Over a decade ago, I was a finance leader in a company going through an ERP conversion to Oracle. It was not going well. The project was way over budget, and business conditions were declining. The CIO was sacked along with other expensive decision makers for the system upgrade, the consultants were severely reduced, and the scope of the project was shrunk. The accounting and finance department cut more than twenty people via forced ranking. Personally, my head was spinning and those that still had jobs were asked to do more with less. Let’s start with some background.
The process of forced ranking, if you have never been through it, tasks hiring managers to rank employees from first to worst. HR and others could argue the merits, but there is no denying this process sets the table for a company to answer, “Who are we going to fire?”. Likewise, forced ranking documents who a company should promote. It’s an unpleasant process. Some decisions are easy—like the guy who left his desk to smoke ten times a day, took long bathroom breaks with the sports page (yes, before smartphones, people actually read printed newspapers), and complained about his workload. He was a clear choice for the top of the list. But then there were the tough calls – single parents, the ones you thought would never get hired again in a God-awful job market, or the otherwise competent employees who weren’t as valuable as the stars on the team. The latter group were being let go not necessarily because they did something wrong but because the business needed to shed costs to survive.
The 65% of us that survived had our existing jobs plus some brand–new additional responsibilities. It was not all bad. Our department eliminated waste, and this process forced us to examine every single thing we were doing. Our reporting got leaner. Our reliance on estimates and analytics to determine reasonableness increased. We stopped doing things we had been doing just because ‘we had always done it that way’.
So, which candidates made the cut? First, it was the utility players – the candidates capable of doing more than one thing. A senior accountant that knew enough about accounts payable to oversee the reconciliation process was kept. The cost accountant that knew the raw material end of the process as well as the finished goods end was spared. Second, the candidates with technology chops were kept. We needed these tech savvy people to streamline and automate for efficiency. Third, the perceived “expensive” people got whacked. (Warning: Anybody that was a pain in the ass and demanded an extra 5-10% counter on their offer letter just because they could the hiring manager and HR probably remember.)
As a hiring manager both in public accounting and in industry, I was always a sucker for candidates with superior MS Excel skills. One of my peers in this story was a Controller I’ll call “Sweet Pete”. He’s probably retired at this point and the statute of limitations has expired. I liked Pete. Pete was a good guy that was forced to do the dirty work letting some really nice people go. One day Pete asked me for a favor. Would I trade my MS Excel guru and star “Scooter” for a mediocre analyst? Pete really really needed Scooter’s MS Excel skills to streamline and seamlessly integrate a long and arduous cost accounting process. You do what’s best for the team, right? I was not happy about it, but the company was spared from bankruptcy and my A player, Scooter, would be around to help train my new guy.
Terrible. Scooter was miserable in his new role. I was miserable. The new guy was not even 10% of what Scooter was. I wanted to rescind the trade a month in. In the meantime, Pete had lost a few more people who weren’t thrilled about doing more work for the same pay. When I asked Pete about reversing the decision, he flat-out refused. I persisted. Then, Pete got real red in the face and barked at me, “G– Dammit, sometimes people gotta eat the dog food I give them!!”
I’m not usually the kind of guy who’s left without words. But that day, I was. I was furious—absolutely seething inside. And as the days passed, Pete’s words kept echoing in my head, carving themselves into my thoughts.
If you know me well, you’ve probably heard me say it—a line Sweet Pete shared with me all those years ago. I’ve repeated it to my team, and even to my own kids, whenever they faced a task they didn’t want to tackle but knew had to be done.
Looking back, maybe that old guy taught the young guy something valuable in the middle of the Great Recession. Something about grit, responsibility, and doing what needs to be done—even when it’s the last thing you want to do.