Things change: company leadership or ownership, market share, technology, regulations affecting particular industries, people. As a result, departments and sometimes even entire companies consolidate, combining resources in attempts to get more with less. Such changes often affect people across the company through no actions of their own. In other circumstances, people instigate change themselves through poor job performance or disciplinary issues the company can resolve only by severing ties. Sometimes hiring or promoting a person was a mistake. In nearly any scenario of change, managers shoulder the burden of swinging the axe and cleaning up afterward.