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

1.2. The Basic Bind: Lean and Mean Leads to Sad and Angry

Layoffs are intended to reduce costs and promote an efficient lean-and-mean organization. However, what tends to result is a sad and angry organization, populated by depressed survivors. The basic bind is that the process of reducing staff to achieve increased efficiency and productivity often creates conditions that lead to the opposite result: an organization that is risk averse and less productive than it was in the past.

The key variable is the survivors' sense of personal violation. The greater their perception of violation, the greater their susceptibility is to survivor sickness. The perception of violation appears directly related to the degree of trust employees have had that ...