MBA1965 Q&A Wednesday: How do I fire my brother?

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Hey oh welcome to the Hunter All R MBA Show. Because a better business begins with you. That's why we deliver daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher, Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of Webinar Ninja, an independent software company I started with my co founder back in 2014 and today's episode is Q and A Wednesday. On Q and A Wednesdays we answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you got a question you want to ask, just go ahead and email me over at Omar100, MBA NET today's question is from Jesse and Jesse asks Omar, need your help. I've hired my brother to work in my business and he's been working with me for the last six months. I've really tried to make it work but unfortunately he's not meeting the company's standards. He's unable to fill the role and I really can't find him anything else in my company to do. I'm pretty sure it's time for me to fire him, but he's family. How do I handle this situation delicately and also not appear to be ruthless in front of my team? Would love any advice. Thanks Jesse. Jesse, I want to first tell you that this is not an uncommon issue. I actually went through a similar situation, hiring a family member that I had to let go at some point. And I know many entrepreneurs have gone through this in the past before as well. Because it's only natural to look within your own network to find great talent to have people join your team. And sometimes family members are in that network. It's actually very easy to hire a family member because you know who they are, you can trust them. You have confidence they will be able to do what you need them to do. The hard part, though, is letting them go, firing them. Sometimes it just does not work. And these are one of those tough decisions that a company leader needs to make in the best interest of the company and your team. So in today's episode, I'm going to offer Jessi and anybody else who's in the same situation or might be in the future when it comes to firing a family member, let's get into it. Let's get down to business.

