squad

Some days it's one hard thing all day long: the long-simmering issue that you've brought to the point that you can effectively deal with it.  In the movies these solutions are easy to put together, and you execute them in a stunning flourish (with panache, even!)  In reality, they take a lot of time.  And they suck.  That is, they SHOULD suck.  Firing someone should suck, even when they are toxic, dangerous to your enterprise, and need to go.  As Henry Cloud notes in "Necessary Endings," it's not easy to...

• Fire an employee who should be fired
• End a relationship which is not going where it should
• Shut down a product line or a business unit
• Get out of social ties and activities whose "season has passed"
• Letting go of a dream that is not going to materialize and moving on
• Admit that something is failing and waving the white flag

Did you ever think about the guys aiming the guns?  The guy standing against the wall...he did something to get there.  It's not an accident that he's got the bricks behind him and the blindfold on.  Don't get me wrong...no doubt he's getting the short end of the stick here, but don't assume the guys with the guns are having a good day.

Today I put someone on "administrative leave."  He will be fired (oops..."terminated") because he's dangerous to our mission, and continues in a bad direction despite multiple attempts to help.  Today sucked...for both of us.  Worse for him, no doubt, but also bad for me.  Some will blame me for doing what they had advocated for.  Doing the right thing requires courage, even when it is the obvious and right thing to do.  "Sure I wanted him to go, but I didn't mean I wanted him FIRED!" they think.  Some live in "imaginary-ville," where people just magically realize that they need to go, and that's just how it works out.  No blood, no fuss, no noise.


Yeah...riiiiiight.

Note to young leaders: when you fire someone, 

you always leave some of your own blood on the floor.