Hiring and Firing - When to Let People Go

by Geoff Smart

Keeping “C” players on your team isn’t fair to the top performers.

Having an “A Team” is not just about hiring stars. It is also about doing the toughest things inbusiness: removing people. “It is not disloyal to remove somebody who is not performing intheir job”, Jamie Dimon, CEO of Bank One was once overheard telling a gathering at theExecutives Club of Chicago. “It is disloyal to everybody else in the company not to do so”.

In an ideal world, you would not have to fire anybody. But, if you are a business owner, investoror manager, you will inevitably find that there are people working for you who should not be intheir jobs. We call these underperformers, “C Players”.When someone is not meeting your standards, you owe it to him – as well as your customers,employees, shareholders and yourself – to correct the situation. Star leaders do not leave Cplayers in place. They evaluate their team, remove non performers and hire “A players”.

The best alternative to firing a C Player is to communicate clear goals and expectations, coachhim on how to succeed and measure his performance. Have the tough talk early. Tell him, “Youare not meeting the minimum expectations for the role. Let’s see what we can do to improveyour results over the next two months. I am here to help you. But if you are not making it at theend of two months, you will have to go.” Then have progress checks every two weeks, orallyand in writing. After eight weeks of knowing that they are underperforming, many C Playerswill gracefully leave on their own. Otherwise, you might redeploy a C Player into a role in whichshe will be successful. That could mean narrowing or changing her responsibilities. But makesure she can really be an A Player in the new role. If after two months a C Player has not left onhis own, terminate him. Get your documentation together. Have the final talk. Five him someseverance money, and off he goes to find a more appropriate role for his talents.

Morale does not go down when you remove a C Player. It goes up. In fact, you might besurprised to find the remaining employees actually praising you for removing a person who mayhave been disrespectful toward others, disorganized, undependable, damaging the customersatisfaction or a culprit of some other behaviour that undermines the value of your company.

Ninety percent of managers wait too long to fire people. They therefore do not make space to hire great people.

Resources