Paul Levy

How Layoffs Have Evolved: From “Office Space” to “Up In The Air”

January 25, 2010

In the decade since its release, the movie Office Space has dramatized the corporate best of work-life dystopia. In Office Space, we’ve got the Lumberg, the red stapler, the TPS Reports, a bad case of the Mondays, a little flair, and of course, “the Bobs”. Oh, the Bobs, those clueless, bumbling, omniscient consultants from corporate [...]

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Which is preferable, Layoffs or Alternatives to Layoffs?

May 4, 2009

My esteemed colleague and fellow Michigan PhD alum, Aneil Mishra, is a well-known expert on the ‘softer’ organizational affects of downsizing and layoffs: morale, commitment and trust. Writing today about furloughs at GM on his blog Total Trust, Aneil mentions that "In our research on downsizing, we’ve found that across-the-board cost cutting like this (specifically, [...]

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Leading Authentically with Transparency: An interview/podcast with Paul Levy

April 27, 2009

Here’s a neat podcast interview with Paul Levy, CEO of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, whose leadership approach to the need for dramatic cost-cutting we considered in the post Finding a leadership opportunity in alternatives to layoffs. This podcast interview offers a few additional insights, in part because the interviewer Catherine Bell asks some smart [...]

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Finding a Leadership Opportunity in Alternatives to Layoffs

March 16, 2009

Let’s say you’ve been convinced by the argument against layoffs and the recommendations for trying alternatives to layoffs. You’ve looked at a few of the Honor Roll organizations and decided to take that next step… As you prepare to act, consider this additional option. Can you find a way to make alternatives into layoffs something [...]

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