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[thefouremo]
Dick Grote
February 17, 2016
Years ago I heard the statement, Discharge is the capital punishment of
organizational life. What nonsense! If our metaphor for termination is capital
punishment, no wonder organizations and their managers are so hesitant to fire
a poor performer.
The appropriate metaphor? A no-fault divorce. As painful as divorce may be at
the time, it allows two people to correct a mistake and move on to a more
satisfying future. Handled well, termination works the same way. Here s how to
do it right.
Start by creating a transition plan. Choose the day and the time for the termi
nation deliberately. While experts disagree on when a firing should occur, all
acknowledge the importance of having a rationale a good business reason for
your choice of time and day for dropping the ax. Doing it early in the day,
early in the week, encourages the employee to get right to work on finding
another job and reduces the chances that he ll spend the weekend moping in a
black hole or worse plotting revenge. Friday after noons, on the other
hand, often create the minimum amount of disruption to the rest of the staff.
Whatever your decision, put company interests first. For months you ve probably
put up with less-than-stellar performance in hopes that the situation would
somehow correct itself. Now that the end is at hand, plan the transition so as
to do the least damage to company and coworkers.
Check the succession plan for an internal candidate. You may want to start
recruiting and wait to terminate until you ve got a replace ment ready to go.
It may be in your best interests to send some subtle signals to clients and
customers that there will be a staffing change soon.
Run it by a jury first. To make sure that you re on solid ground in terminating
an employee, imagine yourself defending your action in front of a jury. Assume
that you are on the witness stand and the employee s lawyer is attempting to
prove that the firing was unjust, unfair, and vindictive.
Look for anything that could be twisted to suggest that the real reason for the
termination is not the individual s performance but rather a pretext or
personal grudge. Isn t that the real reason why you fired poor Smedley on his
birthday, on the day before his tenth anniversary with the company, on the day
before his pension vested, on the day his wife went into the hospital, on the
day his mom died?
Take it step by step. Bungled terminations usually result from acting without
thinking. Before you utter a word, write down the most important things you
plan to say and then stick to your script. Recognize what you re up to. This is
not a counseling session. It s the announce ment that an irrevocable decision
has been made to discharge the individual. Therefore:
1. Get right to the point. Skip the small talk. Start the termination meeting
by saying, Hello, John, sit down. I ve got some bad news for you. By
announcing right from the start that there s bad news ahead, you will rivet the
individual s attention on what s coming next.
2. Break the bad news. State the reason for the termination in one or two short
sentences and then tell the person directly that he or she has been terminated.
Use the past tense. Say, Your employment has been terminated, not, will be
terminated. For example: As you know, Marie, we ve talked several times about
quality problems in your unit. Last month s report indicated that your
department still has the lowest quality index. We have decided that a change
must be made, and as of today your employment has been terminated.
When you re telling someone they re fired:
Don t say, I understand how you feel. You don t.
Don t say, I know that this hurts right now but later on you ll realize that
this is the best thing that could have happened. It isn t. It is a very bad
thing.
Avoid justifications ( You should have known ).
Keep a box of Kleenex available.
Survival is a strong instinct give it time to work.
Remember the Golden Rule.
3. Listen to what the employee has to say. There are several predictable
reactions to the news that one has just lost his job. The most common are
shock, denial, anger and grief. Listening to what the employee says will tell
you which of the reactions he is experi encing. Your response will be more
effective if you know how he is taking the news.
W160219_GROTE_THEFOUREMOTIONS
4. Cover everything essential. Be specific about what will happen next: pay,
benefits, unused vacation time, references, outplacement, explanations to
coworkers, ongoing projects, etc. This is one time when you can t say, I ll
get back to you on that.
5. Wrap it up graciously. It s usually best to schedule the termination meeting
at the end of a work day so that the meeting takes place while coworkers are
leav ing. Close by thanking the individual for her contributions to the
company. Walk with the now ex-employee back to her desk and wait while she
collects any personal items. Go to the exit together, shake hands, wish her
well, and part with both of your dignities intact.
Avoid misdirected compassion. Most managers I know are empathetic and
considerate people. But when the need arises to terminate a subordinate their
compassion is often misdirected. They become so concerned about the adverse
impact on the employee to be discharged that they forget about all the people
who manage to do their jobs and meet our expectations in spite of having as
many personal problems and difficulties as the terminatee has.
Actually, when slackers and slouches are finally fired, managers usually
discover that coworkers are relieved. Their peers are the ones who have had to
work harder to make up for their shortcomings and slacking off. When
terminations are well justified and professionally executed, the rest of the
work group realizes that this is a good place to work.
But when obvious losers and occupational ne er-do-wells are allowed to continue
in their positions unchallenged, the message to the talented and energetic is
that this is a place to avoid. Those who can find other jobs leave; the ones
who stay are those who prefer an employer with low standards.
A final note: The most common problem with terminations is that they don t
happen as fast as they should. Once the decision has been made to pull the plug
and start over, don t dilly-dally in the misguided hope that somehow things
may still work out. They never do. Remember: It s not the people you fire who
make your life miserable. It s the ones you don t.
Dick Grote is a management consultant in Dallas, Texas, and the author of How
to Be Good at Performance Appraisals, published by the Harvard Business Review
Press.