The longest minute in a leader's career

A company is a flock that needs wings to fly. Those wings fall on the shoulders of each and every team member. If a wing is broken, the team tries hard to fix it. Once in a while though a wing is broken beyond repair and a leader is left with two choices; cut the wing off, or let it slowly alter the course of the flock. If enough broken wings are left in place, the flock will break formation and collapse.

The hardest minute in a leader’s day is when she must face that choice.

Most thought leaders on the subject say hire slow, fire fast.

Sound advice in theory, very difficult to execute when heart and emotion conflict with reason.

What if:

• You love that person?
• What if everyone loves that person and you face a mini-revolt when the news is announced?
• You’ve invested years into them?
• You replace them with someone worse?
• You can’t afford to affect the current workload?

All the above make the firing decision the hardest minute in a leader’s day.

At TINYpulse, we measure team members on fit and performance. We have a two month evaluation to make sure the hire we made is the right one. In that evaluation, team members weigh in on the same criteria we interviewed on (1/3 Culture, 1/3 Field Expertise, 1/3rd Problem solving ability). It’s metrics driven. 7 or above is a FTE recommendation, under 7 is not. We also ask team members the blunt question, would you re-hire this person again.

From there leadership gets together and validates the scores and either extends a full time offer, extends evaluation period 2 more months, or parts ways with the team members.

If we part ways, we meet with that person to break the news. Due to ISO compliance and security around customer data, the separation is usually immediate.

For longer standing team members, if we do part ways, we follow a process as well. Each team member has goals we track in our Perform app. If someone is consistently below for multiple months and is causing stress on the team to deliver their results, we put them on a PIP (performance improvement plan) with a new evaluation scheduled one month later. If they are able to achieve the goals in the PIP, they are back to “FTE” status. If not, we have to let them go. We have had 3 people on PIPs to-date. Two made it through, one did not make the cut

I have had to let people go 4 times now in the last 19 months. Once was to one of the sweetest people I know. Seeing them cry broke my heart. Another person asked me multiple times for one more chance. My belief in our process and the decision we made drove me to look them in the eye and say I’m sorry, I can’t do that while in the back of my mind I was doubting the shit out of my decision.

At each of those moments, for a period of time I hated myself because I knew I failed.

I failed in the hiring

I failed in the mentoring.

I failed putting them in the right role.

I failed giving them guidance to move forward on their career path.

I failed because I hurt someone, affected their family and compromised their livelihood.

Until you have to do it, it’s hard to comprehend how hard that moment is.

While this process is straight forward, due to privacy reasons we don’t share scores back to everyone, nor do we let people know when others are on a PIP. Because of this, letting someone go is just the beginning of the pain a leader must face. That pain amplifies when she has to look the rest of the team in the eye and tell them that someone we once considered family is no longer with us and that she fully supports the decision.

And…. she can’t say much more about it.

And… that we need to heal fast and continue driving towards our mission with our heads up electing and spreading positivity.

How does a leader stay positive when she has to deliver that message?

How does a team member trust you if they disagree with this decision?

I really don’t freaking know.

Someone told me recently for 1 “negative” thing you do, it takes 7 to set you back to even in the eyes of your team.

How does this work though when most of the things we do as leaders go unseen by team members?

Not many people on my team know how many times I’ve had the product team’s back. Stood in front of clients and accepted responsibility for things we messed up. Or talked to the CEO and the board about how amazing the team is.

I guess at the end of the day, as a leader, all you can do is all you can do. And if your heart and soul is in what you do, all you can do is enough.

And… if you work tirelessly, communicate transparently, violently defend the culture and are continuously trying to improve the performance of yourself and your team, you have to believe that over time that same team will trust you to make the hard decisions, even when they can’t quite understand how you arrived at them.

You have to endure that painful moment and come out on the other side believing your team will trust you because you are at the tip of the flock and they need you to fly in the right direction.