Mark MacLeod and a guest discuss firing as a humanitarian act, not punishment. They stress being candid about why someone's skills no longer fit, and how delays in these conversations hurt everyone. Clarity and compassion matter more than avoiding the hard talk.
And that always bothered me because we had that impact on them and we needed to do better, either playing to their strengths or not leaving them in an uncertain place for a period of time. Like that visual with me is like the worst possible thing.
And then on the hard decisions, you know, I've let lots of people go over the years. Always in retrospect did it too late. You know, realized afterwards that nobody wants to do a bad job. We're all what Peter Drucker calls knowledge workers, right? We are, we are the product that the company hires and we know when we're not crushing it, you know? So it's actually humanitarian, it's compassionate, it's compassionate for the person, it's compassionate for all the other stakeholders, right? For the other employees, you know, often you let go of like a department leader as an example. People in that department knew it and they're like, finally you took action, right?
So, Yeah, I think you're right in terms of, you know, it is the compassionate thing, provided you've done the work ahead of time to be as candid and as clear about the why, the what, the how, all of those kinds of things. And I think, you know, part of my issue was that I was skating around that versus having those conversations and being as honest and candid as I needed to be, such that they had the opportunity, if they so choose and so chose, and if their skills lined up with it, to be able to do the job that was now better defined. Um, and I think, I think that's part of the journey too, is I have a tendency, you know, to, to let it fester and to feel it in my gut but not express it as clearly as I need to be. And so, you know, that's the, that's the road and the journey that I've been on is trying to be better about that such that, you know, we both can be honest about where things are at, what the path forward is. And then ultimately, if not, that it never comes as a surprise. And it, and it's probably, you know, within the compassionate place that you're saying where it's like, just You've got a ton of skills that just don't line up with what we need right now. Go put them to use such that you feel better about it. I think I will say one last thing on this, which is like, I, I have seen, um, people come into Wave, um, and, and Key's not old enough yet for it to have happened here, where when they left, they weren't as strong as when they came in. And that always bothered me because we had that impact on them. Um, and we needed to do better about, you know, either playing to their strengths or, you know, not leaving them in an uncertain place for a period of time. Like that visual with me is like the worst possible thing. And so, you know, I think that really helped cement that. I needed to be better at expressing those things such that those people never were in that limbo where they felt uncertain.
Hey, thanks for listening to the Startup CEO Show. If you'd like to connect with me, be sure to visit my website at markmacleod.me or follow me on LinkedIn @TheMarkMacLeod or Twitter @MarkMacLeod_. And if you want to tune in again next week, be sure to subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you next time.
