Firing Sven softly

Just heard an interesting take on downsizing:

“Keeping an unneeded person employed is withholding this person’s talent from the rest of society.”

This quote comes from Dennis Bakke, one of my heroes, in his book “Joy at Work”. In his context it makes perfect sense, but I wonder how it would go down with Sven at the Scania assembly line. “I have decided to stop withholding your talent from society, Sven. See ya!”