these and you're like, I just need a little bit more hands on support, you know, liberated leader is your next move.
We have leaders in there who are working through mergers, downsizing, and even leaders who are looking to. scale their function, throughout these growth horizons. So we'd love for you to step inside and know that you never have to do this alone. We've got you covered. Let's go do the work y'all.
