A shameful firing fiasco, big ideas shaping 2022, and more

Greetings, communication pros and masters of prose.

Let’s explore some notable stories from Dec. 6-10, 2021—and extract a few useful messaging takeaways along the way:

1. Better.com’s heartless layoff fiasco.

This week’s corporate internet villain is Vishal Garg, the CEO of Better.com, who decided it’d be a swell idea to fire 900 employees on a three-minute Zoom call.

And now he’s very sorry about it! In a memo to employees, he writes:

“Team –

I want to apologize for the way I handled the layoffs last week. I failed to show the appropriate amount of respect and appreciation for the individuals who were affected and for their contributions to Better. I own the decision to do the layoffs, but in communicating it I blundered the execution.

In doing so, I embarrassed you. I realize that the way I communicated this news made a difficult situation worse. I am deeply sorry and am committed to learning from this situation and doing more to be the leader that you expect me to be.”