Ripping out your kitchen before you hire a contractor

It takes zero imagination to eliminate a job.

It takes tremendous imagination to invent new ones.

Too many companies take the zero approach.

The pattern keeps repeating. Block just cut 40% of their workforce. When Business Insider interviewed seven employees, not one could explain how the work would actually get done. Klarna cut 700 jobs and replaced them with AI—then their CEO publicly admitted quality tanked and they started rehiring. Salesforce slashed support staff from 9,000 to 5,000, and executives later conceded that removing trained staff created gaps AI couldn't fill. 

Same playbook:
Cut first, figure it out later.

HBR surveyed over 1,000 executives and found companies are laying people off because of AI's potential—not its performance. An Orgvue study of 1,000+ business leaders found that 55% of those who made AI-driven layoffs now say it was the wrong call. Careerminds surveyed 600 HR professionals and found that 55% of companies ended up "babysitting the technology" because it required far more human oversight than anyone anticipated. 

It's like ripping out your kitchen before you pick a contractor.
Sure, you create urgency.
You also create chaos.

Now look at the companies that did the imagination work first.

IBM automated 94% of routine HR tasks with their AskHR agent. Total employment went up. They reinvested savings into Engineering and Sales—$3.5 billion in productivity gains across 70+ business areas. Even Salesforce, after the damage, pivoted to hiring 3,000-5,000 new salespeople—roles AI can't touch because they require face-to-face human connection.

The difference isn't AI capability. 

It's imagination.

Josh Bersin studied 70+ companies going through AI-driven org redesign and found that companies treating AI as a productivity tool saw almost no job reduction. Real transformation only came from re-engineering how work gets done. 

That's the part nobody wants to do. Because redesigning work is slower than a layoff announcement. It requires sitting with your operations people and your domain experts and actually envisioning what a different company looks like. 

What new roles exist? 

What old processes disappear? 

What do humans do that's different, not just less?

A layoff is a spreadsheet exercise. 

Transformation is a design problem.

I help teams close the gap between "we need fewer people" and "we need different work." If that's the conversation you're stuck in, let's talk.