19 |
ETHICAL WORKPLACE CONDUCTNeutron NeutralityApproximately 25 minutes |
Overview
Based on an article regarding a suicide attributed to job loss, this exercise asks participants to consider ways to make job loss less negative and more neutral, if not positive.
Purpose
To engender creative ideas for making job loss less traumatic.
Group Size
Any number of individuals can participate. Participants will first work alone and then in subgroups of four or five.
Room Arrangement
No special arrangement are required other than seating flexible enough to permit small-group formations.
Materials
Handout 19.1, “Termination Facts”; articles about Jack Welch obtained or downloaded in advance of class
Method
1.Start the exercise by asking if anyone has read Straight from the Gut, the biography of General Electric’s (GE) former CEO, Jack Welch. Engage the group in a brief discussion about Welch and some of the policies he’s instituted at General Electric (such as the Work-Out). Also have them discuss some of the remarks for which he’s famous (“When the rate of change outside the company is greater than the rate of change inside the company, then we are looking at the beginning of the end”). Note that while he’s been called the Manager of the Century, he’s also been called Neutron Jack, for policies that leave buildings standing but people decimated.
2.Explain that one of those policies—to cut costs whenever and wherever possible—is highlighted in their handout. Ask participants to read the facts related to GE’s termination procedure at Erie Works and then to answer the questions on the handout.
3.Distribute Handout 19.1, “Termination Facts,” and ask everyone to work on it individually.
4.Then have participants work in groups of four or five to come up with at least five ways to make terminations less painful. Encourage full use of their creative talents as they consider suicide-preventive measures as well as supportive overtures the organization can extend to laid off workers.
5.Have a reporter from each group write the group’s ideas on flipchart paper, to be posted around the room.
6.Bring closure by asking, “How many of you have lost a job at least once in your life?” “How many feel that subsequent jobs were even better than the one you lost?” “How can this information be shared with employees who face termination?” Have a scribe record the ideas and add them to the ideas listed in the preceding step.
7.Ask for a volunteer to disseminate the ideas to anyone within the organization who has responsibility for advising employees they are being terminated.
Variation
Adapt the Work-Out session to a training situation in the following way.
1.Explore the many benefits of Work-Out session; for example, they encourage employees to take the work out of work. On another level, the sessions help employees work out their problems. In addition, the sessions, like their aerobic counterparts, make the organization leaner and stronger. They also allow senior management to learn more about lower-level employees and the contributions they can make.
2.Choose issue(s) to discuss.
3.Select a cross-functional team appropriate for the problem.
4.Choose a champion who will help recommendations become reality.
5.Let the team meet for 3 days (or as needed) to draw up recommendations for improving processes.
6.Meet with the manager who must respond with “yes,” “no,” or “maybe” to recommendations on the spot. Reasons and details are provided for each decision.
7.Hold additional meetings as needed to pursue recommendations.
8.Continue the process with these and other issues.
These steps, adapted for the classroom learning situation, involve groups working in teams and observers noting their interactions.
1.Select four observers and instruct them as follows: “Four of you will serve as observers—one for each of the reporting teams. Your first assignment is to observe the interactions among the teams attempting to find solutions for the owner’s problem. The team should come up with at least five possibilities. Look for interpersonal and group dynamics examples of:
Positive Behaviors |
Negative Behaviors |
Leadership Creativity Harmony Full participation |
Domination of the discussion Belittling remarks Poor listening Side conversations |
“As soon as the team has prepared a list of suggestions and solutions, share your observations with them.”
“Your second assignment requires you to observe the ‘owner’s’ reaction to the team’s suggestions. Did he or she, for example, take notes? Was he or she defensive? Did he or she give realistic responses? What did you learn about the ‘problem-owner’ by watching his or her responses to the suggestions of the team? After the Work-Out session is concluded, you will meet with the ‘owner’ privately and share your observations with him or her.”
2.Next, divide the group into four subgroups. Then, each person in each subgroup will quickly name (but not discuss) a solvable work-related problem. The problem each group ultimately selects should be one that—once solved or resolved—will help the “problem-owner” achieve some measure of success in coping with this problem or issue. It should also be a problem that is solvable and one that will have benefit to the organization.
