Senior arrivals and departures are timed so that a temporary executive owns each unpopular phase and leaves with the blame, while new hires break up the alliances incumbents had built.
An example
Over three years, a regional hospital group went through three chief operating officers. The first arrived to close two rural surgical units and left four months after the second one closed. The second ran the consolidation of laboratory services and departed the week the last contract was signed. The third led the nurse staffing redesign. The chief medical officer, who had been there throughout, noticed that each exit came with a generous package and a farewell note praising the departing executive's courage, and that the policy never changed after anyone left. Each new arrival also brought two or three hires from outside, who took seats on committees where long-serving physicians had coordinated their objections. By the third round the physicians had stopped meeting, and the medical staff blamed the closures on executives who were no longer there to answer for them.
Why it works
Rotating faces makes the program easier for its sponsor, because a temporary executive absorbs blame that would otherwise attach to the person driving the policy. Timed arrivals make letting incumbents carry on look worse, since new senior figures land while the existing coalition is still forming or in disarray. And surviving incumbents find staying and resisting costlier, because each replacement signals that tenure no longer protects anyone and each newcomer may be an informant. Observers credit decisions to faces, and the tactic depends on it. It needs real appointment authority, executives willing to take short assignments for a generous package, and a board that tolerates the churn.
The thinking behind it
Niccolò Machiavelli The Prince (1532) advises that princes leave affairs of reproach to others and keep those of grace in their own hands, with the example of Cesare Borgia, who put a harsh deputy in charge of pacifying the Romagna and then had him executed so the cruelty would not seem to be Borgia's. A temporary executive who owns each unpopular phase and then leaves is the corporate form. The defense traces each decision back to the sponsor who kept the grace.
Lee Ross The Intuitive Psychologist and His Shortcomings: Distortions in the Attribution Process (1977) names the fundamental attribution error: observers explain outcomes by the person in front of them and underestimate the situation. Physicians blamed the closures on the departed chief operating officers because those were the faces they saw. A dated record of which sponsor set each decision in motion puts the situation back into the account.
Jeffrey Pfeffer Power in Organizations (1981) treats power as coming largely from position in the structure, including control of the decision process and of who holds which seat. A sponsor with appointment authority can reshape every committee where opposition coordinated. That is why the defense moves the coalition into channels that do not depend on committee seats.
Warning signs
Senior exits cluster right after each unpopular phase is completed. The departing executive leaves with a generous package and public praise, and the policy continues unchanged. Replacements are hired to a pattern, often from outside and often with their own lieutenants. Long-serving leaders stop coordinating because the membership of every committee keeps changing.
How to defend yourself
Trace each decision back to the sponsor who set it in motion, and keep saying so.
- Keep a dated record of which decisions came from which sponsor and which executive carried them out.
- When an executive leaves after an unpopular phase, ask in a public forum whether the policy is changing.
- Maintain your coalition through channels that do not depend on committee seats: regular meetings, shared notes, one person who keeps the record.
- If you can reach the board, ask why churn clusters around unpopular phases.
Assume new arrivals may report what they hear, and talk accordingly, without making enemies of them.
How a leader shuts it down
Tracking senior turnover against the program calendar lets a board ask the sponsor to account for clusters. Make the sponsor of each phase visible in communications, so blame and credit land where the decision was made. Limit severance arrangements that reward executives for leaving on schedule.