The Blame: Justification #1

He (nervously/confidently) walks into the meeting and sits down in front of his staff. He has been with the company ten years and, with the new executive management, now has five people working under his supervision. He’s not quite sure what all of his reports do, but he was assured by the (new) Vice President that he could “manage.” His first management task is to inform his "team":

“First on the agenda, as you may have already heard, XXX and YYY are no longer with us. It was decided, what with the new direction the company is taking, that we need people on the team who are fully committed to that vision and, well, they weren’t.”

Old Hire: “Vision?”

“Vision… yes, vision. We can be part of the team, finding solutions – or a negative influence, finding obstacles.”

New Hire: “Yeah, XXX was definitely an obstacle.”

Old Hire: “Did you ever work with him?”

New Hire: “No, but I heard what he was doing.”

Old Hire: “What about YYY – she probably knows more about this biz than anybody?”

He looks at the Old Hire (sympathetically/with panic in his eyes/sternly): “They were obstacles to the vision of the new direction.”

The New Hire and the Old Hire both turn to their team leader for support. He knows that what he says next will be reported back upstream.

(In the back of his mind, calmly,/With barely concealed panic,) he thinks: “They have to have been doing something wrong. Otherwise it makes no sense. Otherwise I make no sense still being here. They have to have been doing something wrong.”

But he says: “Let’s move on to the next agenda item.”