Hi Reader,

Firing someone on your team sucks.

You've invested in hiring them... you've taken the time to onboard and set them up... you've restructured work and the rest of the team to include them...

Now you're thinking:

It's both painful and wildly inconvenient to fire someone.

That's why so many of us don't do it when we should.

The first time I had to fire someone I waited almost 3 months longer than I should have. And if I'm really honest, I only pulled the trigger because the disruption to the rest of my team (because of my unwillingness to pull the proverbial trigger) became too obvious to ignore.

And therein lies the rub.

NOT letting someone go when it's the right call is actually more harmful to your organization's stability and growth in the long run than all of the pain and disruption in the short term.

A lot of my coaching and support for the leaders that I work with is about this:

How to know when it's time to let someone go... What to say... Even how to avoid it if possible.

So this week I thought I'd spread the love by sharing some articles and resources about the whether and the how of firing.

3 Articles

• ​Deciding whether to fire an employee is hard. The decision is especially tricky if the person hasn’t violated any rules and isn’t egregiously underperforming—but is clearly falling short.
• ​What to do with C players on your team? Most managers find it easy to devote their attention to their highest performers, but they also need to pay attention to their C players — those who are underperforming due to a lack of motivation or a mismatch between their skills and their responsibilities. Is the right response to manage them out of the organization?
• ​Firing is often the most painful thing we need to do as a leader. But maybe you need to do it more often? Make sure you’re not keeping too many mediocre-to-poor employees who are holding back the organization and undermining overall performance.

2 Resources

• ​The right way to fire someone: A checklist. When you've put it off as long as possible and it's time to actually have the dreaded conversation... How do you actually do it? Here are some concrete strategies.
• Sometimes a problem with an employee reflects a deeper lack of support for that person... something that can be fixed before landing on termination. Here are 15 strategies to try before terminating someone!

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