HCL chose not to lay off a single employee during the 2008 recession under your leadership. Why?

The logic was counterintuitive. If you lay off people during a downturn, the people who remain know their number is coming next. Demotivation sets in immediately. The cost of that demotivation is enormous and invisible. Our bet was to say no one's livelihood is being taken away. It cost us somewhere between 100 and 200 million USD. But the employees who stayed were motivated. They went to customers in a motivated fashion and they stole market share from competitors who were laying off and demoralizing their own people. HCL never went into degrowth during the recession. We were one of the very rare companies that maintained positive growth all the way through. The problem of protecting our people became our competitive solution. Counterintuitive risk-taking in a storm is often the best strategy.