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So Jesse hired her brother and it's not working out. He's not hitting the mark and she needs to fire him. I want to start by saying that this is never easy firing anybody or let alone a family member. In fact, it's extra hard on a practical and an emotional level to fire a family member because one, it's gonna hurt more emotionally. You're very close to this person. They're a sibling. In Jesse's case, it's gonna be a tougher conversation. But two, you have to see them at Thanksgiving, in family gatherings, on birthdays, at weddings. So you wanna make sure that you end your working relationship, but don't end your personal one or your family relationship. Right? This is super, super important. We wan. This is done properly. I mentioned in the show that I went through this actually. I hired a family member, very close family member, and I didn't have to fire them, but I pretty much was about to because they just were not coping with the work and they actually quit before we had a conversation. About it. The interesting thing is I actually was really hurt by that. I was like, man, how could you quit on me? I hired you. I gave you a chance. I really believe that you can do this. But you don't believe you could do this. So that's the problem. You can't make somebody do anything, and you can't make anybody work hard or push themselves to the standard that you want them to hit. It has to come from them. And what I learned from that experience was that we are all individuals. Even though they're family, we're all unique, and we react to different situations in different ways. We handle pressures in different ways. Our wants and needs and desires are different. So we just have to recognize that not everybody, even if their family, are going to be in love with working with you and working for your company. Now, I'm going to assume that Jesse has already had a few conversations with her brother, with her family member, and said, hey, you know, we need you to do xyz. You're not hitting the mark. Let's try to help you. Let's try to train you. What are some of the resources that we can provide to you to help help you hit your goals or hit your KPIs? And it's gotten to the point where all of those efforts have been exhausted and you've come to the conclusion that this relationship, this working relationship, cannot continue. It's time to find somebody to replace them and say goodbye. Now, before we move any further, I wanted to step back a moment and say, I highly recommend if you ever hire a close friend or family member, to mention at the start, this is a working relationship. And if one day this work relationship has to end, our personal relationship or our family relationship can't end. Okay, sometimes I'm gonna have to make decisions that are for the company and has nothing to do with our relationship. And you have to agree to that. You have to be on board of that and really understand that. So would you be cool if I hired you today and fired you in a year? Like, literally, ask them at the start, because you're actually setting up expectations where this might end. This is not a for sure thing forever. And by the way, you're just being honest. You don't know what is ahead. You might be forced to let somebody go because of the economy, because of a change in direction in your business. You might have different priorities. Your company might get bought out, you might get acquired, and the new company already has somebody for that position. So these things sometimes are totally out of your control. And they need to understand that you have to expect that that could happen now, regardless if you did that or not during the hiring process. This conversation where you have to say, hey, we have to part ways is an important one. We have to handle this with grace. We have to handle this properly. In fact, there are two conversations you need to have. You have the conversation with your family member, but you also have to have a conversation with your whole team about anybody you let go, anybody that you fire, anybody that you lay off, anybody that leaves. The point here is that you can't let rumors fester. You can't let lack of information be there, because people will fill the void. They will fill the gap of information with their own information, with speculation. And you don't want that. You want to clear the air. You want to make sure there's information for them to understand what happened, why this happened. So we'll talk about that conversation in the second part of today's lesson. So the first part we're going to talk about is the conversation we're having with the person we are letting go, the person we're firing, the person that we're parting ways with. There's a scene in the movie Moneyball where Brad Pitt's character, he is the manager of a baseball team, and he's actually training one of his team members, one of his subordinates. Hey, when you have to let go of a baseball player, if you have to trade them, this is tough news for them because they're going to have to uproot their whole life to a different city. Anytime you're delivering tough news, he says in the movie, you just need to just say it right off the bat. Just give him the facts. Don't prance around it. Just hit him right with the information. People want the truth, and they respect the truth. They respect directness. So this is what I recommend. I recommend just telling them like it is, saying, hey, let's say Jesse's brother's name is Tom. Hey, Tom, thanks for meeting with me today. Unfortunately, our working relationship has to come to an end. Your last day at this company is going to be this day. This is what it means for your salary. This is what it means for your benefits. If you have any questions, you can speak to our HR manager. We really appreciate the contributions you've made. Now, you're going to start with that because you don't want to start dancing around it. And they'll be like, what is this person trying to say? What's going on? That's worse. It's Better to just flat out say what you want to say in the beginning and then you can go in and say what I call a supportive argument or supportive information, where you say, tom, as you know, we've been meeting once a week talking about your performance and we've been trying to hit your KPIs, but unfortunately, in the last three months, despite the training that we've offered you, you're not hitting the KPIs. I have an obligation to make sure we hit these KPIs so that we can continue to thrive as a company. I would love to have you in a different position, but unfortunately we don't have any open at the moment or there's no good fit. As you know. I really wanted to make this work, but unfortunately this is where we've ended up. I really wish you all the best. I'm happy to give an honest reference if required. Let me know if you have any questions about the next steps. Now, it sounds very cold and dry, right? It sounds that way, but you're really just saying it in a tone of just being genuine and being honest. What I know about family is that people just like to be leveled with. Just tell me the truth, right, and people will appreciate that. The supporting argument is really just showing that I really try to do everything I can to make this work, as you know. And I actually didn't want to fire you. I wanted to find you a different position, but we don't have any positions and I got to hit these KPIs. It's basically what's called a fair enough position, where it's like they have to say, fair enough. Like, what is this person supposed to do? And I'm not making any of this up. This is the absolute truth. And in fact, I wish it wasn't because it costs me more to hire somebody new than to keep somebody I already have. So, as you notice, I only spoke for about a minute and I want to stop and I want to allow them to ask me questions, to speak if needed. So that's basically a loose outline of the conversation you're going to have with them. The second conversation is the one you're going to have with your team and you need to be honest with them about what happened. I've always done this with anybody, family or not family, because it just makes things clear for the team. So there's no ambiguity, there's no wondering what happens, am I next, all that kind of stuff. If somebody didn't hit their KPIs or were not a good Fit or things just didn't work out for xyz, you gotta say it. You don't have to be mean about it. You don't have to be overly blunt about it, but you gotta be honest. So the next time you have an all hands or team meeting, you need to address it. You say, hey, Tom was a great person. We loved working with them. But unfortunately, we're going to have to say goodbye to Tom. We're going to have to end our working relationship with him. We will be hiring somebody to replace him, and our goal here is to make sure we hit our targets. Tom was simply not a good fit for the role that we needed him to do and the responsibilities we needed him to carry out. So the point here is that you're making it very clear to your team, hey, this person got fired not because they're a horrible person or they did something bad like abusive to anybody. They simply just didn't do the job you needed to do. They're just being a little bit polite about it, right? They didn't hit the mark. And it's also a message, hey, you're fine. As long as you do your job right, you're going to be all right. At my company, if you hit the mark and you do your responsibilities, you're going to be okay. And by the way, people know, like, they get evaluated, they have talks, they'll have several talks before even a whiff of this idea will be considered. And I flat out tell our team we want to keep people as long as, as possible because it's just too much effort, time, money to hire new people all the time. So it's in our interest, it's in your interest that we have a long relationship. I got more on today's topic. But before that, let me give love to today's sponsor. Oh, could this vintage store be any cuter? Right?

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The February 2025 Nielsen report. To rap Teddy's lesson, firing anybody is not fun, let alone a family member. Listen, just know that this is one of the hard things as a business leader you're gonna have to do whether it was in business or whether it was even when I was in a job as an educator, you know, over 12 years ago, and I had to fire somebody. It kind of ruins your week, right? It kind of just makes the week a bummer because it's just hard to do. It's not a good feeling, but it's something that you have to do something. You're required to do something that's part of your responsibilities. You're obligated to make these decisions for your team, for your company, for your customers. Thanks so much for listening to the $100 NBA show. If you got a question you want to ask, just go ahead and email me over at omar00mba.net and I'll answer right here on Q and A Wednesday. Thanks, Jesse, for the great question and topic that you presented today. If you want to make sure you don't miss an episode, hit subscribe. Follow whatever it says on your favorite podcast app. Do that right now so you don't miss one of our gems of a lesson like tomorrow's lesson where we discuss does having an office space make sense in 2022? With everything crazy going on in the world with COVID should you even have a work address and office? Is it a waste of money? Or are there merits? Are there benefits? Or is there things that we're forgetting about? We get into that in tomorrow's episode. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. I use that example from the movie Moneyball because I really believe that business is a world that's very similar to sports. Your job is really to cultivate a great team, to achieve great and sometimes you're gonna have to move some pieces around, depending on what's happening out there in the market, in the competition. Some of your players, your teammates, will leave. They'll retire. It's just part of the game. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. Take.

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