A Successful Downsizing Developing a Culture of Trust and Responsibility推荐.pdfVIP

5 A Successful Downsizing: Developing a Culture of Trust and Responsibility by Alexander Laufer, Dan Ward, and Alistair Cockburn My Engineering Staff Shrunk from 80 to 12 Judy Stokley recalls the challenges she faced when she took over as program director of the Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Mis- sile (AMRAAM) at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida: “Talk about a difficult start. The program was rife with prob- lems when I arrived, not the least of which was the mandated drawdown plan that had not been met. The Air Force had is- sued a mandate to draw down the workforce, and everyone on the program knew about it—civil servants, military personnel, and support contractors. A lot of these people had been on the program for the full 20 years it had existed, and many thought they were going to stay there until they retired. “The program director before me had not been able to face let- ting people go. ‘I would rather retire than let that many people go,’ he had said, and that’s exactly what he did—so there was a perception in the program office that perhaps we would be able to ‘escape’ compliance with the directive.” 125 126 Mastering the Leadership roLe in project ManageMent Judy called a meeting of all 200 workers who were assigned to the AMRAAM program in order to explain the drawdown plan. It was a daunting task to tell them that in less than a year, more than half of them would no longer be working in the program office. She tried to make it clear that she did not intend to just pass out pink slips, and she reassured them that they would receive assistance in finding new jobs. The initial reaction was dead silence. After the meeting ended, people rushed to gather around her, competing for her attention to convince her that their