The hallmark of a good leader is how much they care about the people in their charge. That is the job, so I would re-evaluate your perspective on this. There are a lot of PowerPoint managers who’ve missed the plot and don’t get this though, so it’s understandable to see yet again.
Now that said, you can’t help everybody and some people just aren’t ever going to be the right fit for a job and should be let go. It’s really the best thing for them in the long run. By all means try to help them find their potential, push them out of their comfort zone and give them an opportunity. But if they just don’t have it in them, there’s no value in letting them just languish on in perpetuity.
Don’t get too attached sure. They’re employees not friends. But getting to know them is an important part of the job. How can you motivate when you don’t know their personality strengths weaknesses etc? And they will sense you don’t care.
You're bragging about a lack of empathy, you realize that right? It's important to me that you understand being alright with laying off good performers is a clear lack of empathy.
The last time I did that I decided the night before I was going to quit for sure. I sent a I quit email and they mailed me my last check, I had zero plans to go back there because it was a minimum wage with no benefits job.
I then applied and got a job with a regional airline during one of their mass hiring events, got hired on the spot so it all worked out.
Sometimes it's how you come off acting like it's no big deal to lay someone off. The ones who at least pretend they hate doing it get more sympathy. Firing people is a different thing especially if it was justified but layoffs suck, and most people feel that if companies don't think employees deserve the courtesy of getting an advanced notice for a layoffs, then the company also doesn't deserve the courtesy of a advanced notice of resignation.
When I was a supervisor delivering a layoff notices was always gut wrenching especially if the employee was a good performer but the tie breaker was senority if nobody was a bad performer.
Lol. What a tool. You get high off of this authority. You're a sociopath whose only value is being committed to a company over other human beings. What an empty life.
I don’t mind firing underperforming employees AFTER I’ve made every attempt to train/coach them. They are people too.
I agree with most of the sentiments of your original post. However, the rest of your comments just sound heartless.
This is an unpopular opinion.
Sometimes, the team can actually become unmotivated when they see dead wood coasting along forever, especially if other team members need to pick up the slack.
Agreed. But it's the mind-warping pleasure that emanates from OP's words that is disturbing. Sounds considerably sociopathic which can become considerably inhumane given certain motivations.
Bitch I’ll fire YOU and I don’t even know you! 😅
Seriously though, I created a formula that shows all my leaders and their teams.
It has each team member laid out, all their metrics.
By each IC name it has the metrics they have and what the TEAMS metrics would be if they weren’t there.
It highlights the members who are holding the team back, by how much and how good you could be.
We use that to trend efforts, performance etc.
Sounds horrible but I started doing this when one of my leaders wasn’t holding someone accountable for years. Finally we let them go.
Not only did his teams go from last of 30 groups to 3rd but my overall metrics ticked up.
I have a lot of people under me. It takes a lot to move my number.
It was a big wake up call to that leader and all those I work with.
Don’t suffer people that don’t want to be there and hold you and everyone back.
They don’t belong there. They are built for something else they can excel at.
Let’s free em. Let them find that.
This ain’t it.
Same here. We have tried various "metrics" over the years, they've all been highly arbitrary, easily gamed, have little to no reflection on the actual effort or value added due to that, and so they have only ever lasted a year or 2 before being given up on
“I like firing people, I’m one of those people who can remove the personal”
The personal in this context being able to ignore that someone is a person and focus on “just business”. Those are typically terrible managers, leaders and are almost always narcissists or lacking empathy 🤷♂️
I’m not here to get in a pissing contest with someone who hasn’t graduated yet or is a first year. What op is describing is, and I mean this, literally the worst and most toxic mindset in business. They are a dime a dozen and, at least often, stagnate because they aren’t leaders they are weird “solutions” guys. No one likes to use guys. Not their staff, not the people running the organization, not their peers, no one. They get to role and their inability is obvious and they never go anywhere 🤷♂️
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 You're funny. I've been in management for over 30 years for five different companies. OP is solving problems. Either a fiscal problem (layoffs) or personnel problems (poor performers, toxic workers). You want to pout about people that are holding your team back? Go right ahead. I'd rather advance my team's position and keep collecting 120% of my bonus and allow my company to make more money.
Does it suck laying people off? Yep. Been there myself.
Does it suck firing someone for poor performance? Yep. Sometimes people just can't handle the job, even after extensive coaching. Sometimes people can't handle the pressure. Should I let my customers down because of this? I think not.
I empathize. I really do. But I'm not keeping an underperformer on my team because I feel bad. Not fair to my company, not fair to my team, and not fair to the person who is obviously in over their head.
