Welcome back to The Workaround. I’m Bob 👋
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Eddie’s priceless gift to Clark. With a lesson that’s an annual gift to us all.
Twice in the past week, I heard the phrase “It’s just business.”
First, a former leader at a PE-backed company described how his investors encouraged him to “get over” his reluctance to lay off employees. The coaching he received was, “Why are you worried about those people? You’re making a ton of money and it’s just business.”
Second, a long-time friend shared with me the story of her layoff from a corporate employer where she had worked for over eight years. Her manager broke the news on Zoom with the line, “You shouldn’t take it personally. It’s just business.”
I, for one, now look forward to the day when AI takes over leadership roles in companies. Because not even a robot would use language this awful in telling a human being they are no longer wanted at their place of employment.
Some worry that AI will turn people into paperclips. My heart breaks for the many people who are already treated like paperclips by their human leaders.
What happened to us?
It’s ironic how the same corporate leaders who rush to layoffs when earnings are missed, or who force people back to the office without enough space to accommodate them, whine about the perceived lack of commitment among their employees.
AT&T, Boeing, and JPMorgan are just three examples of where CEOs have publicly cut jobs and workplace flexibility while demanding more personal commitments from their employees:
John Stankey at AT&T says he’s moving toward “a market-based culture” focused on capability, contribution, and commitment.
Kelly Ortberg at Boeing says the company “cannot afford another mistake” and alluded to a perceived lack of focus or commitment among employees.
Jamie Dimon at JPMorgan spoke at an internal town hall, where he demanded a 10% increase in departmental efficiency—implying that some employees weren’t fully committed. He complained that “not a goddamn person” is reachable on Fridays, and people don’t pay attention during Zoom meetings.
These are just a handful of the public headlines. However, many readers who work in corporate positions have likely heard this. It’s the stuff that CEOs talk about everywhere, from Sun Valley and Davos to their local YPO groups.
Today, most of us use the word “commitment” to describe a mutual agreement. Two people in love commit to a marriage. Two parties in a contract sign the line and commit to following its terms.
An employment agreement is also a type of contract. Employees commit to showing up and doing the work that is expected of them. In return, the company commits to paying specific compensation and benefits.
These employees are showing up to their jobs and appear to be doing the work. So what’s all the complaining about?
CEOs want employees to commit more deeply.
They want employees to stop complaining, be more innovative, care about the company, be available outside of working hours, solve problems, improve the culture, and “bring their full selves to the office.”
It makes sense that they want employees to go beyond what is outlined in a contract. We now live in an economy of knowledge work, where intangibles have the most impact. It’s the hard-to-measure stuff that comes forth in great teamwork, creative ideas, risk-taking, and passionate belief in the greater cause. Our best employees aren’t the ones with the fanciest degrees or most years of experience; they are the ones who take the job personally, believe in the mission and vision, and buy into a bigger purpose.
But as these leaders ask for more—not merely hours, but more of our mind, heart, and soul—they commit less.
At AT&T, John Stankey directly laid out a message to his employees, stating that they should bid farewell to the company’s historic commitment to tenure-based benefits and work location flexibility. He said, “If the requirements dictated by this dynamic do not align with your personal desires, you have every right to find a career opportunity that is suitable to your aspirations and needs.”
Brian Niccol, the new CEO of Starbucks, laid off 1,100 corporate employees and required the rest to return to the office. He said they need to “step it up”—then he stepped back on the private jet that shuttles him back and forth from his home each day.
I’m not sure where this tough talk comes from.
I can see that there was a need for the pendulum to swing back a bit after some companies lavished their employees with perks and catered to calls for increased political involvement.
But with a 4% unemployment rate and the workplace difference-maker being intangible factors within an employee’s heart and mind, this tough talk is self-destructive. Employees aren’t afraid of these threats.
Instead of committing, we’re quiet quitting. We’re learning how to laugh and lean into the bullshit jobs that command-and-control corporate leaders have spawned. These CEOs are the only ones not in on the joke. But maybe, they, too, are just playing to the crowd of investors, who, lemming-like, react to keywords like “Return-to-work,” “AI agents,” and “Step up commitment.”
“It’s like a corporate version of the emperor’s new clothes, except everyone can see the emperor is naked, everyone knows everyone can see it, but we’ve all agreed to keep complimenting his outfit because our mortgages depend on it.”—The death of the corporate job.
The brightest employees are now pursuing side hustles that provide a backup plan, as well as a platform to invest in themselves. As Alex McCann states in the quote above, they’re “using the corporate infrastructure—the steady salary, the laptop, the stability—as a platform for building something real. The corporate role hasn’t died; it’s become a funding mechanism for actual work.”
Why wouldn’t we squeeze more personal benefit from these jobs? After all, it’s just business.
I think a core issue is that some leaders have become disconnected from the rest of humanity.
Maybe it’s the financial market’s unquenchable drive to hit the next number. Perhaps it’s the growing wage gap that allows CEOs to live in secluded compounds, take private jets to the office, and get VIP escorts to the front of the lines at Disney World, rather than rubbing elbows with us masses. Or it’s the downside of our post-modern embrace of accepting any behavior that obeys the letter of the law, while shunning concepts such as “honor.”
The acceptability of awful leadership has permeated our culture. The most popular recent workplace dramas include Succession and Severance, which mostly glamorize bad bosses. If the media and politics are still a mirror of our cultural attitudes, I’m scared shitless!
