Ep #25: When NOT to Fire Someone

Hey, everyone, I'm Chris Plackey, and this is how to Lead for Female Entrepreneurs and Founders. Because the best way to grow a business is to grow the person who's running it. Let's go ahead and get started.

Hello, gorgeous. How are you today? Hey. So this podcast, podcast. I'm going to talk to you about when not to fire someone.

Firing is on my mind, clearly. So. But I promised you this podcast. I want to make sure that we talk it through. And I also want to give you a resource. I recently did a class or a webinar on that. I called Is It Me or Is It Them? And it's interesting that webinar came out of a very natural conversation. I was at a mastermind, and one of the women in the room said, I've got this assistant and I can't. I guess she's not. I don't think it's going well. I don't know, is it me or is it her? I don't know, is it me or is it her? And so this woman in the mastermind was just confused. And so, of course, she wasn't taking any action. And so I just watched my brain because I've had this conversation with so many leaders like you in my life. I just went through the list, right? Of course, this is exactly the formula you have to follow to answer that question. Right. So I went through it with her, and as I was sitting there, I thought, oh.

Maybe I should share this with other people. Because of course, she was so grateful. She's like, oh, this is so helpful. So. So I did a webinar on it. And if you would like to get your own replay of the webinar, plus I provide with that a worksheet audit that you can go through on your own and assess.

Whether it's you or whether it's them, go to chrisplacki.com meor them audit. So it's chrisplacky.com.

Meorthemaudit. Just put in your information. You're going to get immediate access to the replay, and you'll get the audit in your inbox, in your email, and then let me know what you think after you've had a chance to review it. Because what I want to say about this podcast is.

You have to do those six steps before you can truly step into an authentic space of making the decision to hire. Because you absolutely have to follow the six steps that are in that replay and in the audit to know if you really should fire someone, to really know if it isn't you. And you're not the one who hasn't managed this person properly that you haven't set expectations, that you haven't done the follow through. So before we go off and just fire people, we have to really do a little bit of work on our own. So what I want to do is I'm not going to dive too deeply into all of that content because I've already provided it to you and I'm going to give you some additional things to think about that will hopefully certainly prep you for the process of going through those six steps. But you know, firing people is of course horrible.

And you know, I mean, I've been managing people for 25 years and I still have a mini meltdown when I know I have to let someone go. And I, you know, so I, I want to preface this by saying, like, I don't think this should ever get easy. I think the decision making process should become more simple. But I do appreciate that, you know, setting up the conversation and telling someone, I'd like to meet with you tomorrow at 10, and knowing that tomorrow at 10 you're gonna fire them, I mean, that's just not fun, right? Unless of course, they're like skipping out the door, but even then. So let's just tell ourselves the truth, that, yeah, this is tough, this is a tough thing to do, but that doesn't mean we don't do it. Okay. And I want to help you with, with the decision making process because I watch so many people be so overwhelmed and challenged by thinking about the conversation that then they won't make any decisions. Right? They won't actually look at and assess the problem. And they're only kind of emotionally connected to, oh, I don't want to have the conversation. I've known this person for a long time. They're going to get really upset. They have five children. You get really caught up in their story or, or your story about them and you don't take the action that you need to take. You don't make the decision. So we're going to talk about the decisions. So the first piece I would say to you is, we don't fire anybody until you've done the work. Now to me, the work is in that audit. You have to do the audit. Okay? So I'm just going to leave that very simply. The second thing I would ask you is to really question your reasons. Do you like your reasons? And what I mean by that is, you know, are you in a position of emotional reaction to what people are doing? Someone's doing on the team. And years ago, I wrote a book called Change youe Think. And it's about how managers, the people who manage people. This was when I was working in a large startup environment and I was coaching tons of internal corporate leaders. Right? But I was watching this phenomenon that managers thought processes about their employees were affecting how they managed. This is the beginning of my work. And I was. As soon as I realized that, even for myself, I was like, oh, this is so interesting. We think the employees could just be different, or frankly, if we just fired them, we would feel better. But that is exactly the wrong reason to ever fire someone. Okay? So we have to understand what our reasons are. What are the thoughts that you think, think about this employee, and are they actually true? Is anything even true? Or if you told yourself a really.

