Today I got fired…

A few months ago, I was fired. I thought it would be a good lesson to record what was happening for me emotionally at the time. I had never been fired; conversely, I have fired people in the course of my career. It always bothered me how devastating the firing was to some people. There have been times when I know that the person who was just let-go had just experienced one of the worst events in their life
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Here are my thoughts from that day and some ideas for minimizing the emotional devastation to the human being on the other end of the conversation.

I’m struck by the emotional gymnastics going through my mind, it’s like I just saw something that didn’t make any sense at all, and I’m trying to figure out what went wrong.

I think it took me too long to understand what my client wanted and consequently, they lost confidence in my ability to pull the job off.

What’s interesting about what’s going on with me is I’m replaying over and over the scenario of how it all went down. I had a feeling that they were frustrated with me and while I pride myself on my ability to be real and talk openly about what’s really going on, I didn’t do that.

I continue to look for reasons why they are in the wrong. They weren’t clear enough, they had too complex a task, they didn’t give me enough time to understand their objectives, they are not thinking clearly about how the session could be awesome, they didn’t collaborate with me, they labeled me early on and never gave me a chance to get in sync with them.

When I arrived for a planning meeting, something didn’t feel right. These folks who I know pretty well were not warm, struggled to look me in the eye and did not engage with me in pre-work small talk which has been a ritual in every encounter I’ve had with them.

At this point, we are starting a meeting to continue to get alignment on their objectives. When the meeting started, It was clear that we were not aligned, I was still trying to recap an understanding of what we were going to accomplish (end-goal) and they were frustrated with me. Then the senior person in the room left unannounced, came back three minutes later and after being back for a minute, the two junior players were summoned away for a minute.

In that minute, the senior person looked up at me and said, “This just isn’t going to work”. I was a bit shocked; I could feel my bio-reaction happening, blood rushing to my head… I knew instantly it was over. I began to pack up and head for the door.

Then the senior person tried to have some small talk with me, asking me about where I lived… I was not in the mood for that, in fact although he was not aggressive towards me in any way; I just wanted to punch him in the face.

Instead of that, I wished him and them luck with the meeting and made the obligatory offering of helping them in any way I could to have a successful meeting. He went on to tell me things that I wish he wouldn’t have.

He then started to tell me how worried they all were after the Friday meeting that I wasn’t getting it, they had talked and the leader (owner of the company and a pretty good friend) who was out of town was consulted and he blessed the thing by saying that they should do what they saw fit.

(This makes it sound like it’s me against them. Later, I’m going to resent them for conspiring behind my back and not being up front. What would have been more effective is to hear how I did not met their objectives, not how they got together to talk about me behind my back)

Then he said the money guy wasn’t in yet, but they would get with him and figure out what was fair and pay me for the time invested. (They did pay me what I thought was a fair compensation for the 2 hours of work I had invested so far)

(It’s not everything, but if I walk out of that meeting with a check in hand, the money owed me, I somehow feel more final about it. I think most importantly, I feel like they have been fair and I’m not worried that they might not hold up their end of the bargain)

So back to the gymnastics; I’ve been playing the scenario over again and again, looking for comfort, looking for reasons why they are so wrong and I am so right. I’ve have been misunderstood and taken advantage of. I feel like the guy in A Christmas Story who wants his parents to feel horrible because I was now blind, the result of their washing my mouth out with soap.

In all, I was left feeling unwanted by this group of people and even for as self-aware as I am, it still hurt. I could tell by the way my mind was trying to label them as wrong and me as somehow being misunderstood but right.

So, in most cases, when you are going to terminate someone’s employment, they will be hurt, confused, scared and eventually angry.

Here are a few things you can do to minimize this for them, and as well to minimize the emotional wake this act will have on you, your team, your company…

       Be really thoughtful about who you bring into your organization. Filling open positions with warm bodies is a short term fix with long term implications.

       Be really clear about what you expect. If someone is not performing, figure out what it is that does not meet your expectations and strive to get clarity with them about it.

       Talk with your reports regularly about their performance. If you surprise an employee with a performance based firing, then you have failed as a manager.

       Orchestrate the firing with an eye towards minimizing the time spent on the conversation. The actual firing event should take less than 20 minutes. Here is one approach:

o       Have an advocate for the employee in the room. If you have HR, this is their function. They need to be empathetic and directive. As soon as someone hears the words (we’re terminating your employment) they go directly into survival mode. They won’t hear what you are saying after that.

o       Have the firing manager sit down with them, say the words right away in as caring a way as possible, be firm and unwavering, wish them well and leave the room.

o       Have the advocate be there for support, to tell them about Cobra or unemployment, hand them their last check with all monies owed. And most of all, that they are the person to call if there are questions…

o       Have the HR person or someone else work out the “cleaning out” of their personal property. This should either be done later, when no coworkers are around or done by another manager or coworker.

The advocate should have a goal of staying with the employee until they are escorted of the property, minimizing contact with anyone else and being over and done within 20 minutes.

The intent of this way is to orchestrate the event in a way that minimizes pain for the person being terminated, the person doing the terminating and for their coworkers.

I’m curious to hear how this lands on H.R. professionals