Firing fast is merciful: How to decide if it's time to let someone go

As a leader, one of the hardest things you will ever do is fire someone.

I’ve fired people for staying drunk on the job, logging fake time sheets, missing major deadlines by a month, and for simply being an asshole.

While delivering the news is never easy, the decisions were.

But how do you handle a great cultural fit that is struggling with the workload? 

She’s more junior than you realized. You tell yourself, “Well, her heart is in it, so I’m betting she will catch up.” Or you’ll justify not firing them, saying “The team really likes her, and she’s trying really hard so we’re going to wait.”

Or what about someone who is really talented but doesn’t have the input you expected?

You remember his portfolio and résumé—wow—but so far the work hasn’t lived up to your expectations. Maybe he even has a few cultural quirks that are driving you nuts. 

What about the guy who is insanely talented, puts out great work but is a cultural nightmare?

What someone who is a decent cultural fit, tries hard, puts out decent work but just isn’t the A+ talent his peers expect?

These scenarios are always tough. Unfortunately, I’ve done it time and time again through my tours in ad agencies and startup life. I’ve fired 10 people, many more contractors and have been fired myself.

And let’s be real—getting fired sucks.

And firing people sucks.

I never take the decision to fire someone lightly because I’ve been there.

I’ve made many hard decisions with these guys—Zack and Chris, two of my three cofounders. Through botching this process several times, and having been fired, we’ve come up with a more objective process.

You’re about to change the course of someone’s life—they will forever have a bog they have to cross through on their résumé, tiptoeing around talking about their time at your company. They will lose their livelihood. They will lose the paycheck they use to pay their mortgage, feed their kids, and make the car payment.

It’s critical you find a system to make this process more objective. Without a system in place, emotions will always cloud your judgment and lead to bad decisions. There have been many times I didn’t want to fire someone because I liked them, or because I knew it was going to be hard on them. But it’s critical to remember the consequences of not making the hard decision. 

The truth is, not firing people has consequences, too: 

• Keeping a bad cultural fit will have a negative impact on your team. Toxicity is like a drop of a poison in water—it’s nearly impossible to achieve purity again once you let the poison spill. 

• Keeping someone who just isn’t as talented as your other teammates will eventually wear on your A+ rockstars who are carrying the load. They want to work with other A players. 

• Keeping someone who isn’t trying as hard or isn’t putting out the same volume or quality of work as everyone else will create tension. Your rockstars will leave.

The day the decision to fire someone gets easy will be the day I step down from leadership. 

If it hurts, you are a compassionate leader. The goal of my advice here is not to make firing someone easy, it’s to make it clear that it’s the right thing to do. Having a system in place for evaluation will also put you in a stronger position when letting someone go. Objectivity not only hurts less for the employee, it is critical for the company from a legal perspective.

For startups and small businesses, it is better for everyone—the employee, the remaining team and the company—to make the decision to let someone go if your gut says this isn’t going to work out. In fact, many times my gut has said “this isn’t going to work out” and I’ve tried to force it, tension compounds, things get much worse, and I regret not making a quick, merciful decision earlier.

Every. Single. Time.

Large companies may have the luxury of trying a great cultural fit in another department or role. Small businesses and startups do not have the luxury of capital or time.

Remember, leaders, your job was to hire the right person. If you failed to do that, own it, make the hard decision to let the person move on, and get back to work. It’s far more merciful to let someone out of a poor fitting role than to keep them hanging on to hope. Everyone suffers in that scenario.

How we evaluate team members at GoWild

The founders of GoWild have found four pillars to be critical to being a good fit for the company. They are Culture, Talent, Input and Output. These are easy to grasp, but I’ll give a quick overview of what we mean.

Culture

This is not just “we like him/her.” It’s that they are bought in on our values, our mission, and how we work together. 

Talent

We’ve come to find we’re not a good training ground for junior talent. At this phase in our company, we expect A+ talent from everyone. You will have to decide what’s right for you.

Input 

How hard are they working? This is not how much they are getting done—it’s work ethic. Are they trying?

Output

This is the work completed—do you get tasks done?

When questioning if someone is a great fit for us, they need to score a 4 out of 5 stars at least on each of these categories. That may sound like high expectations—and you’re right. But if you build a company on people who do not live up to your expectations and are only 60% of what you need to get your goals accomplished, you mark your goals 40% off as well.

Ed Catmull, the founder of Pixar, said you can give a great idea to a mediocre team, and they’ll make it mediocre. You can hand a good idea to a great team, and they’ll make it great.

It is helpful to structure your team reviews around these pillars. I strongly recommend doing anonymous 90 day peer reviews for all new team members—it will unveil problems early. The leader can use the peer feedback and their own assessment of these pillars to see if the employee is a fit. 

Input and Output are the two areas you may want to consider giving someone a second chance with. If someone is talented, a cultural fit and trying but not delivering, talk to them. Employees are people—it’s OK to give them a second chance. Tell them this isn’t going well, but you want to give it 30 days to see if it can turn around. Map out the exact expectations and what success will look like. It’s possible they have a lot going on in their personal life, and Output is often the first thing you’ll notice when a teammate has personal issues. It is not weak to be compassionate.

It is weak to compromise your values, though. Culture and Talent are much harder to correct and not areas to lower your standards. Cultural fits will never course correct, and Talent takes more time than most startups have to fix. It is weak minded leadership—or possible ego—to think that you can fix Culture or Talent in a hurry.

How to apply this process

1. Structure your performance metrics around these pillars, including your 1:1s and peer reviews—make it clear to the team member how you’re reviewing their performance.

2. Provide clear feedback to the employee if you’re not achieving Input / Output. Not achieving Culture or Talent fit is not an option. 

3. If the employee is not executing a 4 out of 5 for each pillar, the decision is easy—it’s right for them, and your team. Accept it as your fault for making the wrong hire, learn and move forward.