ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that organizational change is essential to adjust an organization’s structure, methods, and workforce to respond to internal and external opportunities and threats. Downsizing as a method of choice introduces highly destructive outcomes into the lives of their employees, families, and communities. The poem makes clear that the word downsizing is not a word taken lightly by employees of any organization. There are then many psychodynamic features to downsizing both in management and among employees that must be considered as part of downsizing or other major organizational changes. A recurrent theme in toxic organizations is the human toll from downsizing. Many terminated employees speak of a moral crisis when they are abruptly terminated. The chapter explores the experience of downsizing through poetry, workplace experiences that found expression in poems, and psychodynamic interpretation that helps people to understand the “why” of downsizing’s toll.