Uncomfortable story about this employee, like they're lazy or they don't care about my company, or they don't try hard enough, or they're doing this on purpose, or they're just not cut out for it. You know, whatever those thoughts are that you might have about them that are now affecting the ability, you have to be sort of in a more analytical position with their performance rather than a judgmental position in assessing their performance. Right. We don't want judgment in our assessment of their ability to contribute to our company. We want analysis, which is evidence, not opinion. Okay? And I. If I've said it once, I've said it 400 times. Right? Other people's performance is not an opinion. Performance is just evidence. It's just facts. Okay? The next thing I would ask you is, would you apply this decision to fire this person to anyone else on the team based on your reasons?

So does it hold water or is it just this person? Like, could other people in your business do what this person is doing and you wouldn't want to fire them.

But because this person's doing it, you want to fire them? There's something going on there that we need to explore.

What are your reasons? Would you be consistent? And when you're small and you're maybe a solopreneur or you're, you know, two or three people, I don't worry about this for you as much as I do for my clients who have larger teams. Because then you really have to not just think about what you want and how quickly you want to move. But we always have to be mitigating risk for our business.

And you're the one who has to do that. And if you are not consistent in your practices for how you hire and how you feel fire you are presenting, you are creating or.

Allowing for maybe more risk than you need to. If you were just to be more consistent. Okay, then I want you. You know, we talk a lot about having a relationship with your business that's outside of yourself. And so I want you to think about your business, and I want you to look at her and sit her down, and I want you to have a conversation with her, and I want you to ask her who. What she thinks.

About this employee, and how is this employee helping or hurting the success of the business. And is this employee having any contribution to the business, positive or negative? What would the business say? This is a way to get, you know, if you're really tangled up in somebody with your own thinking, this is a way to get a little more objectivity that isn't other employees. So please, if you please don't talk to other employees about other employees and whether or not you should fire them. This is exactly why all of y' all who do that right now need to hire a coach.

Or you've got to get into some sort of mentorship group or something, right? Because you absolutely should not be talking with other peers of this person about whether or not we should fire this person. And while I appreciate that might logically make sense as the words are coming out of my mouth, that is not what's happening. You are consulting with team members about whether or not other team members should stay. Now, if that's a part of, like, an onboarding process that you have where everybody gives feedback, and it's very structured and it's very consistent, and it's formal and it's, you know, expected. So, like, hey, part of what we do here is you come in, you work with us for a while, then everybody gives feedback, and then we make a consensus decision about whether or not you align, both from a skill set perspective and also a cultural fit, that's different.

Because as a new employee, I know that's coming. Or if you have an annual assessment process where Everybody provides a360 and that, you know, you give360 feedback to each other, that's very different than you taking, you know, Joanie to lunch and saying, hey, I don't really know what to do about. About. So and so. What do you think? Do you think she's a good fit for this company, Joanie? Because I don't know. I'm kind of worried. That is what I'm talking about. That's just gossip. It's not constructive, and it does not help your Your culture. So stop it immediately. Ask your business, though. Have a discussion with your business. Ask your business what her objectives are, what she's trying to achieve, and how this particular employee satisfies the role to achieve those objectives.

And then have you done an audit? Have you done the work? So, you know, one of the, one of the knee jerk reactions I can see in a lot of my clients is they just want somebody, they just want to fire somebody because they just don't want to deal with it.

Because it's uncomfortable. Right? Because you have a lot of thoughts about someone. And a lot of the time, especially when I first start working with a client, we want to fire people because we've been ignoring a problem for some time. And it just feels like it's such a layered, tangled mess to try and figure out where to begin. That's why I love my audit, because it just tells you exactly where to begin. And it doesn't matter how long somebody's worked for you, what level of position they're in, how tangled up they are in your personal life and your professional life or your business. All the things you can literally start with step one and go through every step. So, but because a lot of us don't have those skills and we haven't learned how to do that, which is normal. This is, you know, as an entrepreneur, you, you have an, a particular skill set which is, is very unlikely to be managing people, which is fine. But you know, you can get into these situations with certain people.

That can be challenging. And so you're just wanting to extricate and get yourself out of it. And unfortunately, there's work for you to do first. So if you just accept that as truth. Right? Just trust me. Just do the work on yourself first. Do the audit. Answer these questions. Do the work. Really question your reasons, assess those against.

Actual performance versus your judgment. Get into analysis, which the audit helps you understand what that really even means because there's production, there's behavior, and then we have to have expectations and goals to measure those against.

And then ask your business what she would say. Get out of the business of talking to everybody else and getting their opinion, and then do the audit and then make a decision and decide to decide and go forward. Now, I just was talking with my clients in my group program and we were talking about how hard it is to make decisions. Like, I think it's a superpower to be able to make decisions, but we have a tendency to think about the decision is to fire someone. But the decision really isn't just to fire them. The decision is first to do the audit.