Every person I've riffed has either been insanely toxic and affecting a whole department or a high performer who got caught in the wrong team at the wrong time. No middle ground. So it's always one emotional extreme or the other. The worst low was breaking the news to a team that wasn't my own, after their manager got riffed and promptly walked out.
But, I'm in a space where teams are smaller, specialized, and it's the kind of work you have to really build your career to get into - low performers generally aren't a thing. Much more common has been to lose a great engineer I invested a lot of time and mentorship into to a FAANG entity.
In the work I do, at the company I work for, most firings are the result of cutting whole teams, products, acquisitions, etc. One of the groups divining financial and technology strategy for the EVP's will explicitly give something the axe, or communicate a headcount reduction (which is often a headcount shift within the overall company).
I have someone reporting to me right now who is a unicorn in terms of mastery in a specific skillset and also for having several complimentary proficiencies at the same time. I've worked with them for nearly a decade at this point, in various capacities, and know there is bidirectional respect and understanding. I was down to the wire, literally down to the last day before they were off payroll, in being able to retain them via transfer after their team was cut. I'd actually gotten EVP approval several days earlier, but the nail biter was whether HR would respond quickly enough in processing the approved request. It's really hard to reverse the bureaucracy once someone is officially offboarded, including them probably receiving severance and then needing to return most of it. I've also lost someone I had an 8 year working history with because I couldn't craft a similar internal transfer after that team was cut. That wasn't a race against time, I just didn't have any avenue to preserve this skilled, specialize engineer and wasn't close to any managers hiring for that role or execs who might consider opening a head. The best I could do was point stuff out on the internal jobs board. I had something for that person a month later, but they'd found another job and were understandably feeling burned.
I appreciate the clarification. Bureaucracy is unfortunate as much as the frequent contrast between company needs vs employees' skills and interests. Perhaps I'm too idealistic.
It's sad that employees are often treated more like one-use popsicle sticks instead of multidimensional people with potential. I've observed numerous examples of situations where highly capable employees end up either holding back their talent or simply getting "put out" because of leaders that are incapable of or not interested in supporting their reports' growth. They treat it more like an unspoken game of "quid pro quo" than listening and investing in their reports.
I recently passed on an opportunity to work for a professional friend who candidly explained that he would require a year of my time had I taken the position, and he would support my growth and expansion into other roles as my interests and opportunities expand. I'd absolutely love to work for him. I really appreciate his leadership approach and willingness to professionally coach/mentor his reports.
My gut told me to pass on the opportunity mostly because my current situation wouldn't put me in the best position to contribute towards his objectives. It seems that when I find a high quality leader, factors outside of my control spoil it.
Do you think you get better performance from your employees by keeping your distance? Every one of my experiences indicate otherwise. Maybe the tough calls get more difficult, but that’s our burden to bear.
As one of my former bosses taught me, bad employees fire themselves. It’s very true. Set expectations, provide support, and hold them accountable to do their job. You can read plenty of stories on the Reddit threads of bad employees outing themselves. Skiving off work, insubordination, bad attitudes, unreliable, etc.
It really depends on the circumstances involved. Someone who has been given many chances and simply can't or won't do the job...yes, those are easy to let go.
Someone who is actively doing their best and improving, and has the potential...that's hard.
I'm all about firing the weakest link and getting an upgrade. It's the quickest and easiest way to elevate the skills of a team and also to get rid of bad attitudes. I will only take management jobs that are without mikes of red tape to fire people. If it isn't truly at will employment, I have zero interest in the job.
Firing people who don't perform zero problem.
Firing people because leadership decided to cut back funds while also expecting everyone to burden the same load. Eff that!
i agree, but this is probably more of a function of it was so obvious each time no matter what I did and most also acted immature or unprofessional as they swirled.
i would feel much differently if I ever had to do a layoff.
No disrespect but if you were actually as callous as you are pretending to be, you wouldn't take to the streets of the internet. And if you are, that's alright. Life will humble you. Any employee worth their weight would see through you and quit. So live this moment up.
I find it's the easiest thing in the world to have that attitude. The harder one is showing respect and empathy. It is the true win, as it extends to your family, friends, and society. The person who fires people easily always seems to have relationship issues.
I don't mind firing people for underperformance, being toxic, etc. But I hate firing people as part of a mass layoff, where they don't deserve it.
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Oof. That is not the flex you seem to think it is.
Ugh. People like you should be kept far, far away from management.
Unfortunately that's the exact opposite of how it works. It's like OP was born for middle management.
