Sometimes,
when you gape in front of the mirror you feel the need to
shed that extra fat which makes you then think about hitting
a fitness center. Organizations too have to trim their fat
from time to time to keep themselves agile and fit to survive
in this tough-going world. In 1981, when Jack Welch took control
of GE, detrimental to the culture of GE he callously went
on a fat-trimming spree. In a span of just five years, he
mercilessly cut more than 100,000 jobs spread across all levels.
The futile and non-fruit bearing branches of the giant tree
were gone.
You
may call it workforce reduction, right sizing, downsizing,
re-engineering, delayering or just anything else, I call it
Organization Pruning—Continuously removing deadwood (that
is what Wipro supremo Azim Premji calls non-performers) from
the organization based on both the internal and external environmental
needs. From the organizational point of view, downsizing can
be seen as `a set of activities undertaken by the management,
designed to improve organizational efficiency, effectiveness,
productivity, and/or competitiveness. A downsizing strategy
reduces the scale (size) and scope of a business to improve
its financial performance (Robbins & Pearce, 1992). Downsizing
falls into the category of strategic management tools for
achieving a desired change. |
