Time to Make Some Heads Roll
Have you ever had to lay off any employees? Ever had to deal with a layoff yourself? For better or worse, layoffs have become part of the 21st Century managerial toolkit.
At one time or another, most managers will have to deal with the gut-wrenching task of “re-orging” and letting people go. So to survive and thrive in the volatile modern workplace, you need to know how to hire people, build a team – and, almost certainly at some point in time, how to break that all apart by using layoffs as a strategic management tool.
It’s not something they teach you in the regular business school curriculum. Fortunately, a veteran of the layoff wars has developed a teaching module that offers practical experience in this most unusual of management skills.
“The Layoff Game” is an interactive seminar that gives small teams the opportunity to get right in the thick of a corporate layoff. Based on real events and people, The Layoff Game lets you play the role of the VP of Retail Operations at Perigee Products, a fictitious but frighteningly realistic company in the solar products industry. You enjoyed the ride while the company grew fast, and you were just on the brink of making it big. But now we’re in the recession and the tide has turned. You’re high enough up in the company to know that something is going on, but not high enough up to know what. Then, all of a sudden, word comes down: You have to cut a half-million dollars from your division. And now the complexity of the task becomes apparent, as you need to translate the impersonal mechanics of balancing a budget with the wrenching politics and humanity of impacting people’s lives.
Fun, insightful, but emotionally agonizing, The Layoff Game is a terrific “real world” exercise for the managers of today and tomorrow, led by someone who has been through it all too often.
The Layoff Game is available as an online interactive exercise, but works best as a live 3-hour simulation exercise. To book a session, please e-mail Joe at jdobrow@brickwallstrategy.com