Beacons of Business - 9

[Guest guest]

Sairam Sisters and Brothers,

Today we will hear from Lars Kolind, CEO, Oticon, Braedstrup, Denmark.

---

"If you look back at the Oticon story, there were two phases. One was the

downsizing and the other was the building of the new company. In the downsizing

phase we were under extreme pressure because the whole company was falling

apart. And the pressures were coming from everywhere. I met with the management

of our bank once a month and they were looking critically at everything we were

doing. We were pressed to an extent that most people simply cannot imagine.

We were forced to reduce staff very dramatically. On one occasion we cut away

10% of the staff overnight. I was really under pressure to determine which

principles we should use to make the decisions as to who to lay off. I took the

decision, which no one understood, that we would not fire anyone over 50.

Neither would we fire people who were so essential that we didn't think we

could survive without them. But other than that, we would let those people go

who we thought would have the best chance of getting another job quickly - even

though these were obviously the ones I would have preferred retaining. I just

couldn't look into the eyes of all of the people that we would kick into

prolonged unemployment in order for the rest of us to make money and prosper. I

just couldn't do that.

I must admit that I simply made these decisions and I didn't really think about

where they came from, which was from my conscience. Normally someone in my

position would let the department heads talk to the people. But I didn't do it

that way. I talked to every single person that was to be laid off and told each

of them that they were going to be fired and that we would work with them to get

a new job the best we could. I was experiencing all their bad feelings as I was

confronting myself with the doubts and fears of all of these people. To me it

would have been an act of cowardice to let others do this for me. I made the

decision. Then I explained it to my managers - and I explained to those being

fired why I had chosen to do what we were doing.

The interesting point was that we got through this amazingly well. There was

total acceptance, even though no one really understood it. But once it was

done, people said "wow" and really respected my decision. I maintained a number

of the people who were fired as very good friends because they respected that it

was necessary. It turned out that we managed to work with almost all of them to

get new jobs. Obviously this had a price for me and for the company as well,

and the price was that there were lots of people that I would have rather laid

off that we retained.

Later I realised that this was really an expression of my spiritual principles.

But I must admit that while doing it I didn't think much about it. Yes, I did

follow my conscience and that is certainly the voice of spirituality."

© Global Dharma Center 2004

htt://www.globaldharma.org