The difference between those organizations that make it in the new millennium and those that don’t will be leaders with the ability to facilitate transitions:  their own, the organization’s and those of their fellow employees.  What follows are ten very specific and prescriptive activities that will facilitate the development of these essential skills.

• Get involved in the leadership of a volunteer organization.  Pick one that does not receive funding or support from your organization.  Helping manage a volunteer organization is a powerful feedback and developmental experience.  It removes you from your positional power base and allows you to assess your true impact. 
• Take evening courses or sign up for special programs that teach helping skills..  The macro-leadership competency of the future will be the ability to help yourself, your organization, and your employees facilitate change and transition.  Management is a helping profession and managers  need the same kind of helping skills as other professionals in the field. 
• Complete a professional 360-degree feedback instrument.  By professional, I mean that you should use an instrument that has a history, validity standards, and norms.  Have the results interpreted by someone trained in helping you understand what it means and dosen’t mean.  Some organizations have their own 360-degree instruments and others use instrument licensed and certified by external vendors.  There are also some excellent external organizations you can hire to administer such instruments. 
• Attend a professional leadership training program.  This type of training is different from a program on marketing, quality, or performance management.  It should focus on intra-personal insight, inter-personal skills, and the systems perspective necessary to develop a culture that leads to organizational learning.  There are some very good in-house programs and many excellent external offerings.
• Find a Truth Teller.  It is particularly important for top managers to cultivate and use truth tellers.  A truth teller is someone in the organization you can rely on to, as is said in baseball “call them they way they see them.”  Truth tellers provide unfiltered feedback. 
• Attend Laboratory Training.  These sessions used to be called T-groups. Yes, this is sensitivity training, and yes, it is “feely” – but it probably won’t be “touchy.”  The bottom line is that this kind of laboratory training is a very powerful way to get the depth of feedback that will lead to self-awareness. 
• Become familiar with future search technology.  There is a movement out there, using labels such as “future search,” and speaking of “getting the whole system in a room.”  These large system-change processes go for the jugular in stimulating the learning organization.  If you want to jump-start your understanding of learning in the colle3ctive, you need to get on the bandwagon; the technology is growing faster than it can be codified.
• Learn how to have a dialogue.  A dialogue is different from a discussion, an argument, a debate, or a business meeting.  The dialogue process is very important in developing learning organizations and is central to collective learning.  There are seminars and workshops.  You can also find some consultants who can teach you and your organization dialogue skills.
• Get active in your professional association.  Don’t just attend the national meeting – become a worker, serve on committees, pass out the literature, do time in the information booth, set up the chairs!  The higher up you are, the more the value of the grunt work.  It forces you to see an organizational system from a different perspective and helps you rethink your own skills and assumptions as to what constitutes value-added.
• Set up an intensive personal feedback project.  One option involves retaining an external consultant to nearly overwhelm you with feedback from a wide range of data points.  This is a very powerful process.  You can’t escape valid data, and a skilled consultant will help you understand it and do something about it.

Most layoff survivors are dealing with some pretty productivity-hindering emotions such as anger, fear, and anxiety.  They may not express these feelings directly but they are there and taking a toll on their self-esteem, productivity and ability to focus on customer service.  So the first tip is to find ways to get them to externalize these debilitating emotions.  Things like facilitated venting sessions, one-on-one sessions with the boss, small group planning sessions really help and the boss does not have to be a shrink to facilitate them.  She or he may need some coaching or actual help from a qualified outsider.  These kinds of sessions really work and bosses are always surprised at the power of these kinds of sessions.

 Another process that I have seen work well is an honest, down and dirty, visioning session.  Visions don’t have to be grandiose or even overly positive.  The vision may be to simply keep the department running for a few months.  The power of engaging employees in articulating a shared vision of the future is that it allows them to participate and gives them a sense of control. Participation and control are exceptionally important in times of crisis.

 A third “tip” is honest straight talk one-on-one with each employee.  Straight talk involves clarity on what the boss knows and what the boss does not know.  If it is clear that the person will eventually loose his or her job, they need to know this.  There is no evidence that prior notice results in sabotage and unproductive behavior. There is strong evidence that prior notice gives the employee control and most are appreciative of knowing and actually work hard. 

 In closings, future shutdowns, or when the prognosis for survival is unclear, I have found moving toward a contractual relationship with severance pay, performance standards, and the period of advance notice of possible termination clearly spelled out works exceptionally well.   

 Special effort hast to be made to re-recruit and retain key players.  The best employees, those with options, will leave first unless they are handled very carefully.  Mechanisms such as retention bonuses, telling them that they will be the last to go if worse comes to worse, and involving them in planning and decision making work well.   

 Continual communication by the boss is essential.  This means being visible, managing by walking around, directly sharing what the boss knows and what the boss does not know, and any future plans.  Communication also means listening, being empathetic, and engaging in a helping, not a controlling relationships with employees.   “Sucking it up” and remaining emotionally detached is a very bad strategy for both employee retention and the bosses own survivor symptoms.

 Engaging employees and soliciting their ideas as to how to generate new business and keep the dealership afloat creates a double win.  Employees feel involved and valued, and they often generate good ideas.

 Lastly, the boss needs to look in the mirror.  She needs to deal with her own anger and anxiety before she can be of help to employees.  They will see right through her if she is faking it.  Cynicism, sarcasm – even veiled in humor –coming from the leader is toxic to organizational survival.  When I work with businesses, I make very certain that the boss has taken sufficient time and is able to externalize her or his own survivor symptoms.  If they don’t there is not much hope for the employees.