And then within the audit, there's all these decisions that you have to continue to move forward with. And then once I've done the audit, I'm going to make the decision to assess my reasons. And once I've done that, I'm going to make the decision to ask my business. And once I've done that, I'm going to make the decision to do one thing or another. And once I've done that, I will make the decision to schedule an appointment. And once I've done that, I will make the decision to fire once I've done so. The big decision is always a small decision first. And that's what we have to remember. The big decision always starts with small ones. And so when we're thinking about firing someone, we have to come very. We can't just decide, should I fire them or not? That's a huge decision. Right. Your brain is like either excited about it or terrified. But there's lots of little things you can do that then lead you to, oh, well, the next natural decision is I schedule an appointment for 10 o' clock tomorrow. And then the next natural decision is I show up for that appointment. And then the next natural decision is I choose the words I want to say to let someone go. Okay? So when you want to fire someone, this is a cue that you have work to do. This is not a cue that they are crazy. Making you nuts, need to go. If they just leave, you will feel better.

Because we know that actually sitting down to fire someone does not make you feel better.

Right. Puts you back into discomfort. Right. But we can get better at making these decisions sooner and quicker when we have a process. Which is why I set up the six steps for you. So I hope you'll check those out. I think you're going to find them super, super helpful. It's a little bit of studying in terms of understanding it. But if you run a business, you have to get good at firing people, you have to get good at hiring people, and you have to get good at firing people. It's just true. Like, you can argue with me that you wish you could hire other people to do all this work for you. You're still gonna have someone you have to manage, and you're gonna still have somebody you're gonna end up having to fire. And if that's not in your purview and you don't agree with me, then you're gonna. I think you're gonna suffer as a business owner. Why not just learn.

Let's go. Let's get good at it, right? We can always be awkward. You know what? You might fail at it. You might do a terrible job firing someone. They might cry and tell you you're horrible and write a bad Yelp review.

But you'll learn something, and then you have the mechanism and the tools to go forward and do it again. Okay? Now, if you want to coach with me, I really want you to think about a couple of things. If you are a woman who runs a business that generates seven figures in revenue. I am currently scheduling one on one consultations with a select group. I don't have a ton of openings, but I am currently registering for a few spots in my personal coaching program. And you know, the thing about what I. There's so much I love about what I'm doing with these women, but mostly it's that we take a lot of these concepts that you and I talk about here on the podcast, but then we wrap them around very specific challenges that each woman is facing in her business. So, you know, it's an exclusive experience, right? You have to be really ready to dive in and do the work and be willing. You know, there's. There's no passengers here. These are women who are high profile clients, thought leaders in their space.

And so if that's you, you know, the problem with being that woman, not that, I mean, there's not a lot of problems, but one of the biggest challenges I think that my clients face is there are so well established, they're such thought leaders in their space that it's hard for them to find a place to go where they can kind of actually be a little vulnerable in the areas that they're not good at. Right. I mean, I have a client who's going to Necker island who's been invited. I have another client who's been invited to go meet the Dalai Lama. Other clients who are making very many millions of dollars and are the premier thought leader in their space. Once you've kind of reached these certain pinnacles professionally.

There'S this assumption that you know how to do a lot of things. But do you know what I know? I know that people who are making $50 million or $25 million or $100 million are struggling with firing someone.

They're struggling with managing the business partner that they've had for 22 years.

They don't know how to address an issue with an employee that's been going on for six months. Right? So just because you're really, really capable and proven doesn't mean that managing people comes easily to you.

And I just want to stress that I get it. And that's why I create this space for you. Because.

That inability for you is affecting the growth of your business.

And it's also affecting the joy that you have in your business.

So if you've been gnawing on it and thinking about it, maybe it's time you and I met. The application process that you go through when you meet with me sort of helps, you know if this is the right space for you or not. And then once you do, we will confirm whether or not we should go forward. But you just go to Chrisplackie.com appointment, you'll answer the questions, and then we will get back with you and let you know what the next best steps will be. And if I don't think you're where you need to be to start working with me and the other women I work with, I will absolutely point you in a direction that I think is best for where you and your business are right now. Okay? So the two resources I've provided for you today are to go to chrisplackie.com meorthemaudit and if you're ready and you really vibe on the way that I just described my client that I work with, Please go to Chrisplackie.com appointment and complete the application and we will take a look, review your answers, and confirm with you.

How best to move forward. Thank you for tuning in today and I will talk with you again soon.

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