| Feed a rumour into the organisation that you are going to merge the two departments. But publicly make the entire process "secret" |
This increase stress levels overall by increasing internal dialogue. Manager B will find it difficult to maintain performance standards as a result. If they fall far enough you can fire her on the basis of diminished performance. Consider giving a written warning during the early days of the process to increase the heat.
Beyond manager B, generally there may be an improvement in productivity / willingness to please as the sense of personal threat / stress levels increase.
Secrecy increases the desire to know by generating an unpleasant state of ambiguity. (Move away motivation - objective: manager B leaves "of own accord")
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"Consult" with various people asking for their advise and opinions. Ignore it. You know what you want. You will appear to be consultative.
Make sure that you make all conversations "secret" to ensure that you're feeding the rumours. Reassure those that you want to keep, but make that a "personal" conversation.
Ignore the organisational hierarchy - talk with manager B's staff directly. Consult with manager B only if she comes to you.
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Secrets are communicated onwards. Private chats that give one person an edge over others are less likely to be communicated. If they are, such conversations are of course off-record hence deniable.
The reassured manager A will in effect be immune from the stress that the rumours are generating. (Move away motivation for those not reassured, move toward motivation for those reassured - objective: manager B leaves "of own accord").
Cutting manager B out of the communications pathway will undermine her in the eyes of others and may generate within her an increased sense that you do not trust her ability to communicate.
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| Maintain the ambiguity for several months but keep the rumours alive. |
Increases stress levels to unacceptable levels. Those that have not had the private reassurances are likely to seek other roles hence the problem will be in the main eliminated.
They will literally move away to escape the intolerable ambiguity and stress resulting from that ambiguity - objective: manager B leaves "of own accord"). They may feel literally hopeless (because there is no hope in their situation). Depression may result but is unlikely to become clinical if time-scales are adhered to. |
| Finally announce that you are going to create a new department named C and that you will recruit externally for the manager position and that internal applicants can also apply. (Remembering that you have decided in advance to appoint your candidate internally). |
Relabeling the department is for semantic and legal purposes. Semantically you want people to focus on how different the department is (they will be distracted by the semantic change for long enough that they wont notice that there has been no real change).
The recruitment proecss is a bouble bind - a catch 22 situation. Manager B is presented with three options
- Leave right now and find another job
- Accept redundancy and leave right now
- Wait for the dummy recruitment process to complete then accept redundancy and leave in a while
Note that the option for manager B to remain but in a demoted position is not offered, neither is the option of another role in the organisation. If manager B asks about either simply say "that's just not feasible / if only there were other suitable vacancies available".
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After staging dummy interviews announce that you have appointed manager A and also announce the relabelling of the department name. If still around, make manager B redundant and get her out of the door PDQ.
Relocate the members of staff from both departments into the same area. Ideally do all of this starting late on Friday afternoon with the office moves over the weekend. When people come back to work on Monday morning manager B will be gone, the old department will be gone and a new reality will be in place.
Let them define their own new ways of working (within reason - nothing significant - tell manager A what YOU want to change) to give them perceived control. |
The speed of action generates shock - when in a state of shock all of those involved will be amenable to suggestion and in particular amenable to suggestions that result in less ambiguity for them and more security. (The security for manager B is the certainty that she is unemployed).
By giving them perceived control this internalises the locus of control which in turn generates a false sense of empowerment, which in turn reduces stress levels, which in turn allows for more rapid change.
Manager A will feel indebted and hence more compliant to seeding instructions given as "suggestions for consideration". Use these "suggestions" to implement other changes that you want - they will appear to have come from manager A.
Manager A will also be aware at some level of some of the process but will feel "in" on the game, because of this she will also be aware of just how fragile her position could be if she does not comply with the game plan.
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