Making sense of layoffs – and why the search for answers may be unhelpful

Do you find yourself looking for answers after layoffs??

What algorithm was used to select who goes and who stays??

Why does it feel like it was personal? (..was I singled out?)?

Why does it all seem so random? (..I wasn’t laid off, but am I next?)

I wish I could provide the answers. I wish I could explain everything. I wish I could demystify it all.

Many are seeking information and answers right now, subtly guided by a deep, ancient, evolutionary mechanism – the hyper-vigilant spotter, always on the lookout for danger to help keep us safe. A spotter that has honed its craft throughout our lives, and through every traumatic event.

A job directly and indirectly provides a sense of security. This could mean security related to: financial (I know where my food/shelter/money is coming from); healthcare (the medical treatment I may need is affordable/available); routine (I know what my upcoming life days/weeks/months will look like so I can more easily spot trouble if something is out of the norm); and sense of community (evolutionary desire for strength in numbers, to warn of dangers).

When your safety is threatened (e.g., a job loss), part of that mechanism is the need to figure out what caused the situation so you can prevent it from happening again. Think about when you slip and fall on an icy day. What goes through your mind?

how can I be so clumsy??

I should have known better?

that could've really been bad if I had broken my wrist

had I broken my wrist I wouldn't have been able to work for awhile

that puts my overall safety and security at risk?

so what can I learn from this experience??how can I be more careful in the future?

maybe I need better shoes / I will be more careful next time I see ice / I should avoid this path in winter

In a job loss, the same mental process is triggered as slipping on ice: this bad thing happened to me (or someone close to me), therefore my safety is threatened, therefore I must learn as much as I can about it so I can keep myself secure in the future.?

Makes sense, right?

So, you gather as much information about this situation as you can, in order make the necessary changes to prevent a similar situation from surprising you again in the future.?

The problem is, in this case, digging into these questions is actually unlikely to result in the safety you seek.

Someone had it out for you. What if your job loss *was* personal? An unknown person in your leadership chain secretly disliked you and took the opportunity to exit you. What would do with this information? Hold a grudge against that person? That doesn't improve things. Should you not work for that management chain again? (You don’t work for that person or that company anymore, so that probably isn’t too likely anyway..) They aren’t part of your world now, so this has no bearing on your next steps or your safety. If you knew it was personal, would that affect your next job? Should you become a suspicious, untrusting person? Is that going to help?

An algorithm got you. What if it *was* random (or even a mistake!)? You can lament that the company used a process that you don’t agree with (you're probably already doing that..) but you’re not going to know what the algorithm was, nor will you ever know if it was a mistake or not. This information might lead to anger, but otherwise has no bearing on constructive next steps.

You picked the wrong career or didn’t get promoted quickly enough. What if it *was* because of your team or location or job ladder or level? It would certainly be good to know if the job you were doing (or your location) was no longer valuable to the industry so you could think about making a change. Should you give up on your profession? Leave the tech industry entirely? (Why do you think a different job ladder or industry is more secure? Would you stay in tech if not for this?) These layoffs are very particular to this specific time and place in history, and their relevance to predict the future is questionable. (What if Gadget Architect III wasn't valued by Big Tech in Jan 2023? That has no bearing on how valuable it will be in 2024 when the world suddenly needs a lot more Gadgets...)

You were judged to be a “lower performer” and nobody even told you. What if it *was* because of your performance? OK, but did you do your best given your circumstances? Did you take feedback as best as you could with the information and ability you had at the time? What if that just wasn't sufficient for the particular circumstances in January 2023 at that company? How does this have any bearing on your next steps? Should you work harder next time? (Weren’t you already doing your best?) Also, nobody is going to discuss the specifics of your performance in this role with you ever again, nor is your future employer going to have access to that information, so be kind to yourself and put this one down as it’s not relevant.

