Our Darkest Day

The last few people filed into the large conference room, and the director shut the door behind them with an ominous click.

The crowd of employees looked around, confused. No one knew why they were there. After a pause that felt like an eternity, an HR manager began handing out folders. One woman peeked into her folder and started reading. She looked as if she was going to cry.

A second director cleared his throat from the front of the room. "You're probably wondering why we called you here today," he said awkwardly. "Unfortunately, the company is going through a downturn. Effective immediately, everyone in this room is being let go."

Twenty voices erupted at once in shock and disbelief. The director gestured for silence, then continued. "In a few minutes, security will arrive outside the room, and you'll be taken out in small groups to pack your things. Then you'll be escorted out of the building."

A man in the front row scowled. Another asked, "Can I say good-bye to anyone?"

The director shook his head. "No. Anyone who is staying with the company is in a separate room. This is for everyone's protection."

"You can't just escort us out like criminals!" someone shouted.

The director's face was set. "The folder in your hands has all the details you'll need. We appreciate your work. Thank you."

Angry voices flooded the room once more. But as security arrived to escort the first group out, their protests gave way to resigned silence.

A woman came up to the director, hugging herself. "Why me?" she asked. "I'm good at what I do. I made it through the performance audit last month. Can you at least tell me why you picked me?"

The director looked at the woman and then toward security, but they were occupied. Reluctantly he turned back to her. "We needed to select a certain number of people. We did the best we could. There wasn't a reason you made the list. You just did."

"No reason? This is my livelihood! What do I tell my children?"

The director didn't feel good about brushing her off like that. But this is how they told me to do it, he told himself. This is how you lay people off.

He got security's attention, waved them over, and had them escort the woman out with the next group.

The director let out a small sigh of relief. He wouldn't get a wink of sleep that night, but at least the hard part was over.

It had been a sleepless few weeks for many of the higher-ups at Softway, especially for Mohammad, the company's founder, president, and CEO. Since 2003, Softway had been nothing but successful by all the standard metrics-revenue, profitability, year-on-year growth, you name it.

And yet, about a month prior to the layoffs, Softway's executive leadership team called a meeting with Mohammad to deliver some shocking news: Softway was in a bad place. The industry was in a downturn, the company was losing contracts, and they weren't bringing in enough new clients to make up the difference. For the company to survive, Mohammad would have to cut ties with over a third of the company's 260 employees.

Mohammad slumped in his chair, stunned. "Okay," he said. "Tell me what I need to do."

The executive leadership team walked him through the standard corporate layoff procedure: no one-on-one conversations, no apologies, no good-byes, and, above all, no actions or behaviors that might make Mohammad or Softway look sympathetic to their situation.

Mohammad swallowed hard, reminded himself of why he had hired this leadership team in the first place, and decided to take their advice.

Then he assembled his management team-including Frank and Jeff-to share the news and seek their help in deciding which employees to let go. This was going to be tough. To hit their quota, they would have to lay off some great performers.

Then came the day of the layoffs. The directors led one group to be laid off, while Mohammad, Frank, and Jeff led the remaining group to another room on the other side of the building-where no one could see what was happening to their coworkers.

Once all Softway's remaining employees were assembled, Mohammad addressed the group. "You've probably noticed that some of your friends are not in this room with you today. That is because they are no longer with the company."

Mohammad explained the tough situation Softway had found itself in. If the company hoped to remain in business, it would have to downsize. "But don't worry," Mohammad said, trying to sound upbeat. "If you're in this room, that means your job is safe."

"Yeah, for now," he heard a team member grumble from the back.

An hour or so later, the surviving team members emerged from the room and staggered back to their desks. All traces of their former colleagues were gone. Their desks were all cleaned out. Their tech accounts had been shut down. Even their lunches were missing from the fridge.

It was only eleven o'clock in the morning. On a Monday.

And Softway had just endured the darkest day in its history.

Business as Usual Sucks

If you picked up this book, our story probably sounds familiar. In fact, we're willing to bet that you or your organization have had at least one darkest day. Maybe you've had several. Or maybe one is on the way.

If so, know this: You're not alone.

Layoff stories like ours are far from unusual. In fact, all around the world, they're the norm. Just ask the executive leadership team who advised Mohammad. Every step was carefully planned to be as cold and dispassionate as possible. They knew exactly how to handle this process because they'd been down this road many times before.

But if the story of Softway's darkest day represents business as usual, then business as usual sucks.

Mohammad sensed this immediately as he oversaw the layoff process, and he began to question everything. What had his company become? Had he failed as a leader? Did Softway even deserve to continue?

These weren't easy questions to ask. After all, Mohammad loved being in business for himself. He'd grown the company from nothing to an eight-figure company with offices in America and India. But he knew he wasn't perfect. After all, he founded the company when he was only twenty, and he'd learned how to be a CEO on the fly. He knew he'd missed a lesson or two, which is why he'd recruited his executive leadership team to help him guide the company to the next level.

But that team was focused only on boosting the bottom line. The more aggressively they pursued this strategy, the more the company lost something far more valuable: its humanity.

Now, to be fair, culture had never been Softway's strong suit. But in the months leading up to our darkest day, the environment was so lifeless you could hear a pin drop. Softway employees saw their jobs as purely transactional. They would show up, get their work done, and then pack up and go home. We didn't know it yet, but we were living on borrowed time. Business as usual may have kept our doors open and our bank accounts healthy for a while, but eventually our balance came due.

Fortunately, since our darkest day Softway has learned not just to survive but to thrive-all thanks to an approach we call Love as a Business Strategy. Through it, we have rediscovered our humanity, put people at the center of work, and completely pivoted our business.

Love Is Good.for Business

In the chapters to come, we're going to share the story of how we discovered and adopted Love as a Business Strategy, what that pivot has created for us, and how you and your organization can do the same.

But first let's address the elephant in the room: What is Love as a Business Strategy? You'll get a complete description in Chapter 1, but in its simplest form, Love as a Business Strategy means creating a workplace that puts humanity first.

Here's why that matters: The average person spends more time with coworkers than with their own families. Work is the center of their lives. Far too often this sacrifice goes unacknowledged and unrewarded. Many organizations put little thought into the workplace environment they create, which often results in an indifferent or toxic culture. Eventually this culture seeps into other aspects of their employees' lives, affecting their health, family life, relationships, and happiness.

It doesn't have to be this way. People and profit don't have to be mutually exclusive. They can be complementary. After all, there is not one number on a balance sheet that isn't connected to a human being. If you want to produce better numbers over the long term, then it makes good business sense to support and empower the people behind those numbers.

Throughout this book, we explain how a culture of love leads to stronger, higher-performing teams; clearer, more attainable objectives; better business outcomes; and a healthier bottom line. This isn't just idle talk or well-intentioned theory. Both Softway and the organizations we consult with have seen firsthand how a people-first approach can drive quantifiable improvements across the board.

But while these results are...