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2016-02-25 11:03:41
Allison RimmCelia Brown
January 07, 2015
George is the most talented, productive executive Roy ever had to fire.
George had pulled off a string of celebrated victories and won a reputation as
a strong performer. Having been hired to lead his hospital s compliance program
as regulations grew increasingly complex, he had put the policies and
procedures into order, achieving a goal that had eluded the organization for
years.
Roy was grateful that this burden had been lifted off his shoulders. In fact,
he was so smitten that he didn t notice what else was going on that George
(and for the record, this is a composite case) had alienated colleagues and
failed to create the sense of urgency needed to persuade employees to complete
the required training. George s excellent work was of little value if it wasn t
fully implemented throughout the organization.
As other team members started to complain, Roy made repeated attempts to coach
George to improve his interpersonal and communication skills, but George
rebuffed him.
It took Roy a while to see the corrosive impact of George s more subtle
deficiencies and to make up his mind about what to do. Roy was well aware of
the cost and disruption of a termination. He spent so long weighing the issues
that he nearly caused irreparable damage to his team s collegiality,
reputation, and performance.
Roy eventually realized that keeping difficult people around can undermine what
should be a leader s number one objective: maintaining a positive and
productive work environment. If Roy had used a tool such as a simple worksheet
to help him evaluate the costs and benefits of keeping George on board, he
might have determined that George s impact on the team s productivity and
esprit de corps outweighed the value of his contribution much sooner, to
everyone s benefit.
In The No Asshole Rule, Robert Sutton makes a case for banning jerks from the
workplace because of the devastation they can inflict on coworkers emotional
well-being and work quality. But skillful individuals don t have to be
full-blown tyrants to wear out their welcome.
Working with people who refuse to accept criticism is one of the thorniest
management issues a leader can encounter. What may start out as a modest
deficiency one that could be easily addressed with performance coaching can
shift to an insurmountable management challenge when the employee resists
feedback. The original performance issue soon becomes compounded by dysfunction
in the manager-employee relationship, making the situation much more difficult
to assess.
Because terminating someone is such an important and complicated strategic
decision, it helps to have an objective way to measure the impact of a
difficult employee, including a dispassionate evaluation of the disruption
caused by turnover. Using the worksheet to quantify the factors in a
termination decision can help you evaluate the costs and benefits of
individuals performance, their impact on team dynamics, and bottom-line
results. You can list such factors as the employee s likelihood of improvement,
the drain on your energy, and the cost of replacement. The tipping point comes
when the cost of keeping an employee is greater than the disruption of letting
him or her go. Such a tool could have helped Roy make the decision about George
a lot sooner.
Or consider Jeff, a human-resources executive in a large global company
(another real, but disguised, case): One of his managers, Karen, had a very
strong skill set and brought passion and deeply relevant experience to her
role. She performed well initially, but as the demands of her job grew, she
lost focus and had increasing difficulty completing complex projects.
Unable to manage her time well, Karen became a demotivating influence on her
team members, failing to keep them informed. For close to a year, Jeff tried to
help Karen get back on track. Despite being an HR expert and well acquainted
with best practices in delivering feedback, he was unable to overcome her
defenses and motivate her to work on her deficits. Worse, these conversations
generally left her moody and unpleasant to be around.
Karen wasn t a jerk at all. She was well-liked, but she was so defensive when
getting feedback that she couldn t work on addressing the problems. Over time,
Jeff found himself doing more and more of Karen s job himself. He continued to
compensate for her gaps for way too long because the cost and disruption of
making a change were so great.
However, Karen s teammates grew resentful as her deficiencies began to affect
the group s ability to deliver. Jeff knew it was his obligation to minimize
obstacles in the way of the team s performance, particularly as the team was
expected to produce more results with fewer resources. Equally important, Jeff
felt drained by confronting Karen s crankiness, especially when his effort had
little chance of producing positive results.
Clearly, doing his subordinates work was not the best use of Jeff s time, and
facing Karen s moods was not the best use of his energy.
So in spite of her skills, experience, and institutional knowledge, and
notwithstanding the disruption that a vacancy would cause, Jeff fired Karen.
Eventually, Jeff s decision was fully validated by the significant positive
impact of Karen s successor. Jeff s only regret was that he had squandered so
much time avoiding making the decision.
Leaders are responsible for managing the resources under their control. In most
cases, the single greatest resource they manage is people, with compensation
and benefits consuming as much as 80% of operating budgets. To sustain energy
and engagement, and to retain the best talent, leaders must endeavor to make
work life as manageable and as palatable as possible for themselves and their
teams. Coming to grips with the need to fire a colleague, particularly when you
ve invested so much of your own effort to remediate his or her weaknesses, is
one of the toughest management decisions you ll ever have to make.
Allison Rimm is a management consultant, educator, and executive coach. She is
the former senior vice president for Strategic Planning and Information
Management at Massachusetts General Hospital and is the author of The Joy of
Strategy: A Business Plan for Life. Follow her on Twitter at @allisonrimm.
Celia Brown is the executive vice president and chief human resources officer
of Willis Group, a global risk adviser and insurance broker.