What I have learned about firing employees..

What is up? In this video today, what I want to share with you is the answer to the question, should I fire them? This is a question that I get very frequently from, you know, leaders in my own companies as well as some of the portfolio companies that we work with, which is trying to understand why somebody isn't working out well for the team. What are they doing? What's this person doing? Etc., etc. And this is obviously, if you're watching this and you're a business owner, you know how emotional this is. And I remember my first time having to fire somebody and it was terrible. It was back when Alex and I had first started Gym Launch and we were actually sending sales guys out to the physical locations like we had been doing for the past 11 months. And we said, you know, here's the metrics, here's the KPIs, go launch these gyms. And of course, I've never done anything like this in my life before. I have no experience. So hiring these people, I felt really good about it, but at the same time I knew I don't know what I'm doing. And so one of them happened to be my friend from high school and he had had a stable job since high school and out of college and I convinced him to leave that job and come do this with us. And in the first 4 days he went 0 for 23 in sales at the new location despite the training that we gave and you know the rest of the team actually did fairly well from the beginning. There were 6 guys that we sent out at that point in time. And Alex and I looked at each other and we were like, "It's just not cutting it. We've got to go fly out there. We've got to go save this gym and this just isn't going to work." And Alex looked at me and I remember he was like, "Well, you know, we've got to do it now." And I was like, "Oh my God." And I felt terrible. I remember sitting in the car with him. I did it in the car and I just had this feeling in my stomach. I'm sweating. I'm on the verge of tears. I feel terrible. I'm like, "I just had this guy quit his job, but he's just not right for the role." And the terrible part was that I knew, I was like, I'm also so inexperienced that I don't even know how to train him better than I am now. And I'm sure that's half of what it is. And I felt really bad about that. But, and I'm sure a lot of you can relate to this because the irony of this is, is that the reason that there are so many firing and hiring mistakes made is because you as the CEO, there's no way to get the experience of being a CEO without doing it, right? Like you could have mentors, you can read books, but like until you do it, You don't really know what it feels like. And while you're doing it, much of the time, the mistakes you make with people, it's kind of one of these situations where you're like, listen, I actually made the mistake in the beginning by hiring you, or I made the mistake by not knowing how to train you and you don't even know how to train yourself. And so here I am, now I have to fire you because I own the company, so I'm not getting fired. And then like any other situation, a leader in that position would be the one that's at risk of losing their job. But because you own the company, You don't lose your job, you just feel like crap. And then you go on to the next situation and you take what you've learned and you try to iterate from there. But nonetheless, it feels pretty crappy. And so that's why I have really tried to build out thinking frameworks for hiring and firing because I know how emotional it is. That's typically why it's not done well. And so I think a lot of the times people think that if you are unemotional around hiring and firing that you'd have less empathy or for some reason you care less. And I'm like, are you kidding me? I care more because I'm willing to put my emotions on the back burner so I can make the right decision for this person, this job, this company. Right? You have to do right by all of that. You have to do right by the person you're interviewing, you have to do right by the company, you have to do right by the team. And so, that being said, I want to share a couple of different reasons why you would consider letting someone go as well as reasons why maybe you shouldn't let them go. The first one is a very obvious one, which is somebody is not meeting performance standards. Right? So say that they have a quota to hit, they have a certain number of something to accomplish in a day, they have a project they're supposed to hit mile markers of, and they are just not meeting it. Well, you could consider firing them, but the, I would say, contingency is, did you provide clear metrics? Right? Did you provide proper training? When I think through something like that, I think, Okay, did I provide the proper metrics? Did I provide the proper training? And then the even bigger question to that is, is my business and am I in a spot right now where I can provide the proper training and metrics? Or do I need to hire somebody who can operate without clear metrics and training and they can train themselves? Right? So there's almost two layers to it, right? Because in the beginning, especially if you have no experience in a, in in a role, right? So say that you have zero experience in finance, you're hiring on someone for accounting, and then they're messing up all the accounting and you're saying, well, obviously I didn't train them because I don't know accounting, but I also hired someone who couldn't train themselves because they don't have the experience. And so then it comes down to maybe they're not meeting performance standards, maybe you didn't put the performance standards or the training in place, but maybe that's because you actually just hired the wrong person because you're not thinking through, do I have the ability to train this person? Or do they need to be able to train themselves? So that's the first one that I see, and I like to think through on both of those levels because it's relevant. You know, sometimes it's that the person's not meeting standards, but a lot of the times it's that you're not thinking through before you hire someone, do I need someone who can train themselves or can I hire someone who I'm able to train? And I think a lot of times people just like to be cheap and try and hire someone who is lower level who needs training and they cannot give training and then they end up firing the person. The second point for consideration when you're looking at if