Nokia Siemens Networks in ‘synergy-related headcount restructuring' ‚Ä ¢ The Register
Nokia may have developed the worst Orwellian euphemism ever. The company, in a press release, actually referred to layoffs as:
As Liz Lemon said on 30 Rock, “What the WHAT??” 9,000 people, jobs lost. You can also insensitively say “9,000 heads” or “9,000 bodies” but these are people with lives that have been impacted. They deserve better than awful euphemisms.
I was going to comment, but I'll just leave it to the UK's “The Register” publication (link at time).
They include a deliciously bad quote from a Nokia exec:
“With the successful completion of these plans, we will have the vast majority of the synergy-related headcount reductions completed and we can then start to put this chapter of our history behind us and focus on creating a world-class company.”
Riiiiight. Good luck with that. I remember when my wife and most of the rest of the U.S. had Nokia phones… the year 2000. Has Nokia been relevant since?
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Mark's new book is The Mistakes That Make Us: Cultivating a Culture of Learning and Innovation.
He is also the author of Measures of Success: React Less, Lead Better, Improve More, the Shingo Award-winning books Lean Hospitals and Healthcare Kaizen, and the anthology Practicing Lean.
Mark is also a Senior Advisor to the technology company KaiNexus.
I cringe when I hear language like that.
What ever words you choose, I think you must say the word “people”.
You need to ground yourself in what’s really happening.
Letting people go, laying people off. People. Don’t forget it.
"focus on creating a world-class company"…so they're not *already* a world-class company? Sad that Amerians, Asians, & others have, all this time, been buying products from a non-world-class company.
Motorola was world-class company…so they believed…