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The Right Way to Close an Operation

As the recession has intensified its grip on the world, and I’ve watched companies resort to extreme actions to weather the storm, it has struck me that this is a new experience for a whole generation of leaders. Many managers have never had to shrink their operations or workforces drastically, and as a result they are making a common mistake. They assume that they have to be the tough guys who make the decisions and that afterward they can delegate the implementation to others with one marching order: “Go fast!”

A version of this article appeared in the May 2009 issue of Harvard Business Review.

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