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I was The Terminator

By |  March 11, 2020 0 Comments
Carlos Arraya

Carlos Arraya

A mentor blatantly lied to me, and it took years of experience to learn the truth. It didn’t feel like a lie back then, but I believed him when he told me that terminating employees would get easier the more I did it.

“The more you fire folks, the easier it gets,” he said. My friends, colleagues and aspiring young leaders, listen up. It doesn’t get easier. The more terminations you conduct, the harder it becomes. Even when an employee’s conduct is egregious and immediate termination is warranted, it’s still difficult.

Why is a well-deserved termination still so difficult? You are altering life paths. They won’t have income until they can gather themselves, while their bills and expenses pile up. Terminated employees have families or loved ones who depend on them for financial stability. These realities keep you awake prior to and after the termination. After terminations, several professionals I currently mentor have mentioned experiencing the seven stages of grief: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, testing and acceptance.

Terminations being difficult doesn’t devalue the importance of making a change, and you shouldn’t delay them for no good reason. I was so uncomfortable terminating employees early in my career that I developed my own coping mechanisms. Essentially, I became like an actor getting through a movie scene, becoming stoic and hard-nosed. Unknowingly, I had started behaving strangely and even wore specific clothes to conduct terminations. I was known as The Terminator. But I wasn’t proud of the title.

As I moved through this process, I altered my approach. There are many lessons, but the takeaway is that terminating an employee can be a learning experience for both parties.

To make terminations educational, develop a standardized procedure to collect key performance indicators on team members. Make development plans part of any process so team members can access and receive feedback to improve. Establishing development plans and having performance review evaluators provide the reference point for difficult conversations that could lie ahead.

Preparation prior to a performance issue is vital to employee education if a termination becomes necessary. However, terminations because of poor conduct, harassment or contributing to a negative work environment can be tricky. Clear and detailed communication about what is permissible in the team’s operation — and frequent ethics training — will provide managers with documentation to conduct a termination brought on by a behavioral violation. Documentation makes executable the difficult process of terminating a high-performing employee.

Prior to a recent termination, I had to channel anger I felt over having to fire a productive staff member, and despite firing dozens of employees over the years, I even was a bit anxious. Fortunately, rather than letting out that anger, I used the opportunity to teach and learn.

I shared with the employee that because of his behavioral issues, several of his developmental goals were not being met. I hoped to discourage the employee from repeating similar behavioral and performance shortfalls at his next stop. The information made the conversation flow better than anticipated. A lightbulb went off, and it was evident that we need post-employment development in our operating procedures.

I’m confident that every employee who has worked with or for me will say that I remain a disciplinarian, hold everyone equally accountable, have an insatiable appetite to improve myself and others and am still a Terminator. However, terminating is becoming harder and harder for me. I terminate to teach, learn and ensure everyone affected is fully capable of moving forward through the process.

Whenever the need arises to make difficult staff changes at your operation, take the opportunity to teach, learn, evolve. You want to be known as “The Educator,” not “The Terminator.”

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