Luke Murray describes asking his team to admit sadness after laying off a long-tenured employee. When he asked directly if anyone felt sad, several people spoke up. He argues that acknowledging emotions after difficult business events matters.
Last week we let go of an employee that had been with us almost longer than any other employee. It's Monday morning at the Monday morning meeting. The person had been let go on Friday. We said, "How does everyone feel about that?" And no one said a word. And so I said, "Well, my guess is, do some of you guys feel sad?" Because this person, again, was a friend of lots of ours. They'd done a lot of great work and I eventually got folks to admit, "Yes, I am sad." And so I said, "Thanks for letting us know. It's okay that you're sad." And if you'd like to know what other emotions came up and how I dealt with them and why it's important to talk about emotions when you let someone go or any other time in business, then click on the link below for the full video.
