Thoughts on Avoiding and Surviving Layoffs

Image courtesy Dall-E

I’ve recently come across some clickbait articles about how the PM role is at risk of being one of the first in line to be eliminated. Marty Cagan has partially addressed this subject in an excellent post called Product Management Theatre.

Having personally survived 7 layoffs and sadly carried out a few, I thought it might be useful to share what I have learned over the years as well. While this article is meant for Product Managers and Product Leaders, it can be safely generalized to the tech industry.

In a highly interconnected world moving at a rapid pace, everything has consequences. The reality we are living in is very different from the reality most of us grew up imagining. To change it, we need to survive. To survive, we need to adapt. So let’s get going.

Setting sail: Understanding the problem

There are essentially two main categories of job cuts, described below. At the org level they are decided by a committee, but at the team level they are chosen by Reporting Managers. Anybody who tells you otherwise is either being polite or protecting someone.

1. Mass: The product, function or the entire org is being eliminated. In this case, there isn’t much you can do. Don’t blame yourself — this has nothing to do with your abilities, skills or talent as an individual. Make peace with it and move on as quickly as you can.
2. Individual: A team, org or business line has been given a reduction target in terms of headcount or budget (usually both). Here, you have a situation that you have some control over: By minimizing the probability of you being one of the affected individuals. Let’s discuss this a bit more.

At its core, the problem is really quite simple. Exercise your empathy as a PM, and put yourself in the shoes of the Executive or Manager. When facing the despairing prospect of layoffs, downsizing, rightsizing, rightskilling or whatever parlance the company chooses, the 3 questions they will likely ask themselves are:

1. What impact has this person had on my organization in the last 3–6 months?
2. What will I lose (or gain) if this person is no longer on my team?
3. What is the future potential of this person?

It really is as simple as that — except that these things often have an impossible deadline associated with them (“need 3 names by tomorrow 8 AM”), so the above thought process is accelerated and timeboxed. Let’s go over them one by one.

1. Impact in recent memory: Within the first 30 seconds of your name coming up, if it can’t be associated with a recent success, measurable impact or visibility outside of your team, then you’re in the red zone. It can’t be something you accomplished years ago, no matter how big or public it was at that time — although that certainly helps.
2. Immediate loss: If you are no longer on the team, can someone else take over your work? Can it be split across multiple people so that no individual is overburdened? Do you have relationships with stakeholders or customers that will be expensive or risky to replace? Remember two things here:

a) Difficulty or uneasiness is not a consideration: If there is a non-zero possibility (and there rarely isn’t), then assume that the alternative will be chosen.

b) They don’t think like you do: Don’t assume that the person making the decision is going to seek out the optimal or ideal alternative. Constraints catalyze creativity (Quote credit: Anu Bhardwaj).

3. Opportunity cost: Finally, is there some yet unrealized potential that you bring to the team or the company? Your network, unused skillsets, adaptability — these are the kinds of things that count here.

The combined, heuristic answer to the above 3 questions will result in the decision. There are other factors at play too, such as tenure, comp, and even performance evaluations to some extent — but I think the decision-making here works a lot like interviews. The decision is made quickly, and the rest of the time is spent justifying it.

Enjoying the scenery: Things that *don’t* determine the outcome

There are a few things that are important for us to do as effective employees, reliable peers and good citizens, but in my experience do not replace the cold, hard considerations above. These are things that help you get hired, but will not prevent you from getting fired (That doesn’t mean you stop doing them, though — they are what makes us human!)

1. Attitude: Notice that there is nothing here about how the loss of a loved/admired/helpful/cheerful/positive team member will be justified to the rest of the team. It’s difficult, but not impossible.
2. Performance evaluations: I have sadly seen many star performers go. In some cases, the manager who gave you these evals may also be on the way out — so don’t count on them.
3. Connections: People you know inside the company are not a reliable indicator of job security. More often than not, they are not in a position to reveal or to help. Customers you know are also in no position to save you or vouch for you. They may not like the change, but your company will sell it to them.

Dark clouds: Things you should learn to recognize

Shreyas Doshi has a whole section devoted to leading indicators of impending layoffs in his course on managing your PM Career. Some that I have noticed as well are:

• Salary freezes
• Non-essential budget freezes
• Hiring freezes or drastic process changes (e.g. C-Suite approval needed)
• Abrupt departures of high-performing leaders (the canaries in the coal mine)

(PS: I encourage you to invest in his course not just for more on this topic, but also to generally be able to excel as a senior PM or Product Leader.)

As you get closer, I’ve noticed some concrete signs that almost always precede bad news:

1. Your manager stops having 1:1s with you
2. Execs or senior stakeholders stop showing up in meetings they used to (Worse: They also stop asking for status updates)
3. Off-cycle updates to OKRs and statuses, often accompanied by strong suggestions on messaging by your manager
4. Silos start forming or getting stronger. Information no longer flows freely
5. Previously important initiatives start falling behind without a new direction being articulated

Avoiding the storm: Things you can do

When you’re gone, everyone is affected but only you are impacted. One thing I’ve told my mentees for years: your loyalty is to your profession, not your boss, your company, your customer or your product. By all means, be passionate about all of them — how else will you shine at what you do? But Product Management is both a science and an art. And like good scientists and good craftspeople, we take pride first in what we do and why we do it, and then who we do it for.