None of these points are helpful, not only because the answers would not be actionable, but because the answers are not forthcoming anyway. You might suspect something or have a guess about why you fell on the ice, but you’ll never know for certain.?

[Disclaimer: This was written as a framework to help think through how to constructively move forward with self-care at the center; obviously, if there are real concerns about discrimination or legal issues, this framework is unlikely to be appropriate.]

Here’s my suggestion: Resist the urge to keep digging and digging for these answers – there is no solace to be found by doing this. Whatever process was used that put you or others in this situation was unique to that moment and circumstances in time and will not happen that exact way again.

Wait, but … my spotter needs to learn from this! It needs to know what different actions could be taken to keep me secure in the future!

Don’t despair – there *is* a lot to learn in these transitional moments! Transition times are a beautiful (and surprisingly rare) opportunity to figure out what the You of Today needs, rather than a Former You that was operating off of older information, acting out of momentum or routine. I heard Eric Schmidt once say that events that force us to consider making changes should be welcomed rather than feared, because it gives us the opportunity to make a new decision based on current information rather than inheriting decisions that were based on information that might now be quite old. (The longer ago a course of action was chosen, the older the information that informed that decision! How stale do we want our facts to be?)

I've been surprised by just how much of my own life was based on momentum — a track that had slowly been established via many completely good and reasonable choices along the way, choices that I'd probably make again if given the same information I had at the time. It wasn't that I didn't question things — I did, often — but the inertia that propelled me forward was just really strong. Inertia is subtle, and it takes the form of things like apartment leases, perceived safety in one's chosen career, identity/ego of one's work persona, proximity to certain people and places, etc. But when I began to look past the routine and momentum, it turned out there was a whole lot of useful, current information that was waiting to be discovered and incorporated.

I learned many years ago from Bill Coughran that often the answers aren’t nearly as important as asking the right questions. Let me offer you some alternative questions for your search.

• Am I clear on my priorities in what I want to do next? (How do I weigh income, meaning, family, location, and personal life?) When was the last time I renewed my priorities rather than inheriting them from a previous time in my life?
• Would I actually choose the exact thing (job, role, manager, company, location) that I just lost even if it was offered to me again today? If I could design my life from scratch, would I put the same things in it? What’s realistic for me to change?)
• Do I understand my financial picture well enough to know how long I have to explore and experiment versus needing a sufficient income right away?
• What constraints did my previous job entail that I’m now free of? What do I want to change in my next role?
• Am I being honest with myself about my value? Am I aiming too low versus what I know I have to offer?
• How much change can my life, soul, and family handle right now?
• Have I grieved this loss?

There is obviously a lot of privilege that comes with being able to even ask many of these questions (and to decide to act on them), and so many are in situations where they are on what feel like impossibly accelerated timelines – especially with single incomes, health issues, mortgages, and visas.?

This is also not going to make your hyper-vigilant spotter happy. Your spotter is not going to want to stop doing its job, but that’s OK. Thank that part of you for doing its job so well, and let it know that when you need its services again, you know where to find it.?

There is an opportunity for self-care in the form of boldness. Asking bold questions. Making bold choices. The bold choice to rest, the bold choice to question (or renew) your principles and values, the bold choice to ask if you want to keep going down the same path -- not just the bold choice to say no, but also the bold choice to reaffirm a yes!

In my own life, as I was facing the agonizing decision to leave my career behind to try something new, I spent a lot of time (years!) dwelling on what turned out to be the wrong questions. Should I stay or go? Is it wise to jettison familiarity, security and identity for a big unknown? Can my ego handle life without all of this? What will I become? Difficult questions for sure, but they are actually impossible to answer and they turned out to be unhelpful. But when I discovered the right question, the answer was obvious, and it gave me a way forward.

For me, the right question was, "Do I want the next part of my life to be very similar, or do I want it to be very different?" And that was that. Even with the risk of “different” being "worse," the answer was perfectly clear, and liberating.

What questions are you stuck on that aren’t serving you?