Some actions, like public hangings, communicate more forcefully than any words or pictures ever could.
There's no question that it is generally important for a new leader to be assimilated into a team. At some point, the leader will start leading in a new direction. Often, not everyone buys into that direction.
Again, there's no question that it is generally in everyone's best interest for new leaders to do everything they can to get everyone to buy in. But, at some point, if some people don't buy in, they need to go away. And, if they are actively or passive agressively undermining the efforts, they need to be publicly hung.
This involves publicly moving someone out of a role and being explicit about why to communicate the consequences of doing wrong. While there's no reason to hurt someone else, this is not a time to hide behind mamby-pamby explanations of why the change is being made. The person is not "leaving for personal reasons", "leaving by mutual consent", or anything else like that. They are being removed for what they did or did not do or say.
If you must hang some one, make it count
Leveraging the hanging requires thinking through in advance your post-hanging communication plan. Make sure you're clear on your message and your story. Then use those to guide key communication points in an iterative set of concurrent conversations across a network of multiple stakeholders and a wide variety of media all built on a foundation of trustworthy authenticity. Or, in English: Understand that you can't control all the conversations. So, use the public hanging as an excuse to reinforce what you've been trying to get people to believe all along.
There's nothing like a public hanging to make people believe you mean what you say.
What do you think?
