Dealing with Conflict #6: How to Fire Well

What's up, everyone. This is Alex Lieberman, co-founder and Executive Chairman of Morning Brew. Welcome back to Founder’s Journal, my personal audio diary, where I give you, the business builder, the tools you need to think better in order to build better, whether that's building a business, a team, or a new product. This week on Founder’s Journal, we're doing things a little differently. We're dropping a mini series about Dealing with Conflict. We're talking about everything from respectfully disagreeing with your manager to mediating conflict and navigating competition. This week's episodes can serve as a guide to handling uncomfortable situations in a corporate setting and beyond. That means instead of just one episode, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, this week, we're giving you two: a new show that you won't want to miss, plus a classic episode you maybe haven't heard before. If you haven't listened to today's classic episode, make sure to go back and check it out today. I'm giving you 10 tips to fire well. Let's hop into it.

10 Rules for Firing Well

Let me just preface by saying that firing absolutely sucks. It is my least favorite job, and it is I think every manager's least favorite job. It is wildly provoking because it forces you to put logic and conscious decision-making over feelings and your desire to be loved by everyone. But inevitably, you're going to have to do it as you grow in your career. And get this, it will suck every time. Not just the first time, every single time you do it. It does not get easier or more fun. So I want to give you the checklist to help you do it the right way. And this checklist ensures that you're not forgetting about any of the key necessities in the firing process, which are how you communicate to the employee, how you communicate to the company, how you handle the work that this person was working on, and how you handle the access that they had. So here are my 10 rules for firing rule. 

#1: Don’t create a situation where your employee is shocked

Number one, surprises suck when someone is fired, they should not be shocked about being fired if they are. It means you haven't had any direct and honest conversations with them about what their performance is expected to be and how they're missing the mark, or it means you haven't put them on a PIP or a performance improvement plan, to lay out how they clearly could improve their abilities and get to what your expectations are. 

#2: Fire when you no longer feel bad

Rule number two: Fire when you no longer feel bad. This is advice that I've followed for so long. And I recently heard Jocko Willink, who is the author of Extreme Ownership, say it in this way: What it means to fire when you no longer feel bad is that you feel like you've done everything possible to help the person go from underperforming to meeting your expectations. You've given them specific feedback. You've offered training inside or outside the business. You've showed that you really care about them getting better. And you're just not seeing the right progress fast enough for what the business needs today. 

#3: Be clear, but compassionate

Rule number three, be clear, but compassionate. Be very explicit that the person is being let go, why they're being let go, and what next steps are. Reference the PIP that you put them on or prior conversations that were had, and hopefully you've documented those conversations. That's just another rule of thumb. Anytime you have performance conversations, document them so you can reference them later. It really sucks to be clear in this way, but you need to make sure that the person understands that the outcome is not open for discussion and it's already been decided. That said, it is totally okay to give them the space to speak, air their frustration, and ask any questions they have. But it does not change the fact that this is happening and that they're being let go. 

#4: Be a broken record

Rule number four, be a broken record. So the broken record technique is the best way to not only lead a company, but also the best way to fire someone. Repeat your message until you sound like a broken record. It may feel uncomfortable or like overkill, but in a high emotion situation, like letting someone go, you may lose the person after they hear that they're being fired and you cannot risk them walking away from the conversation with you not being crystal clear about what's happening, why it's happening, and what happens. 

#5: Give a juicy severance

Next rule number five, give a juicy severance. This is out of the Gary Vee playbook. He calls this putting honey on top of vinegar. Basically, Gary's approach for firing is to give a disproportionately large severance to the person he's firing because it will get him over the mental hurdle of letting someone go, which he finds incredibly painful and it'll lessen the blow of what's happening for the person being fired and ensure that they know they're being taken care of. Now, this approach isn't necessary everyone, but it is necessary for people who know themselves and know that they'll put off firing for months out of fear that they're going to hurt the person's feelings. 

#6: You have HR for a reason

Next up rule number six, you have HR for a reason. A great HR person knows all of the things that need to be done to fire the right way from ensuring that you can fire someone because you've taken all of the necessary precautions, to making sure that key documents are provided like employee separation agreements or COBRA policy, as well as taking care of IT and security risks. HR knows how to do all of this. Do not go into these separation meetings alone if you don't have to. And if you don't have to, bring HR with you. 

