January 2010

CONTENTS
1.1
MANAGING CHANGE
France Telecom has transformed itself since privatisation in 2004. But 28
employees have committed suicide due to work-related stress. The company
now recognises the importance of the individual.

2.1
IN SEARCH OF LEADERS
It’s 2010 and the old ways don’t work ! We must do things differently from
now on. Is your management team up to the challenge ?

2.2
REDUNDANCY
The preferred option for Companies. But Employees would choose salary cuts.

3.1
AFTER THE REDUNDANCIES
The survivors still have a job. They must be happy - mustn’t they ? The next step
is the most important of all.

Managing Change at a Big Price

“ The paradox is that we must re-introduce more individualisation to create the collective”

The last eighteen months have been incredibly controversial for Commenting on the need to sensitively manage change, Didier
telecoms giant France Telecom, which operates the Orange brand in Lombard stated “ The paradox is that we must re-introduce more
France. Twenty-eight staff have committed suicide (all but one of these individualisation to create the collective”.
was male) as a result, it is claimed by trade union leaders, of the
allegedly brutal management culture of a company which has Below is a timeline of FT.com headlines of the corporate story as
transformed itself over a decade from a ponderous state utility to a it emerged in the last Quarter of 2009.
leading telecommunications enterprise.
The France Telecom victims have mostly been previously well- 18th September 2009
adjusted people in their 40s and 50s whose familiar working lives have “French suicides complicate Corporate life”
been turned upside down. 19th September 2009
The decline of land lines and the transformation of France Telecom “Workplace suicides spark French outcry”
into a successful mobile ‘phone and internet provider has abolished the 29th September 2009
need for many physical repair jobs. “Political fury over suicides”
But long-service telecoms workers retain the protected status of 2nd October 2009
French public servants. They could not be easily made redundant. “French Telecom faces up to crisis with employees”
Instead, the company is accused of adopting “bullying” tactics to 5th October 2009
“encourage” unwanted workers to leave the company. Many of the “France Telecom executive quits over suicides”
employees have been pitched overnight into faceless, high-pressure 6th October 2009
call-centres. For months France Telecom management had dismissed “France Telecom must lift morale and margins”
the suicides as a contagious “fad” among its staff. 29th October 2009
Its CEO Didier Lombard lately admitted that he had “made “France Telecom sets aside € 1 b. for staff stress”
mistakes, which has increased the stress on my employees.” 15th December 2009
The company is now engaged in sweeping changes to repair its “France Telecom studies morale”
reputation and has earmarked € 1 billion to assist staff through its
controversial change program.
 In search of Leaders
The challenges of 2010 require different responses.
Is your management team up for it ? Essential leadership skills can be learned.

Effective Management Martin Luther King Jr. said “I have a dream!”

Manager or an Administrator ?
The essence of a manager’s job is to cause
objective results to happen through the
activities of others. But it is a reality that most
managers are in fact administrators. They
manage their staff through the rigorous
application of rules, procedures and policies
which become ends in themselves
Leaders & Leadership
It’s earned, it’s inspirational and uncomfortable.
A real manager is a leader. Leadership is
based on respect, not rank. It is earned and it
is challenged. It is given and is taken away. It
can be an uncomfortable place to be. But it is
to the leaders that we all look for inspiration –
and everyone knows who they are. While
“pure” leaders may not need to be good
managers, all good managers have to be
effective leaders. While it may not be clear
what makes a leader, definable and
identifiable leadership skills exist that when
used purposefully help managers get the
most from their teams.
Leaders
Inspiring followers with Vision.
Leaders must have followers - without
followers who trust, rely on, and feel
supported and inspired by the leader there is
no leadership. Leaders have a vision -
somewhere to go. They have a clear, exciting
image of the future and they inspire the team
to follow that vision. This vision is built as
much around emotion and feelings as facts
and figures driven by business planning.
But leaders do more than create a vision.
Leaders integrate and unify their personal
goals with those of the organisation. Their
vision is truly aligned with that of the
organisation.
Leadership & Communication
Passion, enthusiasm & empowerment.
Leaders communicate their vision clearly,
passionately and enthusiastically. They
develop shared goals and objectives with
their team. They communicate their own
emotional attachment to these goals to their
team, aligning their interests. They develop a
passionate and emotive vision from the dry
figures of a budget document that they can
communicate with enthusiasm. Leaders seek
to empower their staff. They point the way,
they scope out the means and then they
allow their team rise to the challenge. They
don’t demand the blind observance and
obedience of the administrator. They are
courageous enough to trust their people to
do a good job and show faith in them to
follow a sense of vision and guidance.
Leadership Culture
Leading by example
Leaders create a normative culture in their
organisations which defines a moral
imperative on “how things are done around
here.” This can only be established by
example – an effective culture can not be
established through rules, policies and
procedures. Be aware that any reaction to
success or failure, joy or disappointment, how
customers and competitors are treated, how
senior colleagues or office junior are treated –
everything that is done or said is
contributing to the culture that is being
created.
Powe r & Au t h o r i t y vs Pro fe s s i o n a l
Competence
Knowing the business
Leaders bring professional competence to the
process, through their understanding of the
products, services, customers and industry,
they are active within. It is through their
personal track record of success and
competence that they garner respect from
their followers. Leaders lead by example and
persuasion, not on the basis of power and
authority. They must keep in the thick of the
business. They can’t become isolated behind a
desk. The action is out there with the
customers and opinion leaders.
All managers can benefit from measuring
themselves against the ideals of Leadership.
While authority and respect have to be
earned, everyone can develop and enhance
their leadership potential.

