Leadership: Firing Employees with Integrity

How did you look to structure those conversations?

Normally, I would start, pretty much at the beginning, with the message. What is extremely important is that you don’t focus on what you want to say, but that you focus on what you want that other person to understand. It’s important that the other person, 100%, comprehends the message. The message is, look, nothing personal against you, you have done a good job in this company, but your career, in this company, right now, comes to an end. The reason for that is such and such. But very often, they don’t want to have the reasoning. Sometimes, they do want to have the reasons; sometimes they are really reflecting on, okay, have I done something wrong or, why don’t I fit into this? But very often, at that moment, people are emotionally, so touched, that they won’t listen to your reasons, anyway.

So it doesn’t make sense to start a conversation like that, which is really, very personal, giving lots of explanations to what is happening and blah, blah, blah. That is not the message. The message is, you as a CEO, decided that from here on, that particular person is not part of that, anymore. As hard as it is, this kind of very clear message is what made all these people still communicate with me today. They said that there was no blah, blah, blah. You came out, you said, look, sorry, but it’s over. We always did it in a way that these people would not fall into a black hole of everything collapsing around them. We made sure that they could stay on board, for a little while longer, that they got paid a little bit longer than usual. But in the talk itself, come out with the message right away. Don’t waste time. Don’t waste their time or your time. Just come out straight and that will be it.

Do you have an example of really difficult conversation that you’ve had?

Yes, I had a trader, really tough guy. Big mouth; traders have big mouths. He could talk and be really strong and I fired him. I said, sorry, but your career is over. He couldn’t believe it. He looked at me, with these big wide eyes and asked why. I said, let me explain it to you. I explained it to him and suddenly, this big man, broke down in tears. He broke down and started crying like I’ve never seen a man cry before, in my office. At that time, unfortunately, my office had glass panels, all around and I didn’t close the curtains and I couldn’t close the curtains fast enough. In the end, he was really falling on his knees and begged me to keep him in the company which, of course, I didn’t. From that guy, I never expected anything like that. But it taught me, again, that prepare for absolutely everything. Make sure that, next time, it’s in a little more discreet kind of environment. In my new office, I still had glass panels, so that I could look out and see what was going on. But at the push of a button, these glass panels would darken, so nobody would be able to see what was going on inside.

How do you stay rational in those instances? When someone is very emotional, maybe it drives your emotions? How do you remain rational in that decision making?

I’m clear. That they display emotions, is fine. I allowed him to cry and I allowed him to beg. But I always repeated my message and I said, look, this is not going to change. The decision has been made. I made that decision. It’s important that the person can direct his or her anger at me, at that moment. Some would start swearing and it’s unfair, and I would just ignore them. It’s okay, whatever you think, whatever you say, but your career comes to an end. What we need to talk about now is, how do we want to end it. On that topic, you normally get, I would say 99% of all the people I’ve had, at that very moment, you get them back to focus. Once the message is clear, in their head that, despite all the emotions that they display, they are out.

If you are then telling them, look, we have to sit down here now, and decide which way we want to go. We don’t have to nail all the details, but you have to decide, do you want to take a lawyer and fight it? That’s fair enough; you have all the rights to do that. You can question my decision; you can drag me to court. Or do we want to settle it in a way that we sit down with HR, half an hour from now, and then we decide how we’re doing it. Normally, that helps the situation, tremendously, because suddenly, people realize, okay shoot. It is what it is; I’m out. But now, at least, I have to get a settlement or a deal that enables me to survive for the next six months, nine months or three months, or whatever time it may be.