Why Top Performers Get Axed

4 Ways to Dodge the Chop

It happened again this week—twice.

Two calls from two top performing Senior Executives who got axed (outplaced, if you prefer) after 16 years of prodigious performance (verified by their $500k+ remunerations).

Top performers get axed because the political ground shifts under their feet and they are slow, unable or unwilling to shift with it.

Being a top performer doesn’t guarantee your continuous employment if you don’t adapt quickly or appropriately enough when your company culture changes.

Today's top performers become "yesterday's news" by tomorrow because anything that distances you from your peers can negate you. Being too conspicuously successful or too quiet an achiever is equally risky.

But why axe top performers?

Because any group (i.e., company, corporation, profession, industry, etc.) acts first and foremost to perpetuate itself, especially when in crisis.

The US charity March of Dimes was founded in the 1950s to combat polio. When polio was eradicated they immediately found new diseases by which to justify their continued existence.

Government programs don’t disband when they accomplish their objective. They find new ways to justify their further funding.

Business is the same. Companies re-invent themselves routinely in order to survive. IBM used to make computers, now they’re a global technology that does everything but make computers.

Likewise, top-performers have to adapt. Or else.

4 ways to dodge the axeman’s blow:

1) Think like a company. Companies think differently than people. You must learn their ways, speak their language, and figure out what drives them today. 

Whether you’re an employee within the company or a supplier to it, you need to understand what the company wants and needs; and that’s different from what you want and need.

Companies --- like countries--- act in their own self-interest. You’re either seen as an asset to that corporate self-interest or you’re not.

2) Learn to act: By act I mean don the costume, adopt the role, and immerse yourself in your corporate role.

After all, that’s what they’re paying your to do.

You say: ‘Oh my!’ I can’t pretend; I won’t compromise my integrity, morals, values, blah-blah-blah….

• Did Nicole Kidman sell out by portraying Virginia Woolf (she won an Oscar)?
• Did Russell Crowe cop out to portray a Gladiator (he won an Oscar)?
• Did Jeffrey Rush compromise his integrity by imitating a pianist (Oscar winner)?
• Did Heath Ledger surrender his virtue by portraying the Joker (Oscar winner)?

No, they acted. They did their job, fulfilled their role’s requirements, and picked up a pay check.

They did it while maintaining their pride and dignity. So can you (Oscars are optional).

3) Get on the bus or get thrown under it.

In times of flux toleration decreases in companies. Companies react by creating a morehomogeneous culture. Your record matters less now than ever. Now, being a team player is the prized characteristic. Now is not the time to question the bus driver’s skill.

4) Use the common currency.

To purchase something in a foreign country, you use their currency. Foolishly insisting that they accept your currency reveals your ignorance and rigidity. When their currency changes, you adapt to it, not vice-versa.

Likewise in corporations. Even top performers must adjust to the prevailing company environment, however foreign, and use the new currency, especially if the company is cost-cutting.

Bottom line: Companies act for their survival, not yours. So they should. And so should you.