Fixable (Re-release) Unsolicited Advice: How to handle layoffs with care
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Feb 16, 2026 A frank conversation about how organizations should handle layoffs with care. They explore the risks of normalizing layoffs and the hidden costs to innovation and morale. Leaders are urged to admit failure, apologize, and lay out a clear, repeatable plan for the present and future. Practical steps include storytelling, honoring the past, reframing employee value, and protecting leader capacity.
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Admit Failure To Learn From It
- Leaders must frame layoffs as a failure that requires humility and learning, not as strength or toughness.
- Confessing error is the necessary first step to actually learning from it.
Layoffs Trade Short-Term Gain For Long-Term Costs
- Layoffs can produce short-term market approval but cause long-term drops in innovation, engagement, and talent retention.
- The collateral human and cultural damage often outweighs the immediate financial signal.
Begin With A Sincere Ownership Apology
- Start layoffs conversations with a clear, specific apology that owns the failure and leaders' role in it.
- A sincere apology makes subsequent communications and repair more likely to succeed.