#7: Short and sweet is the way to go

Rule number seven, short and sweet is the way to go. Have a game plan of what you're going to say when you go into the conversation, which as I mentioned, follows three steps: What's happening; they're getting fired. Why it's happening, either role elimination or performance and give factual reasons why, referencing their PIP or past conversations. And tell them what next steps are. The easiest thing to have happened is when you're nervous going into a firing conversation, you will tend to talk and keep talking and keep talking, trying to explain yourself. And that is bad for three reasons. It becomes confusing to the person what the main message of the meeting is. It can just make them feel even shittier about themselves because you're prolonging the conversation. And it can lead to an argument or something that feels more like a discussion, which this should not be a discussion. 

#8: Lock down Fort Knox

Rule number eight: Lock down Fort Knox. Employees get access to very sensitive information. Make sure that while the termination conversation is happening, either your IT provider or the relevant person in your company is removing access from the person's devices so they can't access and download company information anymore, or they can't get access to their email or things like company social accounts. I will say this step feels very intense at first, especially if you haven't fired before, but it is just so necessary that the intellectual property that you have spent so much time creating in your company doesn't get into the hands of the wrong person.

#9: Be like a relay racer

Rule number nine: Be like a relay racer. And what I mean by that is prepare for the handoff. Once you let someone go, their responsibilities go with them. Have a plan for transferring their work to others that can take it on and make sure that whoever you're handing this stuff off to knows that you are willing to be a resource to them, because it can be a really intense time. If the person you fired was a manager, have a plan for who will be managing their direct reports and how it will be communicated to their reports, who the person is that's now managing them. One other caveat to this whole thing is that the best way to know all of the responsibilities of the person that you're firing is to entrust one person who worked closely with them, to entrust them with knowledge about the separation. So that before this happens, you can find out exactly what this person touched on a day-to-day basis, so no I’s are not dotted at no T's are not crossed. 

#10: Tell the news to your company

And that finally leads to rule number ten: The worst thing you can do is say nothing to your company. There's this great quote from Jason Fried, who is the founder of Basecamp. He says, “One thing we know about human nature is that when there is a mystery, people will solve it themselves. They make up the ending and it's almost always worse than reality.” And that's the problem. If you don't tell people why they'll make up, why and the wrong, why is almost always destructive. And so what Basecamp does is any person that they let go, they give the person the opportunity to say goodbye to the whole company. And so they give the person the option to write up a whole message to everyone in the company that can basically include anything aside from personal attacks or slights at the company. And then what happens is a few days after this person's departure, they will have the person's former manager write a follow-up to the whole company, basically with the info that was left out of that person's personal goodbye. And so what the Basecamp manager will do is they'll lay out the reason why the person left or why the person was asked to leave to ensure that there are no big questions hanging over everyone's head. So for example, if someone was let go for conduct, basically not related to job performance, they will say this, and they just will acknowledge that they can't divulge any more details. Another example would be if they had to let someone go who was very good, highly skilled, but ultimately didn't fit the role they were hired for. They'll share that, you know, they thought this person eventually could adapt to the position or the position could adapt to him, but time ended up telling them that the gap was too great. And you know, it's always a careful balance of you don't want to present too much information that can be embarrassing to the person, and this is why compassion and empathy is so important here, but you also don't want to leave out so much information that you basically leave it up to stories for everyone in the company to tell where it ends up being in a place of really dangerous gossip. And so those are my 10 rules for firing. Well, again, it is the most painful thing. And so I hope these rules help you do it better moving forward. 

Recap

Number one, surprises suck. Number two, fire when you no longer feel bad. Number three, be clear but compassionate. Four, be a broken record. Five, juicy severance. Six, lean on HR. Seven, keep the conversation short. Eight, lock down Fort Knox. Nine, be like a relay racer and think about the handoff. And 10, avoid dangerous gossip. Now, if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with co-workers, co-founders, or co-friends that would benefit from rules for firing well. Just copy the link to the episode, share it in iMessage or share it in SMS if, God forbid, you're an Android person, or share it in your company’s Slack or Teams channels. Thanks again for listening and I'll catch you next episode, but quickly, I want to thank the team behind the scenes at Founder’s Journal. Our show is produced and engineered by Dan Bouza. Our associate producer is Bella Hutchins. Brian Henry is our executive producer. Alan Haburchak is Morning Brew’s director of audio. Holly Van Leuven is our fact checker. Noah Friedman is our video producer and editor. And I'm your host, Alex Lieberman. I'll catch you all soon.