Are our scorecards changing as quickly as the work itself?
Last week, HubSpot CEO Yamini Rangan outlined six criteria guiding the company’s reduction in force: strategic need, layers and spans, driving revenue, capability, capacity, and leadership.
All reasonable considerations when redesigning an organization, to be sure.
But what we didn’t see was the scorecard underneath them.
How is capability being measured?
What counts as leadership?
Is capacity being assessed based on how work used to get done—or how it could get done now?
HubSpot’s announcement describes assessing roles. It doesn’t tell us how individual employees were evaluated.
It also raises a broader question: if AI is changing what people need to do, shouldn’t it change how we assess their value?
When AI helps produce the draft, organize the information, or execute parts of a task, we need to reconsider how much weight those skills carry—and what deserves more.
Who knows which question to ask?
Who recognizes that the answer misses the point?
Who challenges the assumption everyone else has accepted?
Who sees an opportunity beyond the task they were given?
Attention to detail still matters. But so does the ability to look beyond it.
If we redesign roles around AI but judge people by the same old scorecard, we risk overlooking the capabilities the new work requires.
And so I have to ask:
Are we firing the wrong people?
When layoffs loom, I’ve seen first hand how deeply that fear affects the neurodivergent adults I work with.
But what if some of the people worried about whether they fit the next version of the organization are precisely the people who could help shape it?
In fairness, I don't know what HubSpot did or didn't consider in their particular decisions.
What I do know is that as the work changes, we must continue to challenge and validate the criteria we use to judge the people doing it.
What’s on your scorecard?