| Actually, there is a Machiavellian principle involved here. It is that
in order to manipulate your subjects successfully you must deliver bad
news quickly and in large quantity. But, you must deliver good news in
spoonfuls over a long period of time.
If you don't do that, you may *think* you are being merciful, politically
correct, sensitive and all that. But, reality is that your subjects will
remember you for the (more recent and frequent) bad news you delivered
and forget about the one-shot, lump sum good news from way back when.
This is old hat to career politicians, BTW. This is why there was a
BIG tax increase in 1990 (same plan as 1993) to reduce the deficit,
incremental spending that hiked the deficit up even higher (little
spoonfuls of localized "good news") and why so many incumbents still
got re-elected. "Yes, s/he's a tax and spender and taxes shot way up,
but look at the bucks s/he brought into our community the past few
years ..."
This is why it is demoralizing to do little layoffs here and there over
a long period of time, but may actually BOOST morale to do one BIG
layoff (and in the end even lay off MORE people), then give tiny pay
raises and bonuses over a long period of time to those that remain,
and finally hire a few folks back as things "improve." A company that
does a BIG layoff once every 5 years will be seen as a company that
tries to hold onto its people, while at company that lays a small
number of folks off every quarter will not -- even though the numbers
are the same for both companies.
Steve
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| "I've made my share of mistakes -- plenty of them -- but my biggest
mistake by far was not moving faster. Pulling off a Band-Aid one hair
at a time hurts a lot more than a sudden yank.
"Of course you want to avoid breaking things or stretching the
organization too far--but generally human nature holds you back. You
want to be liked, to be thought of as reasonable. So you don't move as
fast as you should. Besides hurting more, it costs you
competitiveness."
Jack Welch, CEO
General Electric
from "Control Your Destiny
or Someone Else Will"
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