Questionable benefits of the gulag strategy

Australian Financial Review, 22 July 2003 p. 51

Andrew Horsley, director of executive search and management evaluation consultancy, Horsley & Co, notes that the strategy of posting employees to difficult locations can have unforeseen consequences. "The executive may make a real success of the posting and return a hero," he says. But he qualifies this noting that those excluded from the transactions, deals and information flow are left with "reduced value". Horsley says avoiding the need to deal with a problem head on is questionable management. "It is less expensive organisationally, financially and emotionally to say farewell sooner rather than later".