As a former IBMer, I have participated in several Rightsizing initiatives. You may be unfamiliar with the term “Rightsizing.” Forbes describes rightsizing as the process of restructuring a business to meet new objections and increase efficiencies. In most cases, it involves reducing your workforce and reorganizing your management team and staff to align with the current financial situation.
Rightsizing involves an honest assessment of your current financial position and earning potential with the reality of the cost and expense of delivery services or products. If the outgoing is greater than the incoming, you have a problem, and you need to right it. Hence, rightsizing.
This isn’t just true for businesses: it is also true for families, non-profits, churches and synagogues, and basically any organization. It is not easy. Why?
The main reason is it involves people. People have different opinions, needs, expectations, demands, dreams, and desires. Hard decisions are met with emotionally charged exchanges, and we are hardwired as humans to protect ourselves and to meet our basic needs. When we feel there is a threat, we fight for what we think is right, and sometimes, we respond and behave in disrespectful ways. The truth is that some things need to change, but change is hard. This is where we introduce “Compassionate Creativity.”
Compassionate Creativity is the idea that you can approach a legitimate need to rightsize with compassion and Creativity. The compassion element helps manage the people side, and the creativity helps manage the task side of rightsizing. It starts by having a commitment to the people and extends to doing the right thing (whatever that is) in and through the organization. Again, it is hard, and without getting into the weeds, tough decisions can be made effectively. You can continue to care for people while making the right decisions. What you can’t do is ignore the situation and push out the inevitable.
At Doing Good at Work, we practice compassionate Creativity every day. We care and value people first, but we understand the importance of doing the right thing in business. It’s not easy, but when you use wisdom to shape decisions, you can navigate the road ahead. Learn how you can use compassionate Creativity. Click HERE to start the conversation.
REMEMBER: Better People make Better Businesses, and Better Businesses make a Better World.
Encouraging People Everywhere,
Boomer
Dr. Boomer Brown, Ph.D., is the CEO of Doing Good at Work, a 501(c) 3 organization that operates with the efficiency of a business. Our mission is to ‘Make People Better’ because we firmly believe that better people make better businesses, and better businesses make a better world. Learn more about our work and how you can be part of this transformative journey: https://doinggoodatwork.com/