Retrenchments are REALLY TOUGH!

Are we ready to be more Conscious, Compassionate, and Considerate?

In the 4th Industrial Revolution context, competition is ever-growing, causing companies to come under pressure, to innovate, optimise performance, and drive business results.

Hopefully in a more conscious, humane, and sustainable manner.

Business pressures increase stress as Corona uncertainty, and constraints, pressures leaders to do more with less. 

This ends up harming many people along the way. Burnout prevails!

To survive this Corona-VUCA Industry 4.0 context, and the tough uncertain times, most companies were, and are still, forced into a gut-wrenching, Soul-smashing, retrenchment process.

The problem with this, sometimes, unavoidable situation, is it smashes the mindsets, positive feelings, and confidence, of almost EVERYONE in the organisation.

Even the people who are “Lucky” enough to keep their job are often traumtised.

We need a solution…that actually works on a long-term basis for our people, the planet, and the organisation.

Enter… ADAPTAGILITY (Synthesis of Adaptability, Agility, Creativity, and Resilience)

In order to ensure greater thriving, we need to activate, expand, and align, people’s Psychological Capital, their #ADAPTAGILTY, and personal potential, to its fullest.

ADAPTABILITY: Today, more than ever we must be able to adapt to the ever-changing challenges.

We must be more adaptable if we are going to survive and thrive. Times are getting Tougher!

AGILITY: Due to the speed and size of the mega-waves of change, we must be able to adapt, and respond, rapidly.

The timespan for change and adapting is now compressed from years and months, into weeks, days, and even hours.

Smart leaders MUST enable optimal performance and change to happen, in minutes, at each of the Million Moments of TRUTH, in their quest for customer service excellence.

CREATIVITY: Innovation and creativity are vital for adjusting and adapting to the ever changing constraints and challenges.

To enable this creativity a psychologically safe workplace must exist, with a cohesive culture, and waaaay more conscious and effective leaders / managers.

RESILIENCE: Many people are pushed to their limits in normal conditions.
Now, they have been stretched even further.

People need the ability to handle challenges; stress, duress, pressure, uncertainty, anxiety, and then STILL… bring solutions to the surface to harness opportunities, overcome blocks and deliver as required by business context needs.

The ability to recover, and rebalance, even in challenging conditions is a vital skillset, and mindset, required for navigating and thriving in today’s challenges.

The Mega-Waves of Change are Still Coming!

We must develop staff to reduce the Learned-Helplessness, and increase their GRIT, and Growth-Optimised Mindsets, in order for them to be able to respond rapidly to the ever-shifting mega-waves of change, challenge, uncertainty, AND OPPORTUNITY.

This solution for thriving in tough times, cannot just be a “cognitive” approach.

Because unless the solutions deeply impact people on a HEAD, HEART & SOUL level… the effectiveness is immensely reduced.

Vital ADAPTAGILITY Mindset qualities like Hope, Efficacy, Resilience, and Optimism, (HERO), and Growth-Optimised Mindsets, are the foundation upon which to begin to build cohesive, committed, connected, collaborative, trusting, highly creative, innovative, productive people, and high-performance teams.

The challenge is… very few workplaces, teach, develop, and use this Human Performance Technology (HPT), to develop greater #AdaptAgility, or Growth-Optimised Mindsets, or the Psychological Capital stuff.

We all know about IQ. We are learning more, every day, about the importance of EQ.

But very few people know much about ADQ, or ADAPTAGILITY, the REVOLUTIONARY high-performance workplace Optimisation and management Methodology, and the CLEARx Performance optimisation systems.

Adaptability, agility, resilience, creativity, responsiveness, leaning in, and the right mindset qualities, are the fundamental foundations we need to be teaching our people, as the world gets tougher, tighter, chaotic, more uncertain, and competitive, in the Industrial 4.0 era.

Mindsets Matter Most in Recovering & Thriving in VUCA Times

We know from research, people with the right Growth-Optimised mindset can be up to 7 times more valuable to their organization and their team. And themselves ;)

Leadership with the right mindset can be up to 8.4 times more valuable to the organization and their teams.

We know from Google’s research that 9 out of 10 managers are not great managers!

And Gallup’s research proves that managers can impact up to 70% of performance results!

es… Those managers who have very little coaching, or training, or consciousness, on how to unleash more of your people’s and team’s potential!

So What Mindset Qualities Matter Most?

Do you know what the top 20 mindset qualities are required to achieve this 7x employee value increase?

Do you really know the 6 core areas to address in creating a Revolutionary High-Performance workplace, that can SWIFTLY Adapt, rebound, rebalance, and thrive, in these crazy CORONA VUCA times?

When times are easy, anybody can survive, thrive, and handle, the tiny ripples of change.

But when the going gets tough, when organizations have to restructure, cope with change, and reinvent themselves…

The game changes with forced retrenchment and structural redesigning pressures.

