Engaging our team right after a layoff is the most challenging period we'll face as leaders.

Fair or unfair, some moments matter more than others. This is one of these moments that stress our values as a leader and shape our perception in the eyes of others.

We've invested in building the We: our mission, our culture, our values. But this moment fractures that bond and calls into question:

Why did you do this?

The silver lining? How we lead our team through this matters deeply. Leaders who show up for their team make a meaningful difference.

But to get this right, we need a plan.

It's not hard to guess what the team's questions will be. So be ready for them.

And the question you know with 100% certain is coming:

Are we safe? Are more cuts coming?

Ideally, we have answers we can share transparently to all of these. We might not have been the driving force behind these decisions, but if we want to reassure them, we must show that we're fully up to speed.

But we can't make up answers we don't have. It's unlikely we'll have every answer, so it's ok to defer on a few as long as we circle back.

The other thing to expect is grief. We might dispassionately know this is what's required for the company to survive. But a) we've had more time to process, and b) these are their friends.

And their grief will take many forms:

And they've all earned the right to feel these emotions. Don't try to talk them out of them. Hear them. Let them know we hear them. Then give them space.

The book cannot be rewritten today. At best, we are marking the end of a chapter.

While most questions will look backward to make sense of the situation, the next time we meet, they will turn toward the future.

Honestly, this is where the management moment is won or lost.

If we simply attempt to do the same work with less, we will never recover. Instead of empowering our team with a renewed sense of purpose, we'll exhaust them until they seek refuge elsewhere. Instead...

Have the team help reshape their new identity.

Allow them to co-author the purpose and the plan. A renewed Why will help them transcend the shifting How, and they'll focus on what else needs to change.

Don't hold meetings for the sake of meetings. Do hold them to advance the team's transformation.

Don't insist people confide in you. Do make sure people know they can.

Don't assume the status quo operating rhythm is sufficient. Do experiment with your communication methods and meeting style.

Prop open our door. Clear our calendar. Check on our introverts.

We get to decide if this is a transformation or a layoff. If the team needs to throttle to do less or boldly rethink how it needs to be different. We must be as ruthless with priorities as we've been with headcount. Ideally, more so.

For many of us, we've been living through a very long 10-year summer. But winter has arrived in many industries. It's no longer about thriving. It's about surviving. Different seasons, different tactics.

So the hurdle rate to invest might be higher, but we need to find a way to do it. And this might sound cruel, but the freedom to invest may require a deeper cut. But in a fight for survival, our remaining team needs training, development, and better weapons.

We all like to play games we're uniquely suited to win. Intentionally shorten the time to the first win in the new era.

Go back to our team's core values. Do they still hold? If so, who is living them in the new model best? We need to shine our light on them.

Is there a new bottleneck in the team's process? Point everyone at freeing it up and creating a new one. Then do it again.

Go win a customer the new way. Roll out a better release with the smaller team. Launch a new campaign with a partner.

Don't be afraid to overinvest to manufacture momentum.

The most recent time I led a team through a restructuring, we thought about the following months as a symphony. And I was the conductor. The goal of getting everyone to play beautiful music together was to drown out the silence of recently emptied chairs.

Without information, people will fill the gap with their imagination. And they tend to imagine a reality far worse than the one we're facing.

So every day, we played another note. Host an all-hands to handle questions. Followup with a video message from the CEO. Tech rolled out a new software package. Client service forwarded a customer testimonial to the team. HR made a case study from an analyst who went above and beyond. And so on.

Every note was carefully curated to show one thing:

How we could be better with fewer.

📄Fast Company with some ideas to do better with fewer. (4 min)

🎥 5 ways to lead in an era of constant change via TED (13 min)

🔄️ Good piece on Survivor's Guilt from coaches at BetterUp (15 min)

🐦I wrote a thread about refocusing your team post layoffs (3 min)

Help us build: Based on your input, we've begun building our first just-in-time bite-sized MGMT Booster:

🔥 The First 100 Days: Your Roadmap for Leading a New Team 🔥

Instead of our month-long, comprehensive MGMT Accelerator, this will be an on-demand guide available when you need it. We plan to test this first course in April.

Help us grow: Were on our mission to positively impact 1,000,000 leaders. If this playbook would help someone on your team more confidently deliver feedback, please take 5 seconds and forward it to them. It would mean the world to us.

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