Redundancy
The preferred option for companies, but employees would prefer pay cuts.

Mercer’s Planning for 2010 Snapshot Survey, published in December 2009, indicates that redundancy is the preferred instrument of cost-cutting
among larger organisations in Ireland’s private sector.

The survey found that in 2009 some 9% of companies surveyed had implemented pay-cuts, 33% had implemented pay-freezes, 50% were intending
to freeze pay in 2010 and 12% were offering unpaid leave. However, Patrick Robertson, Senior Consultant was clear that “while companies are
seeking to reduce the cost of doing business by various means, pay cuts are the exception in larger organisations.”

Compulsory and voluntary redundancy programs and hiring freezes were the most common means of implementing cost cutting the survey found.
A UK Survey carried out at the same time found that 70% of surveyed staff would prefer to take a pay cut to protect against redundancies.

What motivates the choice for redundancy is not clear. Are senior management protecting their own salaries by avoiding pay cuts or are disciplinary
issues being dealt with under cover of a crisis. What ever the reason, it appears managers are unaware of the trauma redundancy programs cause
and raises the question if such decisions leave companies best placed to respond to the inevitable upturn.
 After the Redundancies
The redundancy program is over. But the staff you chose to keep are not happy. As many as 20% of
them could now be quietly hostile. It’s the time to re-constitute the team.

People-related issues are a constant “headcount reductions” or “cost-cutting.” The

challenge in management - indeed it is a
truism that you are not really a manager
unless you manage people. And yet most
change programs pay little or no attention
to the human aspect of the change process.
Organisations are made up of a
collection of individuals with the
idiosyncrasies being human encompasses. In
order to successfully implement a change
program organisations must operate on an
individual level and in a psychologically
supportive way.
Change happens one person
at a time
A change program that features
significant redundancies is even more
challenging. It is seen by the employees
involved (both those exiting and surviving)
as a profoundly personal one. A redundancy
program impacts on the personal
relationship between the individual and the
organisation. At the most basic level habits
and rituals such as shared lunchtimes have
been disrupted. At its most profound it
questions the implicit job-for-life
understanding. At the same time
management tend to de-personalise the
re d u n d a n c y p ro ce s s, i m p l e m e n t i n g
real trauma experienced by all employees as
colleagues and friends disappear is
minimised.
Everyone, it is felt has a vested interest
in moving on. In this instance, moving on
tends to mean drawing a veil over what has
happened and “not mentioning the war.”
But what the veil is actually covering is
the fact that the organisation now consists
of group of traumatised employees who
have reduced confidence in their job
security, have lost trust in management as
they question certain redundancy decisions,
who have at best reduced loyalty to the new
structure and at worst are hostile to the new
situation and will actually seek to damage
the company. Surveys in the US indicate that
as many as 20% of staff post-redundancy
can be hostile. In Ireland a survey by Grafton
Recruitment (2009) found that 63% of
people in full time employment are actively
looking for new jobs due to uncertainty in
their current organisation.
These are the staff you chose to keep !
It is now vitally important that a post-
redundancy Integration Plan is activated to
bring these staff members safely through
this fundamental change process and create
the new working environment with the
desired work patterns embedded.
63% of people in full time
employment are currently looking
for new positions
A well thought out Integration Plan will
restore confidence, rebuild trust and bolster
morale among the surviving staff as well as
mapping a clear direction forward. It can also
be an oppor tunity to invite into the
organisation the right support to bring about
closure on the redundancy process in a
psychologically safe environment, to help
develop a new shared vision of success and
elicit commitment and buy-in from the newly
re-constituted team. It can also work to repair
the breach of trust between staff and
management that every redundancy program
creates, to restore business confidence among
the staff, alleviate the concerns about future
job security, and facilitate the spread of
grounded optimism.
Organisations that deliver a redundancy
program producing the desired slimmed
down, more efficient model are the ones that
think through the project beyond the
downsizing. They follow through with an
Integration Plan. This plan forms the basis for
the re-constitution of the new team and
identification with the new, brighter future.

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rooted in the skills of business experience and Rathfarnham Dublin 2
counselling psychology. There can be significant Dublin 16
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