The following article originally appeared in the February 2009 issue of Inside Business Magazine.

Crew Cuts
By Erica Jacobson

There’s no easy way to break the news when employees must be let go. Just make sure you’re not alienating everyone who’s still on board.

Back in the late ’90s, when it was clear BP America was leaving Cleveland but had yet to actually go, Paul Meshanko would stop in for an occasional beer at a bar in Independence.

He didn’t work for BP, but many of the other patrons had survived rounds of BP layoffs and lived to complain about it — loudly. This is from people who are still employed, he recalls thinking at the time.

As much as layoffs change the lives of those who lose their jobs, they also have the potential to disrupt the remaining employees, their managers and the company’s work environment. Meshanko, now a managing partner at the Edge Learning Institute of Ohio, consults with employers and employees before, during and after jobs are cut. He sees plenty of room for improvement.

“Companies don’t do a very good job of managing their culture,” he says. “It happens by accident, not by intent.”

Here is his advice for companies seeing pink:

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February is the month we celebrate the achievements of Black Americans. But is this still relevant? That’s the question posed by newspaper columnist Phillip Morris in Black History Month is Outliving its Usefulness. He claims that we no longer need a month to celebrate African-American’s contribution to history.

In his follow up column, Black History Month Revisited — Neither Color-Biased nor Color-Blind, Morris clarifies and defends his stance stating that he wants African-American history studied during every month, not just during one month a year. 

What do you think?

As featured, Wednesday, January 28, in the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

The Consequences of a High-Powered Job
By Terri Mrosko

Finding a work-life balance, especially for those people in high-powered jobs, is becoming more of a challenge as we move into economically-uncertain times.

“There’s a lot of fear that people have about their relative security at their jobs, and I think one of the ways we respond is that we throw ourselves into our work,” said Paul Meshanko, managing partner at Edge Learning of Ohio. “We try to out-hustle everybody around us to keep up the appearance that we’re team players. I see it certainly getting worse as the economy worsens.”

That kind of work style may lead to some trade-offs in one’s personal life. The consequences of having a highly-stressful, highly-visible position can often mean less time with family, alienation of friends and coworkers, and an elevated sense of corporate responsibility that can be taxing to a person’s well-being and physical health.

“If you ask these people what their values are, almost everybody will tell you that family is one of their top priorities,” Meshanko said. But, if you look at their behaviors, you see that non-work priorities place second, third or even fourth.

In today’s high-stress workplace, we are seeing those behaviors creep down lower and lower in the organization, Meshanko said. “I had one mid-level director in a company who said to me, ‘Down time? I don’t have down time. I basically have a dimmer switch.’”

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