That’s where the rubber really meets the road, and we thrive or dive.
Very often, even the people that are lucky enough to avoid retrenchment action, and are staying in the organization, are just as traumatized.

They carry guilt because they’re the ones that “survived” the cut… BUT…. only for NOW.

And the Future? Uncertainty and anxiety become the low-level norm, with, backstabbing, backbiting, politics, withholding, becoming the normal version of self-preservation.

Tired, stressed and burn-out people, have little capacity for empathy, compassion and connection.

Because it’s friends and colleagues that are retrenched and being pushed out into the tough wild uncertain future. The unspoken question is…Who is next? When will it be ME?

Whether you are staying or going, in a restructure or retrenchment situation, there is still trauma, anxiety, stress, loss, anger, and uncertainty, on all sides.

This impact is emotionally draining, which impacts the business and prevents the teams from being, or becoming, a resilient, positive, high-performance, happy, potent, powerful, passionate, and productive, workplace.

The Corona Mega-waves has brought a few extra surprises to the Game.

I’m often approached by smart organizations to do corporate team building workshop sessions to rebuild, and bolster, their people and teams, that are left behind, after the restructure or retrenchment’s destructive impacts.

They quickly realise they can turn the expense of motivational Business speakers into a 10X to 100x INVESTMENT ROI, because of the amazing impacts, and improved results we are able to help them achieve, with our proven #AdaptAgility building system, and REVOLUTIONARY WORKPLACE Mind-Flow-Grow, High Performance methodology.

They are actually smart enough, and conscious enough, to understand, and care about, the negative impacts and consequences, of the restructuring and downsizing, on their remaining staff, and then do something positive about it..

But the harsh reality we have seen is…few of them have enough energy or empathy, to really care, about their PEOPLE who are retrenched?

They struggle to have enough energy for those remaining. It can be tough being a conscious leader who actually cares about the human aspect of business.

Plus that other harsh reality, we know from Google’s extensive research is that about 1 out of 10 managers, is an amazing manager.

Many of the other managers are far from the ideal: Not inspiring, engaging, considerate, conscious, or able to get their people back up to full balance and optimal performance, in a sustainable and humane manner… that supports People, Planet AND Profits.

What About Those “Let go”, Pushed-out, and Retrenched?

For most companies, when the going gets tough, staff get told…” this is your retention package. Bye!”

This is exacerbated even more when you are retrenching large groups like 100’s or 1000’s at a time.

When it’s more than 10%-15% of an entire organization’s staff that are being retrenched, the effects ripple through the entire company and negatively affects almost everyone.

Except the “Ivory tower” team maybe. ;)

I always ask… “What are you doing for the people that you are retrenching”?

They sold you their Soul for the possibility of a better life…and now what?
Because they’ve given their life, their time, their heart and Soul, to work for this organization, I believe that more conscious leaders will behave more consciously and humanely, in these uncertain times.

Usually little is being offered beyond the promoted “generous severance package”. Seems the finance department was the only one in charge for that deal! Often ALL head, ZERO HEART! with a sole focus on shareholder as opposed to stakeholders.

What people don’t seem to understand is… that along with this retrenchment experience, the shock, trauma, and loss, gets deeply internalized in these unfortunate people’s personal identity, attitude, and mindset.

All because of a set of circumstances that have occurred, that they have zero control over. They usually feel numb and completely dehumanised. Learned Helplessness is immediately embedded deep into their psyche!

But who cares? Who REALLY cares?

So it’s either, Fight, Flight or Freeze… None of these are optimal approaches to getting through the unexpected retrenchment shock, trauma, and moving forward, quickly.

ADAPTAGILITY: Right Growth-Optimised Mindsets Matter Most

Unless people have the right mindset, and a positive support system, combined with some kind of positive mindset development process to help them recover, regroup, and re energise, it’s almost impossible to begin to believe, behave, and build, a bolder, brighter, better, more positive, future again.

It’s tough to get right back up when you are tired…and need the income just to survive with the basics.

They’re going to stall, stumble and stagnate.

They really need some expert guidance to get going again. Learned helplessness, will virtually “kill their potential” and their block their actions to survive.

Hope is lost and often, for most people, their psychological capital it completely smashed!

Very often, people in such shock, don’t do or are not able to DO, what’s necessary to get back up and go back out into the world again.
Their resilience, hope, self-belief, and confidence, gets smashed a majority of the time.

If people had higher levels of ADAPTAGILITY, their levels of required resilience to cope would be reduced.

ADAPTAGILITY Can reduce the need for high levels of Resilience.

Does your Organisation Have Soul, or is it a Cold, Hard-Hearted, Culture?

If we are a caring, conscious, compassionate, people, we can’t just say to people… “Thank you. Here’s the retrenchment package. Bye!”

