How to Know If It’s Time to Let Someone Go | Ep 287
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Firing somebody is not punishment. If somebody does something wrong in your company, the immediate thought should not be, oh, I should fire them. Firing somebody should be a strategic move that protects the company, protects the mission, protects values, and protects your high performers from being dragged down by the wrong people.

What's up, guys? Welcome back to Build. And today I want to talk about something that nobody wants to do and nobody wants to talk about, but everybody has to at some point when you run a business, own a business, or work in a business, which is firing people. This is top of mind for me because, you know, unfortunately, I had to go through the process of

relinquishing, you know, two people in the last six weeks from the business for reasons that just sucked. And it sucks. Like, I don't know any other way to say it. Like, the process sucks. The entire thing sucks. Having to tell people sucks. Having to tell the person sucks. It's uncomfortable. I think if you are not a complete apathetic person, it's an emotional process. And I think that most of the time, if you're a manager and you're really good, you actually probably avoid it for a

as I was going through this process with my team, I realized that for me, it's really easy to make these decisions. And the reason it's easy is because I've done it so many times. I remember the first time I ever had to let go of anybody. Guys, Alex and I started our first business, Gym Launch, and we were living out of motels. In fact, we were at the extended stay in, I want to say it was like Phoenix, Arizona.

And one of our sales reps that was at a gym in, I think, I want to say it was Florida. It was like middle of nowhere, Florida. He was just tanking. And with all the coaching and with all the mentoring, with all the feedback and all the call reviews, he still, he just wasn't picking it up. And the client was getting really pissed off. They're like, you told me that I was going to hit these metrics. This is what I was promised. And I'm not getting what I paid for. And I was like, yeah, I fucking understand that. And so I bought two tickets for us to fly out to go essentially turn it around and I

As I'm doing that, I'm talking to Alex about it. And we're both like, well, shit, like we give him the feedback. We've coached him. He's at the same training as everybody else. And like, he's not able to hit these numbers. Like, crap, do we need to let him go? It's like, well, yeah, like we can't, we can't, if we've done everything we can, right. And this person is not performing, then I think we have to let him go. And that was the first time I had to let anybody go.

And I remember I went into the car. It was my old beat-up Prius that I got in like, I don't know, I was like 18 in college. My dad gave me his old one. And I went into it and...

I called the guy, I'm shaking. Like I am sitting in the front seat, I'm wearing my feet up on the steering wheel and I'm quivering and I say the words and he's devastated. He's upset, he's angry. He'd actually been somebody I'd been friends with. And so it just felt so awful. And the moment I got off the phone, even though I did it in the kindest way possible, the moment I got off the phone, I just remember it was just like a release for my body. I just started bawling.

And I think the reason was because I had this deep-seated belief that if I fired somebody, it made me a bad person. If I fired somebody, it's because I'm a bad boss and I have failed. And this was, you know, 11 years ago at this point. But, you know, what's funny is I've had to go through this so many times. I've had to let go of so many people in my career. Anybody does. Like, it doesn't... Good bosses...

And being a good boss is not equated with firing less people. I just want to break that for you guys right now. But for me, what I realized, like, I've never not been upset after letting somebody go unless they've like completely fucked me over and completely screwed my company or completely screwed somebody on the team, which, you know, those are a few situations because I don't really hire a lot of people that are that poor of a fit.

Most of the time it feels awful. I hate it after I'll dream about it. I'll think about it. I go to bed thinking about it. I roll around at night thinking about it. I wake up thinking about it. It just feels terrible. And it's gotten better over time. But I will say that because I've gotten better at hiring people, it gets harder over time as well. Because when I do have to let somebody go, it's usually somebody that I'm close with. And I'm really close with most people that work on my team. So

That being said, doing it doesn't get easier, but deciding that I need to do it has gotten tremendously easier for me. I know the moment that I need to most of the time now.

