Emma Grede

Everything in life is an exchange.

The question isn't whether it's transactional because it just is.

The question is whether you're conscious of the exchange or whether you're just giving and giving and giving and crossing your fingers and hoping that it all works out for the best.

do see this in hiring all the time.

With women especially, we keep people because firing them feels like betrayal.

We promote someone because they've been loyal, not because they've been exceptional.

And we avoid the hard conversation because it feels cold and nobody wants to come across like that.

And trust me, I get it.

I

I understand the impulse because I feel it too.

I will always struggle with the people part of business because it's acutely painful to hit a wall where you have to downsize or where you have to let someone go.

The only thing

that helps is to lean on an enterprise mentality.

If I need to let 20 people go, it helps to think about the 140 people whose roles I'm saving, whose jobs I'm stabilizing.

All of those futures are also in my hands.

And I'd be lying if I said this gets easier or that it doesn't fill me with anxiety or grief.

It never, ever feels good.

And it never gets easier.

But, and it's a big but, it is necessary.

And clarity isn't cruelty at all.