The CEO of better.com laid off 900 employees over a zoom call. It's a lesson in Emotional Intelligence, but it's not what you might think.
CEO of Better.com, Vishal Garg, summoned employees onto a Zoom call the afternoon of Dec. 1, and announced they were being let go. The layoffs—impacting approximately 9% of the company's staff, about 900 people—would be effective immediately. Then the affected employees’ corporate accounts promptly went dark.
He said "If you're on this call, you are part of the unlucky group that is being laid off. Your employment here is terminated immediately", adding that he does “not want to do this.”
"This is the second time in my career I'm doing this and I do not want to do this. The last time I did it, I cried," Garg said on the call.
The CEO has been involved in controversy before, as evidenced by an email he sent to his staff that was obtained by Forbes.
It read, "You are TOO DAMN SLOW. You are a bunch of DUMB DOLPHINS... SO STOP IT. STOP IT. STOP IT RIGHT NOW. YOU ARE EMBARRASSING ME," he wrote.
CFO Kevin Ryan said in a statement to CNN Business. "Having to conduct layoffs is gut wrenching, especially this time of year"
Let's go over the framework of Emotional Intelligence to see specifically where he went wrong.
1. Self-awareness – You recognize your own emotions and how they affect your thoughts and behavior. You know your strengths and weaknesses, and have self-confidence. With all the I statements, I just can't believe he is focused on how his emotions or feelings impact others.
2. Self-management – You’re able to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, manage your emotions in healthy ways, take initiative, follow through on commitments, and adapt to changing circumstances. From a self-management perspective, in his email, with all caps screaming at his staff, he was out of control.
3. Social awareness – You have empathy. You can understand the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people, pick up on emotional cues, feel comfortable socially, and recognize the power dynamics in a group or organization. The time of year that he timed the layoffs, the fact that other than informing people they were laid off all he talked about was how it impacted him. No where does he recognize the hardship on them, no where does he thank them for helping to build his company.
4. Relationship management – You know how to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly, inspire and influence others, work well in a team, and manage conflict. The remaining employees will remember how their colleagues were treated and any future employees will also know.
It is clear the real audience for this talk was the street. He was pandering to the investment community. Okay, I'm not saying you don't need to do that, but compassionately laying off 900 people and then having an Investor Relations or industry analyst call to give the investment community the confidence that you have a sound strategy are two different meetings. If I were an investor, I'd definitely take queues about how he treats his team.
