Chief Joy Officer by Richard Sheridan

Author:Richard Sheridan [Sheridan, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780735218222
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-12-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

Value Leaders, Not Bosses

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

—John Quincy Adams

When the NASDAQ began its awful slide in December 2000, the CTO of the company that had acquired Interface Systems warned me that cuts were coming and that I should be thinking about whom to let go when asked.

Somehow I got it in my head he was talking about four or five people. A week later, when he called again, he told me to cut half my team.

“By when?” I asked, after a long pause (once I started breathing again).

“I need the decision by noon,” he said.

It was 10:00 a.m.

He needed the names to pass on to HR that afternoon, so they could prepare exit packages for half my team, to be delivered right after Christmas break. The CTO didn’t offer any help in making these wrenching decisions to lay off people I liked and trusted; he had other calls to make.

It was one of the loneliest moments of my professional life. I closed the door to my office, took a deep breath, and started making a list. One by one, I went through every member of my team, considering each person and their performance. Each one of these souls was vital to the success of the Java Factory, and part of an amazing family. The boss part of me had a tough decision to make. The leader part of me couldn’t help but consider the weight of the decision I was about to make and how those decisions would play out in the home lives of each of the employees. I also knew they would all wonder Why me? and Why wasn’t I one of the half who got to stay?

A couple of weeks later, the HR team arrived from headquarters and split my team into two groups. One went into the cafeteria to learn their fate, receive their exit packages, and be given a few moments to ask questions. The other group was led into another part of the building to hear the fate of their peers and give those now-former peers some privacy as they packed up their personal items.

I went into the room with the team members who were being let go. It was difficult to watch as they learned of the decision.

Like a sturdy sailing ship, my career had carried me well to this point. Sometimes I was steering, sometimes I was riding along and enjoying the view. Yet, in this lonely and stormy time, I was the captain, confronting the stark contrast between a boss who had to make a tough decision and a leader who had to care for his crew. I was personally going to be OK (for now), yet I now had two groups to care for as best as I could: the first—those losing their jobs—and the second—the shell-shocked remaining half of the team who were losing so many colleagues in an instant. I would soon

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