3.Give this instruction: “As you listen to your group members, don’t offer solutions to the problems you hear described. Instead, allow each person to state the problem so that it is clearly understood by the others in the group. Questions are allowed, but only for the purpose of clarification, not for solution-seeking.
4.“Then, as a group, select the one problem that most needs attention. The ‘owner’ of the problem will present it to another group and will then leave the room while the group to which the problem was presented discusses feasible solutions. (Observers will note the extent of positive and negative interpersonal exchanges.) Your group will work to find five or more possible solutions for the problem that the ‘problem-owner’ presented to you.
5.“When the ‘owner’ returns, your group will present its suggested solutions. The ‘owner’ must immediately decide to accept (with a rationale), reject (with reasons), or table (with an explanation of why and when) each of the solutions. An observing team (represented by senior management in the real world) later meets with the ‘owner’.
6.“Four ‘owners’ will read articles about the GE Work-Outs and will have a 5- to 10-minute report ready. The report will describe Work-Outs in greater detail and the benefits they’re designed to create. The report will be given at the end of the Work-Out session.
Discussion
What other public figures can you recall who are highly regarded despite what many consider serious flaws?
What lies behind people’s willingness to regard such people so highly?
What does it say about our national tolerance for unethical behavior when we read lists such as the one that appears in the Points of Interest?
Quotation
“A mind all logic is like a knife all blade. It makes the hand bleed that uses it.”
—Rabindranath Tagore
Points of Interest
New words are constantly being added to our vocabulary of 1,000,000+ words. Sometimes, old words or phrases are given new meaning. Such is the case with “low-hanging fruit,” a Work-Out associated word that encourages group members to dispense quickly with issues that are so easy to deal with they can be quickly “plucked off.” (These issues, ironically, often consume a great deal of time and are popular sources of complaints.)
These “fruit” issues can be discussed as well in programs that deal with stress, time management, productivity, leadership, interpersonal skills, et cetera.
HANDOUT 19.1
Termination Facts
DIRECTIONS
Read these facts, excerpted from an article by Thomas O’Boyle (“Profit at Any Cost.” Business Ethics, March/April 1999, pp. 13–14). Then answer the questions that follow.
At Erie Works, a General Electric (GE) site, Ivan Winebrenner, age 39, received a termination notice on June 10, 1993. He was one of 200 from the Erie Works plants who were let go because of “lack of work.”
Two days later, his wife found him dead in their bedroom from a gunshot wound to the head.
Two days after this discovery, co-worker Anthony Victor Torelli turned a gun on himself, having failed to find his foreman at the plant. There have been several suicides since among the ranks of the Erie Works plant.
The engineering supervisor at the plant, Sheldon Potter, who quit rather than participate in the layoffs, describes the process as “totally inhuman in any other context.” (The “inhuman” label came about for many reasons. To illustrate, GE has a practice of routinely eliminating the lower 10% of managers whose performance appraisals are less stellar than the appraisals of their peers. Welch, many say, moved the company from paternalism to cannibalism by, for example, closing or selling 98 plants, even though—as was the case with Erie Works—dedicated employees were working hard to increase profitability. Whistleblowers were dismissed rather than applauded for bring ethical violations to management’s attention.)
Employees at this GE site were given laminated cards with a statement of GE’s Beliefs—the first of which is “People, working together, are the source of our strength.”
In the year when the suicides occurred, Erie Works had recorded its best profits ever.
The layoffs were the result of a corporate decision to convert the manufacture of locomotive parts from an in-house production to the purchase of these parts from an outside vendor.
GE’s former CEO moved the company from eleventh in stock value among American corporations to first place.
In the streamlining process, 300,000 people lost their jobs.
How humane do you feel your company’s termination policy is?
If you were a CEO, driven to produce profits for shareholders and other stakeholders, what would your top priority be?
Is it unethical for an organization to engage in cost-cutting—even if it means job loss?
How can the termination process be made more humane?