Wrestling With Firing

Have you ever had to fire a long-time loyal employee or family member? If so, and if you are like most successful CEOs, you wrestled really hard with the decision.You analyzed, avoided, procrastinated and exhausted all options before acting.

Possibly, before firing the person but after the situation had deteriorated, you sought an objective opinion from an outsider. You may have received a response like, “Isn’t it obvious? The person needs to go.”

Yes, it was obvious from an objective viewpoint. But while you need to see through to that objectivity, yours is an intensely subjective position, as it should be. Such a situation is not primarily about knowing what to do. It is about acting on the knowledge and acting with compassion. And, it is about the wrestling.

There are two key ingredients to successful leadership in such situations: Compassion and action. Compassion is the ingredient that causes you to feel the pain of, and think of the consequences to, the person to be fired. It is what makes it so difficult for you to act, to carry out the deed.

Being compassionate may qualify you as a good human being, but it alone does not make you a good leader. For that you must add the courage to act.

Leadership requires the ability to analyze the situation objectively while maintaining what are, and must be, subjective emotional connections with your employees.

The feelings and the subjectivity, whether conscious or not, are crucial. Parker Palmer, in his book, The Courage to Teach, proposes that, while the subject matter of teaching needs to be objective, the act of teaching, when done well, is an intensely subjective practice. The best teaching, Palmer suggests, happens when teacher and student open their hearts, and connect.

Leadership is no different.

You cannot change who you are, but you can make adjustments in how you proceed. You can look at whether you are someone who already has the two components well balanced or whether you need to make changes to bring them into balance.

For example, I am one who tends to be light on the compassion, while somewhat quick to act. To compensate, when I am confronted with a situation of firing someone, I force myself to spend some time thinking about the results of the action on the person’s personal and family life. Then, if I still cannot carry the deed out, it is probably best left undone. Does this make me a more compassionate person? No, but I hope it causes me, in those situations at least, to lead with a bit more compassion.

How about if you are overweighed toward the compassionate side, preventing you from ever taking necessary actions? You can benefit by using an outsider to help you gain an objective view, and to prod you and support you through the task.

Some matters have no easy solutions. They are supposed to be hard. A relevant conversation I overheard years ago was between a New York branch manager (Gary) and his Los Angeles CEO (Jim) of a company that was in trouble and undergoing major cutbacks. The New York manager was required to fire nearly half of his staff of about 20 people.

On the phone Gary, the New York manager, said, “Jim, I absolutely understand the need for these cutbacks but most of these people are really good folks that I hired myself. God, I hate to have to do this.”

Jim replied, “Gary, if you want me to come out and do the deed myself, I will.”

“No. Better that they hear it from me,” the NY manager replied. “I will do it. But Jim, I want you to know. Firing these people is really, really hard.”

“Gary, I hear you. But, you know, the day you can fire people and it is easy? That’s the day to get out of the business.”