Director Okwu

In practice

Facing a budget shortfall, Okwu eliminates three positions by email on a Friday afternoon, without consulting his team, and tells himself over the weekend that decisiveness is a virtue. By Monday the damage is visible: people walk past his office, and two senior analysts begin documenting their work as if they expect to leave. On Thursday he calls the team together and delivers what the book calls a model apology: he names the decision specifically, accepts responsibility without qualification, describes the behaviours he will change, and invites accountability. Two people cry. Maren, the analyst who had argued hardest for transparent decisions, says nothing in the meeting or in the one-on-one that follows, and leaves four months later. In her exit interview she says, "The apology was good. It was too late." The rest of the team stays, engagement recovers to within a few points of where it was, and Okwu keeps every commitment. But two more people leave within eighteen months, and the meetings keep a faint layer of caution: people float fewer half-formed ideas and disagree less in front of the group.