A question that inevitably comes up with everyone I work with is, “when do I let so-and-so go?“
This is never an easy decision.
As the business owner you feel responsible for your people.
You feel bad for putting someone in a tough spot if they don’t fit on your team.
You wonder if it’s your fault they’re not succeeding.
You wonder if maybe they have it in them and if you just wait a little longer things will change.
You’re empathetic to whatever situation they may have going on personally that’s leading to their suboptimal performance.
You’re also not super excited about the idea of a) actually having to tell them they’re fired… b) replacing them… and c) training their replacement.
And after all, sometimes people do just have a bad week, month, quarter… right?
I get it.
But managing team performance is a critical skill for a business owner.
Recently M reached out to me with the question, how do you know when it’s time to let someone go?
This was their context:
- Employee type: contractor
- Time on team: 6 months
- Role: video editor
- Responsibility: edit long and short-form videos for social media
- Qualifications: strong portfolio + recommended by trusted peer
- Quality of work: hit or miss, needs a lot of back and forth
M felt that her hire was 33% where she needed to be, and recognized that in the past she was was slow to fire. She wondered how much she should reasonably invest in training this person before giving up.
This was my reply:
Before letting her go, I’d have a conversation with this agenda:
- What I’m seeing from your work is (give 3 examples of the behavior you want to improve)
- What I’d like to see is (explain the outcome you’d like to see)
- Open the floor to discussion: Where do you think the gap is? What would be helpful for you to get there? Where do you feel you need more help? Be curious and detective-like until you really get to know the core issue.
- Set a timeframe for by when, with this new agreed upon support the contractor will be able to do what you want (2 weeks or so)
- Book that call to revisit progress (and if there’s no improvement I’d let them go at that point)
^ I’ll normally have that conversation with a new hire/contractor as soon as I have 3 examples of an “undesirable behavior”. Often I explain it, we work on it and it’s just a collaborative teaching process, but when progress isn’t made it’s a red flag.
Sometimes bad performance comes down to not enough clarity or the contractor just not totally seeing what you value in the outcome. If it’s already within their skillset to get there, the change should happen right away.
If there’s a big skill gap, I wouldn’t invest in teaching from scratch unless I felt the person could grow into someone who really adds a lot of value and is a great fit long-term.
If their upper potential is just doing this job, I’d probably start looking to replace them now so if you do decide to let them go in 2 weeks, you have options.
Also, keep in mind your time is really valuable, there are areas in your business where it will be more or less impactful for you to invest in. So even if there’s “more you could do” your #1 commitment is to your business, no individual person on your team.
As long as an individual is an asset in the business, they “belong”. But if they’re not, the best thing you can do is let them move on and find the person who will really be an asset. I know this might sound cold, but the best people on your team will be happier on a team of superstars than working with a couple B and C players.
10 days later, M came back to me with this update,
Happy to report that [they] delivered a loads better output after our meeting, and did so in less than a week. I’m hoping [they] can continue to operate at that level and not regress 🙂 Thank you so much for your help with this!
So in this case, it was within the team member’s ability to deliver. The gap was either in clarity or accountability.
If it was clarity, she should continue to perform well.
If it was accountability, she may eventually regress.
The job is never done. Especially as a team gets bigger, there will always be at least one member performing in a suboptimal way.
The key to a high-performing, healthy, happy team, is to catch it early and nip it in the bud.
And to do so confidently.
If this is something you’d like some help with, I’m here for you.
Joey