tailieunhanh - Resizing The Organization 3

Resizing The Organization 3. This book seeks to provide executives with useful insights, tools, guidelines, principles, and lessons learned about organizational transition and change. | CHAPTER ONE The Realities of Resizing Mitchell Lee Marks Kenneth P. De Meuse The most difficult decision any executive has to make is to reduce the size of the company. Henry Schacht chairman and CEO of Lucent Technologies Layoffs divestitures and closings have become deeply woven into the fabric of contemporary organizational life. What once were infrequent and in some cases unheard-of occurrences in most work organizations have become regularly occurring actions. What once were managerial reactions to difficult market conditions now have become proactive tactics for attaining strategic and financial objectives. And what once were poorly managed events that eroded the psychological relationship between employer and employee have become at least in some organizations opportunities to define or reinforce desired corporate cultures that reflect the realities of today s business environment. A decade ago we wrote that transition management the leadership and direction of major organizational events would become a regular component of the managerial repertoire De Meuse Vanderheiden Bergmann 1994 De Meuse Tornow 1990 Marks 1994 Mirvis Marks 1992 . At that time merger and acquisition activity was on an upswing major corporations were beginning to make themselves over through restructurings spin-offs and strategic redirections and large corporations were doing 1 2 Resizing the Organization something they had never done before on a large scale involuntarily terminating employees through reductions in force and plant closings. We were right. Today layoffs divestitures and closings are found in organizations of every size in every industry and just about every geographical location. Transition management and organizational change are so pervasive that courses on the topic are taught in business schools. A new word downsizing was coined in the early 1990s to represent the variety of ways in which organizational leaders reduced employee ranks to achieve business objectives. .