The Midnight Layoff Decision
Most leaders describe layoffs as the hardest decision they'll ever make. But what's actually happening in those hours before the announcement? This opening explores the psychological machinery that activates when a leader must eliminate jobs they created, including the cognitive biases that make the decision feel both inevitable and unbearable. We follow a manufacturing CEO through the 36 hours before announcing a 15% reduction, tracking how confirmation bias narrows their thinking, how loss aversion makes them delay, and how the sunk cost fallacy keeps them justifying roles that no longer…
The skinny
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