Good morning.
Are layoffs a confession of bad management? That’s the question Fortune’s Geoff Colvin asked in a piece for the latest issue of our magazine, which you can read here. He takes aim at Mark Zuckerberg’s declaration of 2023 as “the Year of Efficiency” and asks: What were the prior years? The Years of Squandering?
There was a time, not too long ago, when layoffs were celebrated as a symbol of CEO mettle. For a few years in the early 1990s, Fortune ran a list called America’s Toughest Bosses that celebrated the likes of Warnaco CEO Linda Wachner, who advised an executive to fire people if he wanted to be taken seriously, or Dart Group CEO Herbert Haft, who fired his own wife and son. In today’s business world, however, sobriquets like those given to “Chainsaw Al” Dunlap or “Prince of Darkness” Ed Artzt are no longer medals of honors. Empathy is in.
