In the life of an IT leader, there are many beautiful moments when you grow the business and witness your team’s achievements. Unfortunately, as a startup CTO, there are also times when you must optimize the team size for less fortunate times. In recent years, I have faced this challenge twice.
The first instance was with a Fintech company that needed to reorganize to lower operating costs. The high interest rates caused by the Ukraine conflict and an economic downturn were the culprits. The second time was recently, when profound regulatory landscape changes caused our product-market fit to disappear.
Although the reasons differed, our approach did not. Both companies upheld the value of ‘we take care of each other.‘ These moments of letting people go tested whether we genuinely lived up to our values. As a management team, we ensured our colleagues received a good severance package and leveraged our personal and business networks to introduce them to new opportunities.
These colleagues worked vigorously to create outstanding solutions for our customers, and their situation was not their fault. As a wise person once said, “People don’t remember what you said or did; they remember how you made them feel.”
I can only hope that these colleagues will look back and continue to care for others around them as they were cared for in their professional lives.
To all IT leaders: it’s about leading through good times and demonstrating empathy and support during the challenging ones.
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