Imagine that you are the Director of Operations for a major company. Your CEO comes to you and says "Effective in 30 days, we'll be outsourcing Payroll to ABC Corporation. It's going to cut costs incredibly, timesheets and pay information will be accessed electronically online, and it's going to be great. Here is all the information you need to implement the change. Oh, by the way, it is going to reduce the Accounting Department staff by 50% over the next 90 days, but the Controller (head of that department) will stay. And oh yeah, I don't want the staff to know about the layoffs and firings until the program is implemented."
What do you do? How do you proceed? What are going to be some obvious implications of the predicament that the CEO has put you in? Aren't there cultural, resistance and even leadership implications here?