Bill Canady argues that cutting headcount across the board just shrinks a company without fixing the real problem. Instead, identify low-value work your business doesn't need, eliminate it, and move those people to revenue-generating work. That actually improves your capability-to-work ratio.
You made the company smaller at the identical ratio. The remaining people are now doing the work of people who aren't there, and you have spent your one credible restructuring on nothing. Doesn't feel good. Now, the ratio rewards capability, not thrift. Now, there is one exception, and it's important. Cutting people who are attached to work you have actually stopped doing is completely different. That's not thrift. That's the second half of the principle, redeploying resources from low-value activity to high-value activity. You retire the tail. So the 4 people who service the tail move to segments that pay or they leave. That moves the ratio and it moves it permanently.