I think we’ve got to be much more conscious and compassionate, and create a platform, even if it’s just a few days process, that helps all the people, retrenched, and remaining, to come to terms with, and go through, that normal shock trauma cycle; denial, anger, despondency, bargaining… and then to build higher levels of adaptability, agility, and resilience.

We need to support the retrenched Souls to get back up, and start going forward, as fast as possible. Rather than hoping that these people will go through the typical recovery cycle, in their own reasonable amount of time.

With the REVOLUTIONARY WORKPLACE SELF Leadership ADAPTAGILITY inner-rebuild process, we’re able to short circuit the usual weeks, months, or even years, of the recovery process, to give people a far better chance of rapidly re-balancing and rebounding forward effectively.

Very often within days, you can greatly reduce the levels of learned helplessness, shock, depression, despondency, and self-image issues, to start to build a more positive new #ADAPTAGILITY HERO foundation of Hope, Efficacy, Resilience, Optimism, bullet-proof internal self-talk.

This helps to get the person back up and out, into the world looking for new employment or exploring new entrepreneurial business opportunities.

Especially in tough times, like now, in South Africa’s Corona chaos and constraints, we know with our economy, and politics, that the apparent recession is creating very tough times for many people and companies.

Companies are under increased pressure and thus, clamping down on costs, stopping training budgets, lowering salary increases, restructuring, etc.

And beneath this all, are increased levels of stress, conflicts, uncertainty, anxiety, frustration, anger, sadness, loss, and hopelessness. Business isn’t the force for good, for many, in this context.

For me, the challenge is to get leaders and managers to become more Constructively Conscious; compassionate, mindful, authentic, leaders, that have care, empathy, and compassion.

We know that neurons that fire together wire together.

So typically people that are left brain, like lawyers, and accountants, and any left brain dominant people that deal primarily with numbers, are very often are far removed from the full impact of the emotion, the shock, and what’s happening in the minds, hearts and Souls, of those people that are about to be, or have been, retrenched.

So where is the LOVE? Or, is business still just a GREED-based machine?

I have been previously warned by a client to NOT use the word LOVE, in a corporate team building leadership workshop, as I would “lose the respect of the directors!” Truly?

Nevertheless, I DID use it.. I opened the session with… “Today, I’m probably in front of the most intelligent IQ group, I’ve facilitated for a while…” ;)

“BUT.. I’m also possibly in front of the LOWEST EQ group for a while too!…” Yikes! Yip the shock was palpable… :)

At the end of the day, the CHAIRMAN spoke with me. He said, “You are SO right…we’ve all lost our SOUL. All we care about is the numbers!”

He recognised, and acknowledged, that the entire organisation’s 25 Partners leadership team and organisational culture… only cared about the NUMBERS.

“And it needs to change”…he said.

I honor him for the courage to rethink the situation and not react like many numbers only greeders. So maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel :)

The more right-brain oriented people, like HR; the more caring, compassionate, human-centered people, are usually more conscious and cognizant of the impacts of the retrenchment process on all parties.
The New Soul Goal: A Blend of Business Sanity and Human Compassion.

The ADAPTAGILITY Mindset Rewiring Solution for Higher Performance

To support people and companies in tough times, we’ve designed an initial process: a 1 to 3 day, people and team-tune-up, process, that takes people, impacted by stress, pressure, conflicts, unexpected change, shock, and trauma, into a more proactive, future-focused, resourceful, positive mindset space.

It’s about rebuilding a #FUTUREFIT; Agile, Adaptive, Resilient, mindset with hope, energy, and SWIFT forward action, towards meaningful and worthwhile actions and goals.

This REVOLUTIONARY WORKPLACE self-mastery & leadership process moves participants through the stabilise, recovery, rebuild, mindset rewiring, solution-focused, strengths-based, experience, which includes:

-Increasing ADAPTAGILITY & Psychological Capital
-Developing a “Bullet-proof” Growth-Optimised Resilient Mindset
-Learning the Science of Happiness
-Reducing Learned Helplessness
-Building greater capacity and optimizing personal potential
-Building confidence, self-esteem, self-worth & Self-care
-Managing States: more positive, passionate energy
-Rebuilding a positive vision for the future
-Unhooking baggage, blame, and bleating
-Beginning to create a forward-looking, stronger, tougher, mindset, and attitude to handle the tough times and uncertainty
– Increased self-awareness, self-management, and self-motivation.
– SWIFT Action plans for moving forward.

Other areas covered as necessary.

If you’re considering retrenching, restructuring, reengineering, and doing whatever needs to happen in order to survive, thrive, and grow, in these tough times, make sure you are fully conscious of the impacts on all sides of the process, and that you support both sides sufficiently.

Conscious Leaders know that it’s about stake-holders, not just the share-holders.

