y's tarnished reputation for social responsibility. To demonstrate that we were going the extra mile to help laid-off employees, in the late spring of 1996, we ran full-page ads in thirty newspapers across the country. Headlined "Wanted-Good Jobs for Good People," it reminded readers why we were downsizing and what we were already doing for the people affected, and it gave an 800 number for anyone "with job openings looking for skilled people." The ad was signed by Allen. I felt that, since we had already generated more than 115,000 job leads without advertising (182 per employee participating in the Job Bank program), we should be thanking the business community for responding to our prior requests, rather than asking for more leads. I was overruled on the grounds that a "thank you" ad would look too self-serving. I suspected that that was how any ad would look at this point. At any rate, the ad generated 1,406 leads. To reconnect with employees, who were traumatized by media re- ports even more than by anything they saw happening inside the com- pany, we organized an aggressive program of internal meetings. In a ninety-day period in the spring following the downsizing announce- ment, Allen and other senior officers met with more than 10,000 em- ployees in seventy meetings across the country. After these meetings, Tough Calls 94 percent of the employees said that they found the meetings infor- mative, and 75 percent said that the meetings increased their confi- dence and trust in the company's senior leaders. To give employees a concrete stake in this "new company" we were creating, Allen announced that he would ask shareowners to approve the granting of IOO stock options to every employee. We had con- ducted focus group sessions with employees to see what would get them excited about the company again. To our surprise, of all the pos- sibilities we reviewed, ranging from cash bonuses to stock options, the majority settled on options. They told us that they didn't really know what options were or how they worked