And I think what's taken me a while to realize is that the only thing worse than firing someone is keeping them out of guilt. Because when you keep somebody out of guilt, you let the rest of the team pay the price for your fear, your avoidance, your frustration, your anxiety that you're trying to avoid.

And so I actually wrote down, I made this template for my team because I realized that a lot of them were struggling to decide, like, should I let this person go or not? Am I making the right call? And I was like, oh, well, let me get my mental framework out of my mind because making the decision has become easy for me. Doing it, having the conversation, I don't know if that'll ever be easy for me. And I think that's partially something I don't really ever want to be easy, but...

deciding can be. So the first thing I want to explain to you guys before we go into this framework is firing is a skill.

It's not a failure. It's not a failure on your part. A lot of people think that firing someone means that they failed. They didn't try hard enough. They need to fix the person. But that is not how it works. I need you to take that out of your brain and forget it forever. Great leaders do not fire recklessly, but they also don't drag it out. And so the way you need to think about it is like this. One, firing somebody is not punishment. You're not punishing somebody. If somebody does something wrong in your company, you don't like if

If somebody does something wrong, the immediate thought should not be, oh, I should fire them. Firing somebody should be a strategic move that protects the company, protects the mission, protects values, and protects your high performers from being dragged down by the wrong people. So if you let somebody who's the wrong person stay in, you are passively making a decision that actively hurts everybody else in the business.

The fact that you're going to hire people who aren't going to work out, who are going to need to be fired, has nothing to do with your skill as a leader.

The only difference, in my opinion, between a good leader and a bad leader in terms of firing people are these couple things. One, bad leaders, when they don't fire people, they make passive-aggressive comments. They put the person down. They make them feel like crap. They insult them. So they keep them in the company, but they make them feel terrible. They essentially bully them all day. Good leaders, when they keep somebody in the company, they treat them the same.

Right? And so then that person doesn't know that there's anything at risk, that there's a possibility they're going to get fired. Now, when a good leader decides to fire somebody, they put a lot of thought into it. They take a lot of time to think it through. They make sure that it's going to have the minimal impact on the team. They think about the messaging. Bad leader, they don't think it through. Usually it's an emotionally made decision and it happens out of nowhere. Usually they do it when it feels best for them and not for other people.

And so you see, neither one avoids firing people. It's just that how they do it and how they come to the decision and then how they follow through look different. So how do you know when you need to let somebody go? Okay. There's really four things and I call it the fire framework. Okay. And yes, I made it say that because it's easy to remember. Okay. First is they fail to perform.

Okay, so say somebody's constantly missing targets. Even with coaching, the same coaching you're giving everybody else, they're getting the same amount of hand-holding, coaching, feedback, et cetera, that the whole rest of the team gets, but they're still not able to perform. Tells you something, right? And so the key here is that if somebody cannot perform with the same training and feedback you give everybody else who is performing, it is them, not you.

Now, this probably means that they don't have the base level of skill needed to do the role. Nonetheless, they're failing to perform, right? Now, let's say on the other side, you know, maybe they just, I don't know, aren't invested, aren't putting the work in on their own side, all those things, but either way, failed to perform. The second reason that you would fire somebody is they ignore the values.

Okay, firing somebody is seldom, for me at least, about results. Like there's so few times in my business where I bring somebody in, they can't deliver results. Most of the times it's that they do not fit the culture. They are not...

adhering to the values that we have. So if somebody gossips, if they disrespect other people, if they're constantly bringing drama, right, then they don't belong in the company. It does not matter how skilled they are. You cannot do that. You can't keep that because other people see that person in the company and say, oh, well, if they're here, then I guess that's accepted in this company. So

So I will tell you that in the last six months, I would say 90% of the people that have been terminated from my company were terminated for values reasons, not for performance reasons. I will say that's probably also the culture that we have. We attract typically high performers, but sometimes people come in and

You know, they were able to fool me through the interview or fool somebody else. And then they come in and it's like, you know, maybe they're bullying people or maybe they're gossiping or maybe they're not keeping confidentiality, whatever it might be. Right. They're ignoring the values of the company. Now, I will say that the first one is the one that people have an easier time letting people go for is when they fail to perform. The second one, though, I would argue is much more important.