There are many factors in not getting laid off that are not in your control:

1. You need to be in a product or business that is considered core to the company (and the definition of “core” can change over time).
2. Your manager needs to be supportive, and they themselves need to be perceived as being useful
3. Then they have to do their part in making sure that a) You are empowered to contribute and b) Your contributions are recognized and made visible to others

All of these things need to happen and you *still* need to learn, grow, adapt, build relationships, market yourself and more. Time and again I’m surprised by how little people think about or invest in these things. Let’s talk about a few:

1. Too much comfort can turn into risk: When you’ve been in the industry or in a company for a while, surrounded by people you get along with and who like you, it’s easy to get complacent. In a world tumbling ahead, if you don’t change, you risk being left behind. Make sure your skills stay relevant.
2. Watch the market: Please don’t be a frog in the well. You may know your product and business very well, but we live in a connected world. Everything has consequences (This is a great example Why Your Latte is $7).
3. Get feedback regularly: I have written in-depth on this topic (Feedback: The Hidden Ingredient of Success) and I encourage you to read it if you haven’t already. Besides that, pay attention to what your peers & colleagues are saying or doing, especially if you notice their behaviour change. In a remote/hybrid work environment where there are fewer random coffee/lunch discussions, paying attention to these signs is important.
4. Update your CV every 3–6 months: I’m not kidding. I’ve been doing this for years, even when I wasn’t actively on the job market. I follow a process that I call the “Quarterly Reflection”:

a) At the end of every quarter, I reflect on what I accomplished and where I fell short of my own goals. This is rooted in roadmapping my own career (maybe the topic of a different article), but you can do this even without a career roadmap.

b) This helps me update my performance eval system at work and shape my objectives for the next quarter. But I also grab these notes in bullet form and add them to a running “CV Update” page. If and when I ever need to update my CV, I already have the raw ingredients ready. It’s agile :)

5. Stay active on Social Media: You don’t need to be an influencer or have a massive following, just have a presence. Make sure that your profile is up-to-date, that no one is impersonating you and that you invest in building a diverse network (Reid Hoffman has written a whole book about this???). It will save you the awkwardness of coming out of the woodwork the day you need to tap into your network for help. Some additional thoughts on this:

a) Ignore recruiters at your own peril: Even when I’m not actively looking or if the fit isn’t good, I respond to all recruiters who reach out to me and stay in touch where we click. This is just one way of staying in touch with the market. Often, I put them in touch with people who I think would be a better fit than me. It costs me nothing and everyone is happy. Reaching out to recruiters when you desperately need them, while you ignored them for years is just selfish.

b) Actively invest in networking: Nikhyl Singhal gives timeless advice on this in his episode of The Skip Podcast: If you invest 30 minutes in a week in authentic & meaningful networking , that’s 40–50 conversations over the course of a year… that is a lot of luck to present to the world. I highly recommend listening to episode “5 rules that will unlock your Product Management career”. While you’re at it, also read The Go-Giver.

6. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket: Get involved in multiple projects. Get involved in diverse projects and diverse roles. Demonstrate adaptability.

Hope for the best but be prepared for the worst.

If you get shipwrecked… or lost

Have you ever gotten lost in the woods? It happens to even the most experienced hikers. There’s a very apt exchange of words about this in an old Anthony Hopkins movie:

Charles: You know, I once read an interesting book which said that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame.

Stephen: What?

Charles: Yeah, see, they die of shame. “What did I do wrong? How could I have gotten myself into this?” And so they sit there and they… die. Because they didn’t do the one thing that would save their lives.

Robert: And what is that, Charles?

Charles: Thinking.

— “The Edge”, 1997

Image courtesy: Dall-E

So the best thing that you can do is not sabotage yourself with shame. Learn from the past, but focus on the future.

This is an opportunity for you to reflect and switch lanes. You don’t necessarily have to find the exact same role in a similar company profile. There are tons of options out there (I encourage everyone to read Designing Your Life at least once and have also heard good things about Forever Employable). The most important choice you need to make is whether you want:

a) A direct replacement — same role, similar company

b) A break — to pick up a new skill, pivot to something new or just slow down

c) An adjacent role — perhaps something related to but not exactly what you were doing before

This decision needs to be constrained by your runway — how long do you have before you absolutely must have a job for financial, mental or perception reasons?

The second most important decision is whether you want to make it public — i.e. do you want to lean on your network openly or discreetly? Both have pros & cons, and is really a personal decision based on your situation and market conditions.

Sadly, layoffs are so common these days that there are even GitHub repos about them: See https://github.com/derwiki/layoff-runbook (Engg-focused) and https://github.com/Effective-Immediately/effective-immediately (more general). There are more resources out there now than you’d believe.

I hope this helps in some way and I’m keen to hear your thoughts, feedback and suggestions. Please post them in the comments or feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn or X-not-Twitter. If you found this useful, please clap, share and recommend it, it really helps. For more long-form thoughts follow The Product Leadership Journal. Thank you!