The Ethical Termination: Thoughts for Fair-Minded Leaders

Three Key Takeaways:

1. You owe "fairness" to your team and organization as well as to your underperforming team member.

2. Someone who is not succeeding is probably not happy in their current role and not as fulfilled as they would be in a different role where they could thrive.

3. If you fail to give a person honest, timely feedback on their contributions, that person isn't getting the benefit of your leadership.

In the movie “Moneyball,” Brad Pitt lets go of an employee who is not performing up to expectations. He plays the General Manager of a Major League Baseball team who realizes that his star player’s behavior is thwarting all attempts to change the team’s culture into one that cares more deeply about winning. Pitt’s character has a very cryptic, indelicate communication style. But as the star player wears a face of disbelief, Pitt looks him in the eye and offers this final, unexpected word of encouragement:  “You’re a good ballplayer, Jeremy, and we wish you the best.”

A kind parting word is not the only box to check when it is time to dismiss an underperforming employee. Yet each time I’m coaching a leader who finds themselves fretting over what to do about an employee who is hurting their team, I think back to this movie scene.

Often, hand-wringing over the difficult decision to terminate someone’s employment is about fairness. “I know there’s a lot going on in their personal lives and this will really hurt them!” Or, “I’m not sure I’ve given them the right kind of support.” So, underperformance is tolerated, and others must pick up the slack. In most cases the business suffers, the leader I’m coaching is feeling some heat themselves, and teammates who see substandard performance tolerated at their expense become resentful.

Thinking Through the Fairness Issue

It's right for leaders to want to treat everyone fairly, including underperformers. That’s why I’m sharing my insights on how anyone with the authority to make a termination decision can ensure they are carrying out this decision in the best way. I’m offering an “Ethical Termination Checklist” of concrete steps that can guide us through the process.

But first, let’s talk about the ethical mindset of a Leader/manager who is faced with a team member who is consistently missing the mark. Considering these five “mindset tips” can help you to make peace with taking an action that may seem harsh on the surface.

MINDSET TIP #1: ACTIVELY SUPERVISE AND DELIVER EARLY FEEDBACK. If you fail to give someone honest, timely feedback on their contributions in terms of output, quality and fit with the organizational culture, your team members aren’t getting the benefit of your leadership. They’re more likely to drift further and further into underperformance or to deviate further from team norms. Develop the habit of asking people why standards haven’t been met the first time you notice the problem, however small. This doesn’t involve confrontation; instead use “managerial curiosity” by asking open-ended questions (e.g., “Hey I noticed you got the weekly report to me at 9:30 this morning instead of 5 pm last night when it was due – I’m curious what issues you ran into”) and be open to hearing your team member’s perspective – you may learn something valuable that helps you both work together to solve a bigger problem (e.g., “The system's been going down in the afternoons and I couldn’t get the numbers from the database ‘til this morning).

MINDSET TIP #2: CHRONIC UNDERPERFORMERS AREN’T HAPPY AND AREN’T DEVELOPING.  Someone who is generally not succeeding is probably not happy in their current role – certainly not as fulfilled as they would be in a role where they could thrive. People want to be recognized and feel good about their contributions. If they’ve been struggling, they’re unhappy and stressed at work. That can impact their life outside of work. Helping them to continue in that kind of situation by tolerating substandard performance does them no favors.

MINDSET TIP #3: BE FAIR TO EVERYONE. You owe “fairness” to your team and organization as well as to your underperforming team member. As a Leader/manager, you’ve been entrusted with some aspect of success that encompasses the well-being of more than one person. By enabling someone’s ability to continue underachieving or to act in ways that are detrimental to team cohesiveness, you’re being unfair to your organization and to other individuals whose success, morale, and work/life balance are negatively affected by having to work longer or harder to compensate.

MINDSET TIP #4: ONCE INFORMED, IT’S THE TEAM MEMBER’S CHOICE. It’s natural for us to recoil from starting a conversation about something as unpleasant as the prospect of job loss. But fairness demands that a chronic underperformer know that termination is possible if they continue to fail to meet the required standard. This gives them the chance to evaluate whether keeping their current position is important enough for them to make the necessary changes. Another way to state it: If it’s for performance issues, termination should never catch a person by surprise - and they've had a fair chance to fix it.

MINDSET TIP #5: IT’S NOT PERSONAL – SO DON’T LET IT BE. Your primary role as a Leader/manager is not to be friends – or enemies -  with your team members. Set a boundary between personal friendship and healthy professional camaraderie with team members. Though trust is foundational to both, the trust between personal friends is different from a professional trust that is grounded in a shared commitment to the vision, mission and goals of the organization. Loyalty to team members who’ve earned your trust is a natural and healthy inclination, but personal loyalty toward anyone who reports to you must take a back seat to your loyalty to your entire team’s health and success. Boundary-setting will make it easier for you to avoid messy personal squabbles when you need to hold people accountable.

So… what steps we can take to put these mindsets into practice?

An “Ethical Termination Checklist”

If you’ve done all of the following, you have been fair to your underperforming team member and to everyone else in the organization when it’s time to nudge this person into their next professional chapter. Note that my concept of “ethical terminations” is a process that extends all the way back to when a person is hired and brought on board.

1. Before each person is hired, provide them with job position requirements that are spelled out in writing.

2. Provide early, clear and consistent feedback to inform this person of the changes they must make to correct their underperformance or disruptive behavior.

3. Make it psychologically safe for this person to explain whatever issues they might be experiencing in meeting the performance standard. Invite dialog and listen.

4. Offer training or other appropriate and reasonable supports to reasonably qualified team members who you’ve determined, through conversation and observation, are motivated and capable to meet the standard with some assistance. Give them a chance and negotiate reasonable deadlines to show progress.

5. For repeat issues, follow your organization’s progressive discipline policy. If your organization has no such policy, a quick Web search will yield many examples of progressive disciplinary steps that are designed to ensure that terminations are fair.

6. Respect people by refusing to gossip about their performance issues. Share concerns only directly with the person having the issue, and with officials who may have a need to know (such as Human Resources) per your organization’s policy.

7. When underperformance has become habitual or chronic, make it clear that reassignment or termination could result from continued failure to meet the performance standard.

8. Never criticize the person’s character or personality.

9. When it is clear that there will be a termination:

   1. Don’t communicate the pending termination to others. Never take the chance that the person will find out from someone else.

   2. Ensure that only those persons required to participate by your organization’s official policy participate in the dismissal meeting.

   3. During the meeting, if you can do it sincerely, briefly mention one or two strengths you’ve noted that can help the person envision a “next chapter” they may be more successful with.

   4. Fully explain any assistance that company policy and the law entitles them to, such as severance pay, COBRA, or any other services provided.

   5. Don’t enter into an argument or prolonged discussion. You’ve made your decision after having taken all of the steps suggested here. Trust that your action is best for all concerned.

      
      

Nip the Need to Terminate in the Bud

I often see this principle ignored: Hire carefully! Reduce the need for the unpleasant task of letting people go by hiring only the people who seem most qualified and motivated to succeed. Be completely transparent about what the position entails. Don’t take chances on people who are a questionable match.

“Moneyball” showed how Brad Pitt’s character carefully evaluated players when considering trades to remake a team roster in the face of budget pressure. As a result, a team that had been mired in a horrible slump and had no money to pay “great” players, went on a breathtaking tear and won their division. My hope is that with wise hiring and ethical terminations, you’ll maintain a quality roster that will put your team on top as well.