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Consider the following scenario: you have two talented employees with very similar skillsets, doing very similar jobs. Both want to move on and further their careers—something that seems like a win-win for the company. The senior employee, &quot;Ray,&quot; gets the opportunity to craft a new prime position in the company, while the younger employee, &quot;Ronan&quot;—who has been waiting in the wings for years—inherits the responsibilities Ray leaves behind. Less than a year later, two things become clear: Ronan is doing a decent job, although it&#39;ll take some time before he&#39;s up to Ray&#39;s level, while Ray is struggling badly in his new position, and hurting your brand as a result. As an executive, what decision do you make about Ray&#39;s future?&lt;p&gt;&lt;ol&gt;&lt;li&gt;Let him go. Ronan has proved to be an adequate replacement, and, with more talent in the pipeline, you have the opportunity to get rid of a heavy-hitter&#39;s salary.&lt;li&gt;Let him continue in his current role because there&#39;s nowhere else to go.&lt;li&gt;Let Ronan keep his title but attempt to bump him to a less prestigious position so you can reinstall Ray in something approximating his former role.&lt;li&gt;Something else. &lt;/li&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/li&gt;&lt;/ol&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;embeddedObject&quot; src=&quot;http://content.screencast.com/users/pstott/folders/Jing/media/18906fdb-6c0d-40f4-8baa-fd2c743bb195/00000072.png&quot; width=&quot;164&quot; height=&quot;157&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; align=&quot;left&quot; alt=&quot;NBC logo&quot;&gt;If the scenario seems familiar, it&#39;s likely because it&#39;s a none-too-subtly coded version of the Conan O&#39;Brien/Jay Leno saga currently playing out at NBC Universal. Of the four options presented, the folks at NBC chose what—to my mind—is the worst of all possible solutions: option 3, and it&#39;s got nothing to do with my preference for one comedian over the other.&lt;p&gt;Bottom line: when an employee moves on—regardless of whether or not it&#39;s voluntary or forced—and is replaced by someone else, bringing them back to their old position &lt;i&gt;is not an option&lt;/i&gt;. In Leno&#39;s case, there are two possible scenarios as to why he was moved from the &lt;i&gt;Tonight Show&lt;/i&gt; in the first place: either he asked to go to prime time, or he was pushed. Either way, he&#39;d taken his previous role as far as he could, and his network wanted to try someone else in it to see if it could be taken in a new direction. &lt;p&gt;Similarly, then, there are two likely scenarios in play for Leno&#39;s reinstatement: either the company is reinstating someone they&#39;d lost faith in, or someone who&#39;d lost interest in his role. Either way, it hardly seems like a step forward, especially as the company seems set to lose a star performer as a result, and may have done irreparable damage to both the Leno and &lt;i&gt;Tonight Show&lt;/i&gt; brands in the process. &lt;p&gt;&lt;img class=&quot;embeddedObject&quot; src=&quot;http://content.screencast.com/users/pstott/folders/Jing/media/7bf3d6f9-ad8c-48f9-9a9c-46dc3d9cd034/00000073.png&quot; width=&quot;174&quot; height=&quot;158&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; alt=&quot;I&#39;m with Conan&quot; align=&quot;right&quot;&gt;Conan O&#39;Brien clearly agrees. In an entertaining media statement, he explicitly stated that he would not be part of any attempt to move the &lt;i&gt;Tonight Show&lt;/i&gt; to a later time slot. At that point, NBC&#39;s options officially expired, and they were forced to choose one of the two stars. &lt;p&gt;The resulting hash the company has made of the decision is entirely down to its unwillingness to see Conan go to a rival network, and likely have him competing directly with Leno. While understandable, the network&#39;s attempt to make Leno a success in a prime time slot can be seen as a mere wild stab at keeping both men happy. And therein lies the lesson: you can&#39;t keep everyone happy all the time. Sometimes you just need to make the tough decision. In this case, it would have saved the company a ton of damage to its brand and reputation, and might have allowed them a more orderly transition than that which is likely to follow in the coming weeks.&lt;p&gt;By the way, my favorite quote on this saga comes from Punk Rock HR&#39;s letter to NBC Universal: &lt;i&gt;&quot;When you’re doing it worse than HR, you’re doing it wrong.&quot;&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;&lt;b&gt;--Posted by Phil Stott, Vault.com&lt;/b&gt;&lt;/i&gt;

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