you should let someone go or not would be tearing down the team or not representing the culture that you aspire to have in the company. Right? And so the question for this one is if you're like, you have someone on the team, they're not, you know, say abiding by the values, they're not representing the culture well. They seem to be kind of, maybe everyone else on the team represents the culture well and then they kind of take it in a different direction. The question that I would ask you is, one, how did you filter through when you hired for this role? And when you were hiring, did you see red flags? You know, like, how do you filter for culture? Right? And then the second piece to that is, have you told them that they are, you know, deviating from the culture and they're not doing a good job representing it amongst the teammates? Because a lot of the times when someone tells me, they're like, oh, they're just a bad culture fit. I'm like, well, you have to tell them that to give them the chance to improve. Because maybe they don't know that they're coming off that way. And personalities are not fixed. People can change their behavior if the incentive is strong enough. And if they really respect you, they really want to be at the company, they just might change their behavior. And so in that situation, it's worth looking at, is this person right for the job? But the first question to ask yourself is, have I expressed to them that they are acting in a way that I do not want to be had on this team? The third piece is when you have someone who's apathetic. Right? They don't care about the customers, the company, or anything else. And it's just kind of like a clock-in, clock-out type of person. I have a low tolerance for this kind of role amongst the team that I have because I think that a lot of the times it actually really dampens the entire culture for all the A-players on the team. However, I think that the question that you have to ask yourself is, if you are their manager, are you acting apathetic? Or if they have a different manager rather than yourself, is that manager apathetic? And so you always want to look back, again, like I said, to the root cause when you're looking at should I fire them or should I not. And then you have to really look and say, if I change the root cause, will this fix itself? Right? Because a lot of times people will say, you know, my team's not engaged, my team is just aloof, etc., etc. And I'm like, well, of course they are. Look at you. You don't care about your company. You're not involved. It's a lifestyle business for you and it's not something that you're interested in working harder for. And so think about that and take it into consideration. And also ask yourself, okay, well, if the reason that you have the business is for it to just support a lifestyle that you have, then maybe you just need to adjust your expectations of the people that are working in the business to an extent, right? The other side of that is there are some people who are truly just apathetic. They do not view work as a place where they gain purpose or meaning. I think it is ever declining right now. I think more people want purpose and meaning from work, but there are people who don't. They just want to clock in and clock out. And in that case, I would ask myself, or I would ask you to ask yourself, you know, is this a role where this is detrimental to the team if this person is apathetic? And when I say that, it's because there are some roles where I think that people just are naturally who are inclined to take them are a little more apathetic because of the nature of the role. And so it is something worth considering when you're asking yourself, you know, this person lacks engagement, is that important to this role or is it not? And is it harming the team or is it not? And so it's worth considering, right? The fourth piece to take into consideration when you're looking at should I fire them or should I not is a person who thrives on drama, right? They just seem to thrive on negativity. And this is often the kind of person who likes to tell everyone 'Hey, you know, I said that that wouldn't work. It didn't work. Told you so.' This and that. Like, they just continuously like to point out the things that they apparently have said ahead of time. They like to always tell their boss, you know, 'I said that this was going to happen. This always happens. Like, this sucks.' And they just have a lot of resentment towards decisions that are made because they tend to always look on the negative side. And the irony of that is, in 100 scenarios, 99% of things don't work out, right? And so it's easy to be that person and to say, "Oh, I was always right," because you're defaulting to the negative. But you do miss out on that 1 out of 100 where you're hitting a home run, right? And that person will always miss out on that 1 out of 100. And so in a scenario like this where I have someone like that on the team where they just completely thrive on drama, which I've had a few of these kinds of people, the first thing that I ask myself is, have I expressed this to them clearly? And when I say clearly, I mean like how I am expressing it in this Video is how you express it to them. Hey, you know, I want to give you some feedback today. It's pretty important, etc., etc. Refer to my feedback video on having hard conversations. And you would basically phrase it and say, hey, you seem to thrive on drama, and this is my observation, and it makes me uncomfortable, and I don't feel like it's productive for the team. And so I think this is actually a pretty big deal, and so I want to understand, do you know that you act this way? You have to give them the chance to improve, right? Now, if you make someone aware of these behaviors and you put a plan in place and they still don't improve, it is absolutely something that I would say is worth considering letting someone go and departing ways from them when you're handling it. And so if you're thinking of these 4 different things, right, it's like, should I fire them? Should I not fire them? They kind of all come down to how you handle the situation, right? Because how I look at it is I have to know that I've done everything on my side to ensure that this person has the 100% chance to succeed and it is not me who impedes on their success. Right? Now, how do I do this? The first way is I always think you want to manage up or out. And so when you are coaching