Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Albert Wenger: when you have to fire someone, don't dither

This story is from entrepreneur and venture capitalist Albert Wenger's blog Continuations:

Firing is probably the hardest thing to do and I was terrible at it at first as an entrepreneur. I put off firing my first mis-hire (a developer) for weeks while I was looking for ways to fix a situation that couldn’t and shouldn’t have been salvaged. There were (and often are) difficult additional considerations such as the employee’s personal financial situation. In the end once I had done it the impact on team morale and productivity was tremendous and I realized I had dithered. A tough lesson to learn and while firing never got any emotionally easier for me at least I knew not to let it drag.

There are a lot of hiring stories on the site but many fewer firing stories. People have to be fired on occasion and doing it properly is difficult. But, as Albert writes later in his post, "Always keep in mind that much as the firing may be difficult for you, it is more difficult for the person being fired and putting it off or doing it in a disrespectful fashion only makes matters worse." I've been on both sides of the "firing line" and I can tell you that Albert speaks the truth.

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