Knowing Who, When, and How to Fire

In The Trenches

Unfortunate at this reality may be, I would argue that firing (specifically knowing who, when, and how to fire) is a required core competency for any CEO, and is arguably as important as hiring, communication, capital allocation, and other tools within the CEO’s toolkit. The extent to which this is an unpleasant (and perhaps even unpopular) topic to discuss doesn’t negate its critical importance in building and sustaining a healthy and vibrant company. Some may associate the idea of firing with toxic, authoritarian, or fear-based work cultures. While firing can lead to these types of outcomes if done in an arbitrary, thoughtless, or fear-inducing way, if and when done correctly, it can actually become one of the CEO’s primary tools in building a healthy, inclusive, fair and meritocratic culture. It’s important for me to note that this isn’t because firing itself is value-creating. It clearly isn’t. Being flippant or cavalier with the professional lives of your employees represents the surest path to destroying your company. Instead, one of the primary reasons why firing is so (unfortunately) important is because of how difficult, error-prone, and subjective most hiring processes are.