Over last few weeks, it was a steady stream of Linkedin requests and sometimes personal emails and also lunch time chats from those that were affected. While talking to them, it was with heavy heart and sadness that I listened to their stories; It was indeed unfortunate to see those that worked for couple of decades or lesser leaving the place. Almost all of them accepted that eventuality but one statement was repeated again and again by different people. They said "My VP choose me".. That was striking! They did not believe they were chosen for performance, they did not believe their managers chose them. I donot know what was the cause really that they were affected. But most of them believed with utmost certainty that it was the image their VPs had on them. True or false is not the question, but their conviction on who made the call, was common across the board. One of them told me naively "We did all that we were supposed to do and we never had to escalate anything to my VP. Hence VP did not know how much I contributed". I just listened, pretty sure that it was emotional time and just had to assure emotionally.
I began to think and read on what's really going on for this narrative to take such a strong hold. They know their situations best so I trust them. But the lesson I take is we need to manage our perception with boss and boss's boss . Like it or not. What we lesser mortals call as "Politics" or "Schmoozing" higher-ups call as "Collaboration" or "Keeping-in-loop". And the rule of the games demand that we use these techniques while playing. Being technical and contributing is good but these are getting to be additional job responsibilities.
All the best to the folks that were affected. Keep the confidence alive and hope the best outcome.