They got lazy in their thinking and in their work habits. These were the folks who pulled just a tad less than their weight on the team. They’re the ones who were "higher maintenance" for their coworkers and their senior management. They’re the ones you had to wrestle to the ground to try a new idea. They’re the folks who were bringing the same ideas, the same approaches, and the same strategies to radically different problems and challenges.

They did not look at every day as a business proposition. The folks who got cut were often the ones who failed to approach every day with a sense of urgency and intensity. They did not ask what value they individually were bringing to the organization every hour of every day. They did not organize their time, run their budgets, or coach their people on the basis of a daily business imperative.

They saw their job as an assumption. They assumed that this job at this company was their right. And the more something becomes an assumption, the more we take it for granted and the less we feel the need to expend extra effort and creativity to keep and improve it.

They showed their fear and disappointment. I saw it in their eyes long before the axe fell. I saw the fear and the disappointment as their projects failed to get funding or they were asked to go back to the drawing board to build a tighter business case. What I saw along with the fear and disappointment was an unwillingness or inability to retool themselves or adapt to new circumstances. The train had left the station and they were still waiting for the porter to move their bags.