Selfishly, I’m going to talk about what it’s like to be the
employer in that situation.
There are countless reasons that terminations take place and
many different ways those situations unfold. A former leader once told me “Once
a person gets used to firing people they shouldn’t be the one doing it anymore.”
I remind myself of that every time I let someone go. Although I can carry out a
termination pretty handily after doing them for nearly 10 years I’m still very
deeply and profoundly rattled each time.
Because of the gravity of the situation, I do my best to
carry out each and every termination coolly, calmly and with respect. I remind
myself that this is a person, and people have families, bills, mortgages, self-respect
and feelings. No matter what the reason for the dismissal I do my best to let
the person leave the meeting with dignity. With the present bit of writing as
the exception, I never even use the word “fired”.
As far as gaining experience goes, I’ve been “fortunate” to
have been in all kinds of termination scenarios. Flown in to dismiss
executives, having an armed guard in the room because of a possibility of
extreme aggression, long term employees, short term employees, firings, layoffs
– you name it. Probably a few hundred by now.
I’m surprised at how often someone who is being terminated it
totally caught off guard. Regardless of how many warnings they receive more
often than not they simply can’t believe they’re being let go. I suppose it’s
quite a shock. We all love control I guess and being terminated is an extreme
example of having all control of a situation being taken away from you.
Maybe this is a perverse thing to ask, but if anyone out there has a termination story I’d love to hear it.
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