Your biggest risk? The employees you rely on the most

The useful part

Cheryl had already lost two of the 12 people on her team in the company's first reduction in force. Cheryl, the company's chief marketing officer, was most concerned about the marketing manager who ran the firm's content platform—and had told her months earlier that she was burned out. If she leaves, we're screwed." The people you rely on most can also be your biggest risk.

How it works

• I've thought about Cheryl's team this summer, mostly while sitting in airports.
• air traffic control facilities, accounting for 40% of system delays, were more than 15% below their staffing targets.
• Between fiscal 2010 and fiscal 2024, the number of controllers shrank by 13% even as operations rose by 4%.
• Overtime more than tripled as the system relied more on the controllers who remained.
• As of April 2026, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had about 4,000 controllers in the training pipeline—but at the largest facilities, new...

Details worth keeping

Then her product marketing lead resigned to join a competitor. A few weeks later, she was asked to cut two more roles. As Cheryl explained, "I need to accelerate our training plan.