Page 196 - Appreciative Leadership

The Path of Integrity 169

• People were given choices including educational sabbati-
cals, job sharing, and early retirement.

• Everyone who was asked to leave was offered help with
résumé writing and career counseling.
• A job fair was held on site.
• Two weeks following the layoffs, a series of two-hour

Appreciative Inquiry meetings were held so people could
grieve and discuss what happened.

The impact was surprisingly positive. The career counselor
commented that of the 108 people whose jobs were eliminated,
there were only 3 upset and angry people. It was the most posi-
tive layoff in his 20 years of experience! Six months later we were

back working with one department. When we asked members
of the department to describe the leadership team’s strengths,
they said integrity, approachability, and commitment.

Story 2: The leadership team said it was committed to Appre-

ciative Inquiry, employee engagement, and collaboration.
People got excited and began reaching out to each other in
new ways. The seeds of change were planted, and then two

new executives were hired. Both quickly gained a reputation
for being top-down authoritarian leaders, rather than high-
engagement appreciative leaders. Within weeks a year’s worth

of work was called into question. The grapevine was buzzing,
“Why did they hire those kinds of people if they were really
serious about employee engagement and collaboration?”
“They don’t really mean what they are saying. If they did, they

would not have hired these guys.” “I don’t trust what they
are saying. What they are doing just doesn’t jive.” “ I thought
things were going to change. Now I see that they are not.”