If you ignore the values by not firing the person who ignores the values, then fire yourself. That's how I think about it. It's like, if you don't fire people because they don't uphold the values, then you should be fired, which I say to myself. So I'm just saying it in that way. Now, okay, there's performance and there's values misalignment. Now, what's the third piece? The third piece is something that rejects feedback.

Okay, maybe you've had multiple conversations with this person. You've been clear. You've given them feedback about maybe it's performance, maybe it's values, and they just...

They just don't do anything about it, right? And they might say they get it, but then they do nothing. And then you come, you know, I have people come to me, they're like, I gave them feedback and they're not doing it. They're like, right, that's called choice. And that's called autonomy, which means they're just saying words at your face to get you to stop talking to them. And then they just go back to doing what they were doing because they don't believe there will be consequences or they're not worried about the consequences. Maybe they don't need the job. Maybe they don't care. Maybe they're fine if they get fired. I mean, there's just people that are like that.

And so if somebody rejects feedback, I would say just in general, those are not fun people to have on a team. So people who can't take feedback, they cannot embrace feedback, they don't level up, they don't continue to grow their skill set. It's very difficult to keep that person on team. And I want you guys to remember, it's not that they're confused most of the time, it's that they're making a conscious choice. Now, the fourth one is E, which is exhibits apathy. The

This one is insidious because a lot of people don't think about this as a reason to fire somebody. But I actually think it's one of the number one reasons you should let somebody go. I had somebody in my last company that was like this. They were amazing in the role. They were on the finance team and they were so good at everything they did, but they didn't give a flying fuck.

about the customers, about the company, about the team. They didn't care. You know, over time, I remember talking to their boss and I said like, hey, like Homeboy doesn't give a fuck about the company. Like, I really think we should find somebody who does. And they're like, no, I think it's fine. But well, come to find out they've been seeding all of this negativity into the team the entire time that they were there.

And it wasn't negativity that was the type where they're ignoring the values. It's the kind of negativity of like, oh, we don't need this job. Oh, we can get something better. Oh, my husband or my wife pays for everything. Oh, my. It's just like very apathetic, better than thou type mentality. So here's how I think about it. If someone hits two things.

or more of these consistently, you probably already know what you need to do. So I give you permission to use this framework so you can determine when do I know that I need to let somebody go. If they fail to perform, if they ignore the values, if they reject feedback, if they exhibit apathy.

Any one of those paired together means that it's time for that person to go. So if I were to look at, for example, somebody who I recently had to let go of in the company, I would say that it was ignoring values mixed with a little bit of failed to perform.

Now, I will say that though this framework is helpful, I also want to say that there are some people, there are some people who don't necessarily fit that framework. And you're going to find it hard to figure out where does this person sit within the organization? Like, what is it about this person? You know, I can't put my finger on it. You know, they're, they're, they are performing. They technically fit the values. They, sometimes you have somebody who is just drunk.

drama. They are drama to the company and it's not about performance. It's about the fact that they're bringing all of this drama into the company in ways that you can't put your finger on. And I hate these ones because it doesn't fit as well within my framework. And so I have another framework I created for that, right? Drama. They disrespect teammates. They relish chaos. They avoid accountability. They make everything personal and they act like a victim.

Typically, this falls with they reject feedback. Typically, somebody who acts that way is not coachable. They degrade culture. They degrade the vibe on the team. And it's your job to make sure that they are not on the team.

I would say that the reason that one's hard is because I have just found that a lot of the times the person who does that is also the high performer. It's like they think because they're such a high performer, because they're so good, because they're performing at such a high level, they have somehow bought themselves enough goodwill in the company to disrespect people, to avoid accountability, to act like a victim, to complain, to do all these other things.

