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September
/ October 2006
Facing
up to firing
NO
ONE GAINS WHEN PEOPLE GIVE LESS THAN THEIR BEST
SOME EMPLOYEE ACTS are so egregious that immediate
response is in order. Your employee handbook enumerates them:
theft, fraud, insubordination, sexual harassment, etc.
Others fail to rise to that level of concern,
yet, like small cancers left untreated, begin to poison the
organization. Those latter acts may be committed by otherwise
likeable employees and, in fact, may be difficult to pinpoint.
(Did Mary really mean to do that?) Yet you know, and the employee
knows, that mischief has taken place.
Worse yet, the entire organization knows and
is watching to see how you deal with the issue. Most employees
want to feel good about themselves, their jobs and their place
of employment. Bad actors disrupt that vibe and cause a sense
of unease. Their peers are hoping that you will take corrective
action and will be in your corner when you do. However, if
the offender gets away with his or her transgression, then
others may begin to root for the offender.
Not all of the following characters appear
in any given workplace, but chances are that any sizeable
organization has at least one or two:
The
Obstructionist. This individual has an endless list
of reasons why something can’t be done; e.g., it’s
been tried before and didn’t work, customers aren’t
ready for this big a change, we don’t have the necessary
resources or time, we lack the information we need, etc. People
who are hostile to new ideas or change often have a high sense
of insecurity about their own abilities and would rather hide
in the status quo than be exposed by taking risks. Of course,
basking in the status quo means eating the dust created by
competitors as they gallop ahead.
The
Pot-Stirrer. Executives who practice “management
by walking around” can readily spot the pot-stirrer.
Typically the offender is sitting in someone else’s
office deep in conversation, which stops the instant the boss
wanders by. Misery loves company, and the pot-stirrer is always
hard at work making sure that others are equally miserable,
if not more so. Had they heard that Carmela is getting the
promotion Peter deserves? Are they aware that government investigators
were in the Legal Department yesterday? What will people do
if the company shrinks the merit-increase pool this year?
Stop the pot-stirrer before he infects the entire team.
The
Procrastinator. Ellen is not an evil person, but
she simply can’t begin any task before the 11th hour
– a practice finely honed at college during her all-night
cram sessions before mid-term exams. Procrastination could
be forgiven if it had not meant the slides for a major sales
presentation contained embarrassing typos (no time left for
proofing) or the deadline for responding to an important RFP
was missed (the customer couldn’t have been serious
about giving us only a week to respond, could he?). Procrastinators
can modify their behavior, but it takes considerable personal
insight as well as will power.
The
Saboteur. These passive-aggressive personalities
are outwardly supportive while inwardly seething with rage.
Afraid to address the source of their anger, they sabotage
the organization instead. For example, having promised to
arrive early for an important client meeting, Charlie shows
up after everyone else is seated in the conference room; surely
it’s not his fault the alarm-clock battery died. Or
Sue, having agreed to meet an out-of-town job candidate at
the airport, calls Sunday morning to say she forgot it’s
her turn to visit Mom at the nursing home. Often, each incident
in isolation has a semi-plausible excuse or explanation. It’s
the pattern of recurrences that lets you know there’s
a problem needing to be fixed.
The
Misfit. Perhaps the most difficult situation, from
a humanitarian standpoint, is the good employee in the wrong
job. Almost everyone knows one or more stories about a star
salesman who, brought in from the field to become a regional
manager, failed miserably. Good sales representatives do not
necessarily make good managers. If the company has an “up
or out” policy, it is destined to ruin at least a few
careers, jettisoning some of the individual contributors who
made it successful. Other times, the nature of an existing
job may change as the corporation tackles new opportunities,
addresses new challenges or attempts to consolidate positions
and responsibilities; the person who was good at the old tasks
lacks the knowledge, desire or capability to perform the new
ones. Sometimes we hire someone hoping that he or she will
“grow into” the job despite evident shortcomings.
When a bad fit becomes evident, the first step toward any
meaningful solution is for both manager and employee to agree
that the bad fit exists.
Can
this marriage be saved?
LET’S FACE IT: managers spend more waking
hours with their employees than they do with their own spouses.
At work, as in marriage, one comes to see one’s compatriots
warts and all, and there is a natural inclination to overlook,
or at least rationalize, those warts. (“Oscar has caused
six secretaries to quit, but he’s the sharpest mind
we’ve got.”) But while preserving the marriage
– or at least the institution of marriage, since so
many couples get divorced – helps preserve the species,
one can debate whether the same principle holds true at work.
Whether due to human decency, legal principles or the agonies
of hiring, most employers tend to forgive the first one, two,
five or ten transgressions and offer offending employees a
second, third or twentieth chance. Yet, when employees give
less than their best – or, in fact, go out of their
way to give their worst – they are harming the very
institution that feeds them (and quite possibly their families).
Problem performers rarely get better over time and are far
more likely to get worse.
Few hiring managers wish to cast anyone out
on the street, and indeed there are sound ethical and legal
reasons for avoiding over-reaction to minor infractions and
isolated examples of poor performance. On the other hand,
managers need to face up to firing when the problem can’t
be fixed.
As in dealing with any other kind of employee
problem, such as alcoholism or drug use, avoid diagnoses and
stick to the end result. (“The misspellings and grammatical
errors on the PowerPoint presentation this morning were unacceptable.”)
Obtain the employee’s agreement to correct
the problem, warn that repeated infractions will result in
discipline or dismissal, and document the conversation. (This
also is a great time to review the employee handbook in some
detail, consult with your HR professional and if necessary
seek counsel from an employment lawyer.) In the case of the
employee who is simply a bad fit, investigate the possibility
of an alternative job assignment.
If the obstructionist keeps obstructing, the
procrastinator keeps procrastinating, the saboteur keeps sabotaging,
and so on, take the action you promised to take. (Nothing
weakens authority as much as an idle threat.) Do so, nevertheless,
on timing that makes sense for you. If Alice is clearly headed
out the door, take the time first to have a trusted search
professional begin looking for her replacement.
Firing takes courage, and it is even harder
to do in a smaller organization where relationships may be
more personal and responsibilities less redundant. Planning
and preparation, however, can make the day of reckoning less
painful and can help ensure a more seamless transition.
Last but not least, when the day of reckoning
does occur, rarely is the offending employee surprised.
–
George Snider
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