someone because you're not sure if they should be on the team or not, I think about it like this. My outcome is either I coach them up and they rise to the occasion or I coach them out and they cannot tolerate, you know, the requests I'm making of them because it's just very outside of their comfort zone. It's very outside of what they want for themselves or value at work. That they decide to leave on their own. That is always my goal because I'm like, I have to just set absolute clear expectations for what I need from this person. And if they don't want to meet them, that is their choice. But I have to be able to verbalize that to them and have a consistent conversation, you know, multiple times a week until the issue is resolved. And a lot of people aren't willing to do that because it's very uncomfortable and it's time-consuming, but it is the right thing to do. The second thing that you want to do is really a mental process, which is becoming aware of your patterns, right? And the reason that I say this is because I think we all have a pattern of either firing too quickly or too slowly. And you have to know which end you err towards so that you can kind of balance yourself to come to the middle. Because that's a form of all-or-nothing thinking and that's usually not productive in the workplace. And most of the time when you're looking at letting someone go, it's both you and them. And so you, however, are typically the boss and so you need to take the first step towards explaining what's going on and trying to amend the situation and making them aware of it, right? And so the more aware you are of how you act in these situations, the more you can catch yourself and say, hey, I'm doing that again. Like, I just want to go fire them rather than actually have a conversation, which is what a lot of people do. They're like, I would literally rather fire somebody than have a hard conversation for 3 weeks in a row. Most people do that, especially new business owners, people with really fast-growing businesses. They want to do that because it's such a headache to take care of it. And so you don't want to do that. You will get a bad reputation. I have made that mistake in the beginning. I fired people way too quickly in the first year of business. It was terrible. And so do not make that mistake. The third piece to this when you're handling the situation is that you want to get outside input. I think that making an isolated decision kind of like in your lab or in your corner by yourself typically doesn't serve you because a lot of the times, especially if you're not, you don't have a ton of experience with this, is that you're going to be very emotional about it. And so I think the more information the better. The way that I would go about gathering information is one of two things. I would either, one, go talk to a mentor that I have and ask for their insight on the situation, right? Because if it's like somebody comes to talk to me, I can tell them right off the bat like, oh, it's that bucket of problem, or it's that kind of person, or it's probably this. Have you asked this? Have you done this? Right? And I can easily help them solve it. And so go to a mentor, talk to them about it. The second thing is to gather intel from the team, right? And so that requires essentially interviewing people that work with that person on a consistent basis. And so a lot of the times what I notice is people will feel a certain way about a teammate and they will think, "Oh well, I should just continue to tolerate it because I'm probably the only one who notices." And then they go and they interview everyone else that works with them and they find out that everyone's terrified of that person. They're not doing their best work. They feel incredibly pressured. They're very uncomfortable. And so interviewing people that they work with is incredibly important. And there are ways that you can do it, which I can talk about in another video, that are appropriate and do not expose expose that person too much because obviously there is the chance that, you know, they should still remain on the team and that is not something that you want to do to damage their reputation. So all in all, when it comes to deciding should I fire them or should I not, it is always diagnosing the root cause of why this problem exists before you take action. And I think that a lot of the times what happens is that we feel, especially in the beginning, and I remember this so clearly, is I would feel so uncomfortable with having a person on the team And when I took a step back and I gained more experience, I realized that that discomfort was discomfort I felt with myself because I was lacking integrity by not telling them directly what they were or were not doing to meet the job requirements. And I was actually just— it was almost like creating more anxiety out of avoiding the anxiety of having those conversations. And so I think if you want to clearly answer the question of should you fire them or should you not, You have to be able to take an approach that is not all or nothing, but it's to what extent. To what extent is this my fault? To what extent is this their fault? To what extent is this just a consequence of the position that we're in right now? Right? It's just a kind of just a fact of business with the kind of business we're in with the time we're in. Right? And so those are all things that I take into consideration when I'm deciding if someone should be kept on the team or not. And I would say that I always start with what I can do differently first. And so Even if that takes a little bit longer, I'm okay with that because I want to know that I did everything in my power to ensure that person was successful. And if they're not, then it is on them, it's not on me. So I hope this video was helpful. I will definitely make more videos on parting ways with employees because I think it's important to not only help business owners understand and become more aware of how to hire and fire appropriately, but also to protect the people that you're hiring because They're really trusting you when they take a job with you that you're going to take care of them, that you're going to have a place for them. And though everyone's an adult, I do think that if we don't do our diligence on our side, we're really not doing right by the people that we hire. So if you like this video, go ahead, hit subscribe, and I will see you on the next one.