For a better lesson from popular media, we’ve got to go back to a movie I first saw in 1989. But it probably plays in your home once a year: Christmas Vacation.
Our hero, Clark, navigates his family through the silly season while eagerly anticipating his annual holiday bonus. Yet, his boss cravenly decides to end bonuses and instead presents employees with a membership in the Jelly-of-the-Month club. Clark’s cousin-in-law, Eddie, ends up kidnapping the boss, who, in the end, sees that real people are affected by his decisions:
Even the boss’s wife and the city police captain agree that canceling bonuses was a “cheap, lousy way to save a buck.”
It’s a silly movie, of course, but it’s proof that at one point, we openly joked about how rare and awful a tactic like this would be in Anytown, USA. Actually, we can back to another, older Christmas story for the same lesson: Scrooge in A Christmas Carol in 1843!
Today, not so much.
Imagine if one of the CEOs who broke commitments through return-to-work mandates actually visited an employee’s home. They might find someone who helped care for a sick parent in the final months of their life, or someone who was home for dinner with their family each night instead of being stuck in soul-killing traffic. And, in return for this freedom and mutual commitment, they didn’t complain when asked to join a conference call with the India team at 10 pm on a Sunday.
Whatever the reason, the phrase “it’s just business” is a fitting artifact of what we’ve lost.
Nothing in work is “just business.” This is where we spend most of our waking lives. We work to provide resources and a future for our family. We’re under continual pressure to do it better and in new ways—now gearing up to compete with an AI bot that our bosses gleefully tell investors is expected to replace us soon.
Let’s call it out: This phrase serves the leader who has to deliver bad news.
Leaders say this to cope with their own feelings of guilt during the process. Whether they were ultimately involved in the decision or responsible for what caused it, this is a safety valve for the speaker.
It’s easy to drop this line and end the meeting cleanly. HR takes it from here—after all, they’re accustomed to this by now and have numerous SaaS solutions to make it quick and painless (for them). The “impacted FTEs” will be gone by the end of the day. We’ll tell a little story to ourselves about how we had to do it, and we’ll pack away any guilt so that we can get back to hitting that quarter’s numbers.
Sadly, there aren’t enough Eddies in the world to show these leaders what happens when those people have to tell their families what happened at the dinner table that night.
Large companies are making layoffs, re-orgs, and returns-to-work common, yet fail to teach their managers how to deliver with humanity—causing pain on all sides. HR is more of a legal function than a counselor of people.
I guess there’s no “business reason” to bring empathy. The RIF’ed person is dead to them; just a number getting processed through legal forms, 401 (k) transition, and COBRA.
I can’t change the world. I don’t have the answers. I hear this and get depressed writing about it.
We face numerous challenges in our work that affect others in ways we cannot control, but we can control how we deliver the news of a layoff.
I’ve had to perform layoffs due to my screw ups as a leader. And from time to time, I’ve made other decisions that alter the salary structure and benefits of my employees. Fortunately, these situations have been rare, but each time I remember that the words that come from my mouth or keyboard will be painful to the people they touch.
At these moments, it’s not about you, dear leader, it’s about them. Be there for them when your company ends its commitment.
Never say words like “it’s just business” or “it’s not personal.” We have no right to dictate how another person should feel. If you work for someone who does this, executing their orders, you’re complicit. You’re part of the problem, and you’re also karmically bound to be “just-businessed” one day.
When you have to do this deed, look the human across from you in the eyes and tell them there is no longer a place for them on your team. You owe them this.
Put on your big-boy or big-girl pants and do what needs to be done with empathy and directness. Lean into the feelings you and they have. See the easy way (excuses and blaming others) and avoid it. Go toward what makes you uncomfortable, because it will make this human before you more comfortable at an awful time. And it will drive home lessons that will last for the rest of your career. Hopefully, by directly experiencing what this feels like, you will be more motivated to help prevent it from happening in the future.
If it’s your decision, admit it: “I screwed up and have to fix things, and I’m sorry that it is impacting your life in this way.”
If you are forced to act as executioner, show empathy: “I can’t explain how or why it happened, but I am so sorry.”
In both: “I am so sorry you are being impacted, and I would like to be as helpful as possible in getting you to your next role.”
People are struggling everywhere in life—always have, always will. But when we lead people, we have a special responsibility and opportunity to make life a tiny bit better, even (and especially) when you have to be the bearer of bad news.
Maybe media and society no longer judge our decisions with a moral filter, but we must still live with ourselves. The judge within us never forgets and always issues a lifetime sentence.
This is your moment of truth, this is your god or the universe looking down and watching what you will do with your free will.
Make the most of it, make a difference in someone’s life, and it will make you a better person in the process.
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A little something I found meaningful. You might agree…
Yours Truly & Jeremy Toeman on Founder@50
Jeremy Toeman and I have been at the intersections of startups and digital media for our decades-long careers. Still, we only first met a few months ago through a meetup within an investment community we’re part of. We hit it off from the start through sharing our ups and downs in this crazy journey.
I was thrilled to join him on his fast-growing podcast,
. Jeremy is skilled at extracting insights from the early stages of his guests’ careers, offering lessons for entrepreneurs and corporate executives—whether they are just getting started or pondering which final mountain they wish to conquer.
Check out our conversation here, and be sure to subscribe for more greatness to come.