As much as the gratitude of being able to still have a job is good, even the people that stay need support based on their colleagues and friends leaving, because they too have huge uncertainty, anxiety, and loss.

Because deep within the brain, the reptilian, fight or flight, brain, panic mode prevails for everyone impacted.

All their certainty is gone, for BOTH, the retrenched, and the lucky ones, who stay behind… for now!

The deep neuro-reactions to a threat loom larger than life; possible loss of significance, certainty, belonging, autonomy, control, connection, fairness. It’s just a natural human reaction that’s hardwired into our brains. So do we mitigate against it?

Build a REVOLUTIONARY, High Performance, ADAPTAGILE, WORKPLACE
The best approach to handle these COVID19 VUCA, and tough times, is to use the proven REVOLUTIONARY WORKPLACE High-Performance philosophy and framework, to develop #FutureFit people, with higher ADAPTAGILITY capacity.

Our People, Teams, Leadership, and Culture, optimisation processing, goes deep, and enables people to take back control, rebuild resilience, increase awareness, and positive self-talk… and begin to take PURPOSE-FULL…Fiercely Focused, SWIFT Actions, again.

This enables people to build the requisite ADAPTAGILITY to cope with the uncertainties and ever-shifting conditions and opportunities… like surfers on the ocean waves.

Through this Mindshifting People and Team-tune-up system, powered by greater consciousness, empathy, love and compassion, we support, guide, and coach, your people to get back up, and onto, the proverbial “Surf-board”, in a positive space in the world, much sooner, than if they are left to cope by themselves.

It’s about Corporate Soul Surgery.

Enabling people to bring their fullest potential and selves, to work.

For meaningful work with Soul…for those wanting to increase their purposefulness, effectiveness, engagement, and contribution, at work, and bring more care, compassion, connection, and heart, into their relationship with others.

We have extensive experience showing the recovery cycle and MindShift process people must GO THROUGH…to rebuild trust, connection, commitment, and reduce their recovery times.

If you truly care. If you’re not, just a Greeder that does business purely for the money; if you have a heart, and if you have a compassionate Soul, support your people and teams in going through the challenges of change and growth, in all times…

Create a REVOLUTIONARY WORKPLACE…give your people the greatest. most relevant, gift of ADAPTAGILITY.

Support the people on both sides of the change, the lucky ones that are staying, as well as the unfortunate ones that are going.

For the ones that are staying turn them into a high-performance happy, healthy, sustainable, thriving people and teams.

The ones that are going, help accelerate their recovery, rejuvenation, and re-energising.

They will also become a more positive source of reference for your company, out there in the market.

Because, if you just check them out, they’re not going to be your best word of mouth people when you let them go.

Whatever you are looking to achieve in your organisation …

– People: Positive passionate productive fully engaged people
– Teams: Align and turbo-charge trust, teamwork, and tolerance
– Leadership: Lift leadership effectiveness and impacts
– Culture: Clear conflicts, constraints, and confusion.
– Execution: Excellence and Accountability
– Consequences: Grow Sales, reduce delays, improve customer service and loyalty.

…it all begins with the mindsets, meaning, trust, teamwork, commitment, and collaboration towards a valuable and meaningful CAUSE.

Contact us to create a highly adaptable and agile, Consciously Constructive REVOLUTIONARY WORKPLACE, that is human-centered, conscious, and supports People, Purpose, Planet AND Profits.

Our REVOLUTIONARY WORKPLACE client testimonials, show you can trust us to deliver the most powerful, personal transforming, team turbo-charging, LIMITLESS leadership growing, processes possible anywhere today

The typical leaders decision process for interventions like this, follow the following thought process:

-The initial denial of the need
-Willing to listen – people want to be heard.
-Acceptance of other viewpoints
-Embracing new possibilities
-Empowering actions …

We need to help decision-makers and leaders to understand that taking this action of building a REVOLUTIONARY High Performance Teams WORKPLACE, may not only protect their reputation, workplace culture, and performance, but it’s also better for the entire business, because, you’ll stand a better chance of achieving the results and getting the outcomes you want.

Before you begin the restructure or retrenchments, and smash everyone’s mindsets, trust, energy, and certainty, let’s take you through our proven, High-Performance Philosophy, framework, and system, for creating a REVOLUTIONARY High-Performance WORKPLACE with Soul, in Tough Times.

The future of your organisation is directly linked to your levels of ADAPTAGILITY:

How well your people, teams, and leadership, can adjust and perform together, in a higher pressure ever-shifting context…
It’s strongly linked to the quality and consciousness of your Managers… which we already sense 8/10 are not fully ready to get your people and teams to FLY to their fullest Potentials.

Office

Life Masters High Performance Institute

Robin Drive Fourways
Sandton,
Gauteng
2055

Contact Us

• Tony Dovale
  (083) 447-6300

v2024.1.26a