Years ago, I was asked point blank by my boss’ boss’ boss if I thought we should fire my boss and hire someone else in his place.
Awkward!
We needed to – my boss was hurting our business, inside and out. I knew this, the person asking me knew this, and there I was – the proverbial deer in the headlights – unable to answer. I was spinning through the various ways I might dodge the question when the question was rephrased this way: “Can we do better, and should we?”
When it comes to the critical decision to add or subtract a member to your team – and every such decision should be considered to be that important – those are incredibly illuminating questions.
The challenge people encounter in these moments of inviting someone into, or releasing someone from, a company is they too often don’t know if they can do better, even though they want to do well. The reason for this uncertainty stems from general or generic definitions of what good looks like. There is no scripting of a process to identify and evaluate a person’s fit for the organization or the role they fill (or may fill). This kind of uncertainty is bad for business, which makes your significant lessening of it non-optional.
The good news is there are many experts, tools, and other resources to help you do better – and you’re welcome and encouraged to contact us for more specific guidance about how to sharpen your assessment criteria, tools, and process. My focus here is on the final decision point for hiring someone or letting someone go.
Working not just with an array of talented business leaders but with many passionate business founders and owners, it’s surprising how low they seem to set the bar when it comes to allowing someone to stay. While oversimplified (this is a blog after all), here are the main contributors to poor hiring/firing decisions:
1. Hiring – we don’t require people to answer our questions
2. Firing – we make excuses for someone’s chronic underperformance
Both behaviors really annoy me, and both are simply if not easily addressed. Here are my quick tips on how to address them. Please give it your best … “don’t make me angry, you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry!” (That’s a catch phrase from The Incredible Hulk for those playing our game at home)
Hiring:
• Get clear on critical skills for success … at least three items that define HOW someone needs to be and do their work at your company and two items that define WHAT they need to be able to do in the role.
• Develop open-ended job-related questions about each asking for specific examples of when the person demonstrated that skill. Avoid hypotheticals. People tend to know what they SHOULD do; we need to know what they’ve actually done. Remember: when you ask a hypothetical question, you get a hypothetical answer.
• Here’s the kicker – make sure they answer with a SPECIFIC example. Specific examples include names, dates, amounts, etc. General answers are: “sometimes,” “I usually,” “people say.” It may take an explanation of the process and then some guiding from a general answer to a specific one.
In the end, if they can’t, or won’t, provide the details, you have your answer. Each person is too valuable to gamble on what you don’t know when you should be able to know it. Don’t explain away their lack of specificity. If they had the skills, they’d have told you … in their words, not the words that are now in your head because you need someone and they seem like a nice person.
Firing
• Establish and share the measures of success. Hint: they’re the HOW and the WHAT items you assessed them on when you hired them.
• Have regular conversations with them about their performance, reinforcing successes, supporting development, and clearly communicating concerns and gaps.
• If – despite clarity, support, and time – the person’s performance doesn’t rise to the needed level, make plans for their release (cooperatively, if possible). Candor throughout this process is the most respectful way to be. Far too often it’s avoided out of “respect” for the person’s feelings you’re about to fire
The weird thing about firing is, often, it’s the decision maker who is the last person to realize it’s time. Peers know it, and the jobholder knows it (probably expecting it, and sometimes hoping for it). Even when the decision maker gets there, she may tie herself up in knots about if or when.
“Maybe there’s another role” … oh for goodness sake! There isn’t, but the fear of being the bad guy is getting in the way.
Can we do better? Should we do better? If we’re even asking ourselves these questions, we know we can. So do you. You can do better. You should do better.
It’s time to start doing better, today.
