A Layoff Labeled Transformation

Several years ago, I was in a leadership role during a layoff labeled a transformation. The following week I got on an international flight to an in-person event with the affected team. The event had been planned months before the transformation was announced. I protested the timing but was overruled. It turns out timing matters: once people were notified, their labor costs dropped below the line.

Everyone in the room was either on notice or staying behind, knowing this was the last time they'd meet in person with all of their colleagues. Effectively laid off over a Zoom call, then flown in days later to work together as if nothing had happened. It was one of the most raw experiences of my career.

The executives who directed the transformation didn't look at the whole picture. They'd approved the in-person event. They forced the timeline based on financial tools. They were absent when it came time to connect with the people affected.

That's the moment I stopped believing the story.

The vocabulary is the tell

Layoffs spun as "transformation." Offshoring spun as "upskilling." Huge price increases spun as "value alignment."

The vocabulary is the tell. When every negative impact gets a positive word stuck on it, you've entered the business twilight zone, and it's hard to escape.

The people on the receiving end knew. Engineers who'd built the products before the acquisition, who knew the codebase and the customers better than anyone in the new org, got treated like line items. They should have been treated better. I should have done more for them.

I tried once. I flatly refused to let someone go. The person I saved never learned what was planned. A few years later the machine got past me when reporting structures changed.

The customers got it worse. Contracts redone. Huge price increases. Support degraded. Their churn explained away as market dynamics or portfolio rationalization.

There were bright spots. I had the privilege of helping interview and hire some brilliant people during those offshoring "transitions." People I'm really glad I got to meet. They didn't deserve to inherit a mess. They met it with grace, and many are still doing great work.

A different version

There's a version of building a business where you don't have to spin the human cost into a transformation story. Where offshoring is just called offshoring. Where a price increase comes with an honest answer about what it buys. Where, when the numbers miss, the leadership team starts with the mirror before the slide deck.

When my projects are big enough to deserve real corporations, I'm wrapping them in a PBC, a public benefit corporation, with a charter and governance built to fight for the team and the customers the moment I'm not involved.

I'll get plenty of it wrong. I know I will. I'm still going to keep showing up and trying to do it differently. Five years from now I'd rather have built something honest than written a wisdom post about how well I handled something I never actually had to handle.

Originally posted on LinkedIn on May 19, 2026.