And these are the most important people to get out of your company because here's why. If you don't get them out, then it signals to everybody else in the company that that's okay. And if you don't get them out, it's like they get their branches into the company. It's like you have the roots and then they branch out. And it's like you don't even know where they're going to go, but they start poisoning the minds of everybody else. And because they're a high performer, people actually take what they say with a little bit more seriousness.

If somebody is a low performer and they fit that drama framework, typically people are like, dude, get the fuck out of here. Right? Like they're like, do you even contribute to this team? Like you're dragging us down. Like we don't like this. Right? But if somebody is a really high performer and they're in a highly visible role and they act that way, imagine what it says to your team that you keep that person on the team versus imagine what it says to your team when you get that person to fuck off the team.

says like, we take this seriously around here. We protect this team. We protect your best interests. Even if that means that performance will dip because we have to get somebody out who's not the right fit. Now, that being said, these are the two frameworks that I want you to use when you're thinking about if I'm going to let somebody go. All right, we've got fire, fail to perform, ignore values, reject feedback, exhibit apathy. And we've got the drama test, which is disrespect teammates, relish in chaos, avoid accountability, makes everything personal, acts like a victim.

Now, there's one more thing. There's a caveat to all of this. And that is thinking about it like somebody has a cold versus they have cancer. This is a metaphor I like to use when I'm trying to give people a frame to think through when they're trying to figure out if they need to let someone go or not. Some people have a cold.

Like, they're sick, but it can be treated with feedback, with training, and with support, right? And maybe they haven't had a cold for the year prior, but then they get a cold, and they've had a cold for a couple weeks, and you're like, oh, crap. But it's treatable. Some people have cancer. They infect. They're infected. They infect the culture. They thrive on dysfunction. And the only treatment is removal. And the longer you wait, the more damage it does to the entire body.

So the question that you have to think through is once you've identified and run somebody through these frameworks, I want you to ask yourself, does this person have a cold or do they have cancer? Because I have definitely been through times where I've had high performers. I had somebody last year, super high performer for a year and a half, and then hit this weird spot where they started acting completely different, not like themselves for about a month. And then they were able to go back into

after I think they kind of shook it off, they were able to get back to where they had been prior. Now, during that time, could I have fired that person? Of course I could have fired that person. In fact, that person even said to me, you could just fire me. And I was like, no, because I viewed it as a cold, not cancer. I saw that this person could get through this rough patch.

And here's the thing. Things happen. Like people have weird shit in their families happen. People have stuff outside of work happen. People just like, I don't, they have health issues. Like there's so many things that go on in people's lives. You cannot look at it as like one dimension. It could be that they just got broken up with. They're fucking pissed off and sad. Like take all those things into consideration when you're thinking about if they have a cold versus cancer. Now cancer on the other hand, that is one where they probably have had signs of this behavior for a while.

while. It's probably just laid low. Maybe now they're more comfortable, so they're showing it more. But you know deep down, they've always been this way. They're acting in a way that I kind of deep down knew they were like this. That is cancer. So I hope these frameworks are useful for you

I get it. Firing people freaking sucks and it is hard. But remember, leadership is not about avoiding discomfort. It's about choosing what is right every day for the mission, for the vision of the company, for your people, and for the standard that you want to set for everybody as to what's acceptable.

And so if somebody isn't performing, they aren't improving, they're actively hurting your culture, you owe it to the rest of your team to move on, to make the decision. Because you have to choose the whole team over one part. And you don't need to be heartless when you're doing this.

But you do need to be clear with yourself and others. You need to be direct and you need to be fast because slow decisions, they always kill momentum in a company and they also degrade culture over time. So with that being said, I hope you had a great day, week, walk, workout, whatever you were doing. And I will see you on the next one.