Healing the Wounds: Overcoming the Trauma of Layoffs and Revitalizing Downsized Organizations

2.5. Layoff Survivor Sickness: The Legacy

The reality of the paradigm shift is becoming increasingly clear, and we can live in only one paradigm. We can't go back. What we can do, what we must do if we are to revitalize our organizations, is deal with layoff survivor sickness, the legacy of the demise of the old paradigm and the old employment contract.

In a classic internal AT&T memo, written for the first act but even more applicable for today's environment, Joel Moses (1987) provided a clear articulation of this bitter legacy:

We have very "disturbed" managers. Managers who are forced to make work force reduction decisions without any guidance, training, or support are becoming cynical. Or those who really care are being torn apart when making ...