Do you need to fire someone?
If you’re wondering if you need to fire someone, the answer is yes. You’ve probably already waited too long, and you’d be better off right now if they had been fired a while ago.
There are a few very likely reasons you need to fire someone (that you’ve been ignoring) and some reasons why you’ve delayed (for too long).
First, the research that makes me so confident that the answer is yes, you need to fire them. Annie Duke researched and wrote the fantastic book Quit: The Power of Knowing When to Walk Away. In her research, inspired by her career as a professional poker player, she found that one main differentiator between successful and failed endeavors was the willingness and ability to turn back from a doomed course of action and redirect energy toward something more promising.
One specific stat she gave was that professional poker players fold 85% of the time. This means they don’t even play a vast majority of the hands they are dealt, and instead, they save their money and energy for hands that are more likely to win. Less successful poker players stay in the game too often, are more willing to play riskier hands, and, consequently, lose a lot more and are unsuccessful over time.
My favorite piece of actionable advice from Quit is that if you’re wrestling with yourself over continuing or quitting something, the optimal time to quit has already passed. You are in the stage of losing energy/time/resources with no improved outcome until you take action to quit and redirect your energy to a better path.
It’s tough news to hear.
You need to fire someone whose behavior is an energy drain that is not changing. I’m all for putting maximum effort into teaching, training, and coaching people who are on a growth path. It’s very different when you’ve put in maximum effort to support a change in someone’s behavior, and no actual change happens. Maybe there’s no change because there’s no investment in growth on their end, or perhaps they are incapable of the change you want to make. If that necessary behavior change isn’t happening, it’s time to let them go.
It’s worth pausing here to reality-check your communication and expectations. Are you super clear on the expectations for what you want the other person to do? Is that change essential? Are you actually on the same page? For real? (People, you have no idea how many teams I’ve worked with where more than a handful of people each adamantly gave me a summary of the team purpose or goal that was 100% unique and not shared with any other teammate. It’s good to know where you’re starting.) If you ask your person what they think you want them to do, would they give the answer you think should be the answer?
The second part is if you’re putting maximum effort into someone who isn’t making the behavior change you want, consider whether this person can meet the goal you (both!) have in mind. “The last person in this role could do this thing” does not necessarily equate to the current person in this role being able to do this thing (despite your maximum efforts!). (Side note: if your maximum effort to support behavior change entails “yelling real loud when they do the wrong thing,” you may need to adjust your pedagogy first.
Also, perhaps your support effort capacity has changed/evolved over time. Maybe in the past, you could give 20 hours a week to supporting a teammate to meet the agreed-upon expectations, and now, you just don’t have those resources. If someone requires a volume of effort that you don’t have to give, then they’re not a good fit, and it’s time to let them go.
Take a moment to consider what your work environment would look and feel like without this difficult personality present. When I get the chance to ask folks to imagine their work world without the person they’re thinking of firing, I’ve seen some dramatic physical signs of relief. I’ve seen shoulders drop because tension is leaving their body. This is also sometimes the first moment in a meeting where they smile. The tension and stress caused by not firing someone who is not serving your organization is severe at times - for you and often for your other teammates.
The “reasons” for delaying a firing are numerous, but I hear some regularly.
Maybe you and your organization pride yourself on being inclusive, or working with everyone, or supporting your teammates so you feel like you have to keep working with someone (after their third conflict mediation – I know too many people this applies to, you know who you (all) are). If you are repeatedly engaged in conflict with a person and the pattern of behavior is not changing (maybe it just evolves to new and different conflicts), it’s likely that you don’t have the resources to adequately support this person to align with your organizational goals, values, and working conditions. It’s time to let them go.
Pump the brakes here for a second and make sure your conflicts are about specific behaviors that require more resources than you have to manage and are not a case of unspoken or unclear expectations buried under conflict avoidance or a conflict response deficit on your end. Once you identify a pattern of unacceptable behavior beyond your resources, you can be at ease knowing that removing this person from your team is the right choice. People can 100% change their behavior patterns - if they are invested in doing that for themselves. No one can do that for someone else. If you notice a pattern of problematic behavior (over years in some cases!) that doesn’t work for your organization, the pattern won’t change any time soon. Let the person go.
Leaders tell me they delay firing someone because the person in question is a “high performer” who significantly impacts meeting organizational goals. I recently read a beautiful refutation of this idea (as soon as I find the source again, I’ll let you know!). A true “high performer” contributes to the organization financially and interpersonally, aligning with all aspects of the organizational goals and culture. A “high producer” who only contributes to the bottom line is not necessarily a “high performer.” It’s awesome when a high producer is a high performer - but a high producer who hurts organizational function or culture needs to go. Keeping high producers (who aren’t able to become high performers) around leads to other good performers leaving the organization. Maybe there are different solutions if you must keep a high producer around that could protect the rest of the team and organization from their poor behavior, but overall, in the long run, more people will thrive when they leave.
Another cause of delay in firing someone is that people are unclear or sometimes actively dislike their organizational firing procedures. Some organizations don’t have these types of procedures at all, and sometimes they are esoteric or complex and don’t seem to align with letting someone go in a way that feels respectful. Especially if your organization values relationships, having a firing process that values relationships is essential! A firing is not a time to sell out on your organizational values. It takes care to do well, and it is possible.
People delay firing someone because they are uncomfortable with the thought of having that conversation, or they fear coming off like the big bad boss, or if the person they need to fire is well-liked by other teammates, they fear losing social standing and respect among their teammates. Discomfort and fear are not pleasant states to live in. Combined with the stress and tension caused by the behavior of the challenging personality, it is a recipe for suffering. You can prepare for those conversations and the entire process, including how you’ll respond to likely actions the person you’re firing will take in response to the firing. You can never prepare for every possibility and can’t prepare so much that the conversation happens without you. You can get yourself into a mental state that is grounded and confident that the conversation you need to have will do what you need to do with minimized chances for things to go off the rails.
Hiring mistakes happen, and investing in training and developing someone only to learn later that they are not a good fit for your organization can be humbling. You will be much better off letting them go now rather than keeping them around and trying to work with or change a negative pattern of behavior. It will be better for you and all your other teammates. Yes, you should fire that person.
Tune in for my next article on how to fire someone well: tips for bosses and teammates to take action now. Subscribe to know when the next article drops here.