People First When profit and People Collide, What Do You Protect? Ch. 8
When you lose $26 Million in work, it affects everything.
Payroll changed significantly. Benefits took a huge hit and if we started laying off employees, margins would stabilize quickly. And that is exactly what financial models would recommend for us, and in business what most analysts would applaud.
Our path had been made clear and the advice was everywhere. We needed to lay off, preserve our capital, and protect cash.
In most circles it is not framed as a moral decision but it was responsible leadership.
But we had a bigger problem. This decision affected one of our most important corporate value,
People Before Profits.
It’s easy to frame that as a principle; it’s another thing entirely to live it when everything is under pressure.
If we laid people off, it would not simply lower payroll. It would introduce instability into homes. It would affect marriages, children, and confidence. And it would send a message—one far beyond the financials.
Values have a way of revealing themselves under pressure. They either hold—or they bend.
What surprised me most was not the pressure—it was the clarity. I did not feel fear my decision.
When you are convinced you are doing the right thing for the right reason, clarity replaces anxiety. The tension shifts from “What should we do?” to “How do we do it well?”
Yes, we needed to adapt. Yes, we needed to review expenses. Yes, we needed discipline.
But cutting people was not an option.
“Values are not proven when they are spoken.
They are proven when they require something of you.”
— Jerry R. Meek
Instead of reducing our team, we examined ourselves. That season forced a level of internal clarity that growth had previously hidden.
We conducted a top-down review of every process. What can we stop doing? What must we start doing? Where are we inefficient? Where are we coasting?
The storm exposed inefficiencies we would have ignored in expansion.
King Solomon reminds us that “Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all.”
People are not line items. They are image-bearers.
When profit and people collide, what you protect reveals what’s important to you.
We protected our people and something happened. Trust deepened. Not because of what we said, but because of what we did. Our team learned something without a speech:
We meant what we said-and our team knew it.
“Leadership is not defined by what you say in calm seasons, but by what you protect in difficult ones.”
— Jerry R. Meek
Reflection
- Are my values durable under financial strain, or do they adjust when pressure increases?
- Do my people believe they are protected—or expendable when circumstances change?
- What storm is currently testing what I claim to value?
Keep building, keep growing, and never settle,
-Jerry.
Application Business Leadership
