{"id":16929,"date":"2026-08-20T12:13:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T19:13:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=16929"},"modified":"2026-08-20T16:15:41","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T23:15:41","slug":"leading-through-a-cultural-change","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/?p=16929","title":{"rendered":"Leading through a cultural change"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

How do you uphold your principles while executing a major strategy change<\/a>? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I saw this at Intel recently. One could tell for a few years the company was becoming more and more out of step with the marketplace. Values that Andy Grove and his direct successors used to make the company successful were slowly eroded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the hiring of a new CEO, there was the announcement of ongoing, sweeping reorganizations and layoffs. Old cultural norms, leaders, and teams were discarded weekly. Organizations were collapsed and layoffs swift. Leadership also went through this same squash-and-fire rounds. It put people in very ugly places of having to fire tremendous amounts of people. Numbers show it to be around 40% in just 2 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Did it work? The market has responded with a 3x stock jump that hadn’t happened in over 10 years. But analysis are very cautious. The momentum looks good, but can they pull the actual manufacturing off after almost 10 years of failures?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about those that work there during all this turmoil? It’s noted that fewer than one-third of transformation initiatives achieve their goals, largely depending on whether employees feel included<\/a>. So if this happens, what do you do as a leader?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  1. Stabilize Yourself<\/strong> – don’t race straight to the logistics while carrying around unprocessed frustration or guilt. Emotionally stabilize yourself, realize you are not in control of the decision and then act with professionalism and character for the parts you do control.
    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Prioritize Where You Can Make an Impact<\/strong> – When everything feels uncertain, prioritization becomes the act of leadership. Reframe pushback as inquiry. Stay in solution-building rather than resistance: ‘How do you propose we do this in a way that preserves moral?’ Prioritize time and attention to maintain credibility.
    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Lead the Team Through Transition<\/strong> – Leaders who engage employees early, clarify accountability, and maintain consistency in messages are up to seven times more likely to succeed. You can\u2019t stop the reorganization, but you can shape how it unfolded and how her people experienced it.
    <\/li>\n\n\n\n
  4. Preserve Trust<\/strong> – during transformative events\/misalignment, trust becomes a leader\u2019s most valuable currency. Shared what you can, acknowledged what was unknown, and maintained a consistent tone and presence. Hold one-on-one check-ins, offered resume support, and partner with colleagues across the company to help displaced employees find new roles. <\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    How do you uphold your principles while executing a major strategy change? I saw this at Intel recently. One could tell for a few years the company was becoming more and more out of step with the marketplace. Values that Andy Grove and his direct successors used to make the company successful were slowly eroded. With the hiring of a new CEO, there was the announcement of ongoing, sweeping reorganizations and layoffs. Old cultural norms, leaders, and teams were discarded…<\/p>\n

    Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[32,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-career-job","category-cool"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4WECr-4p3","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16929"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16929\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17190,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16929\/revisions\/17190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mattfife.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}