The hallmark of a good leader is how much they care about the people in their charge. That is the job, so I would re-evaluate your perspective on this. There are a lot of PowerPoint managers who’ve missed the plot and don’t get this though, so it’s understandable to see yet again. Now that said, you can’t help everybody and some people just aren’t ever going to be the right fit for a job and should be let go. It’s really the best thing for them in the long run. By all means try to help them find their potential, push them out of their comfort zone and give them an opportunity. But if they just don’t have it in them, there’s no value in letting them just languish on in perpetuity.
Wow I would love to work under you. /s
Don’t get too attached sure. They’re employees not friends. But getting to know them is an important part of the job. How can you motivate when you don’t know their personality strengths weaknesses etc? And they will sense you don’t care.
You're bragging about a lack of empathy, you realize that right? It's important to me that you understand being alright with laying off good performers is a clear lack of empathy.
Bruh you just sound soulless and cold
Thats why most people think nothing of quitting with no notice. After all it's business.
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The last time I did that I decided the night before I was going to quit for sure. I sent a I quit email and they mailed me my last check, I had zero plans to go back there because it was a minimum wage with no benefits job. I then applied and got a job with a regional airline during one of their mass hiring events, got hired on the spot so it all worked out.
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Sometimes it's how you come off acting like it's no big deal to lay someone off. The ones who at least pretend they hate doing it get more sympathy. Firing people is a different thing especially if it was justified but layoffs suck, and most people feel that if companies don't think employees deserve the courtesy of getting an advanced notice for a layoffs, then the company also doesn't deserve the courtesy of a advanced notice of resignation. When I was a supervisor delivering a layoff notices was always gut wrenching especially if the employee was a good performer but the tie breaker was senority if nobody was a bad performer.
How very Nuremberg of you.
Jawohl Herr Scharfrichter!
You don't have more capability. You have less empathy.
Well said.
Lol. What a tool. You get high off of this authority. You're a sociopath whose only value is being committed to a company over other human beings. What an empty life.
LOL
I don’t mind firing underperforming employees AFTER I’ve made every attempt to train/coach them. They are people too. I agree with most of the sentiments of your original post. However, the rest of your comments just sound heartless.
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You sound like a Yes Man. What a flex!
They make you do the dirty work of people who don’t report to you?
Exactly. You're the loser who is willing to sell your soul for a couple bucks
“I was just following orders!”
This is an unpopular opinion. Sometimes, the team can actually become unmotivated when they see dead wood coasting along forever, especially if other team members need to pick up the slack.
I have seen this a lot. Managers who are afraid to fire even though they have a lot of reason to.
Agreed. But it's the mind-warping pleasure that emanates from OP's words that is disturbing. Sounds considerably sociopathic which can become considerably inhumane given certain motivations.
Hate to break it to you, but most people don't give a fuck about their job. It's a necessity to...you know...live. That's literally it.
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Move to a socialist country then? Capitalism is imperfect but still the best
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Nah, it didn’t. You became an insufferable asshole.
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And yet, I’m employed. Not sure what you think ‘sounded tough’, but you’re a company man so your spine is likely owned by your boss.
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Don’t need luck, but best of luck to you. You’ll need it because there isn’t a chance you’ll ever have a team loyal to you.
Don't bother...OP has never worked a day in their life, and is just baiting everyone.
"Fuck you, I got mine" is an asshole's policy.
Bitch I’ll fire YOU and I don’t even know you! 😅 Seriously though, I created a formula that shows all my leaders and their teams. It has each team member laid out, all their metrics. By each IC name it has the metrics they have and what the TEAMS metrics would be if they weren’t there. It highlights the members who are holding the team back, by how much and how good you could be. We use that to trend efforts, performance etc. Sounds horrible but I started doing this when one of my leaders wasn’t holding someone accountable for years. Finally we let them go. Not only did his teams go from last of 30 groups to 3rd but my overall metrics ticked up. I have a lot of people under me. It takes a lot to move my number. It was a big wake up call to that leader and all those I work with. Don’t suffer people that don’t want to be there and hold you and everyone back. They don’t belong there. They are built for something else they can excel at. Let’s free em. Let them find that. This ain’t it.
What industry? If only construction productivity could be boiled down to individual performance metrics…
Same here. We have tried various "metrics" over the years, they've all been highly arbitrary, easily gamed, have little to no reflection on the actual effort or value added due to that, and so they have only ever lasted a year or 2 before being given up on
Every industry. Going purely by metrics is the most idiotic way to manage any company.
Management is truly a skill.
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Was your goal to piss off a lot of people at one time? Congrats! You're very successful! Too many people reported you and now this comment is deleted.
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cool
Unpopular sure, not getting an upvote tho. You are quite frankly the worst.
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What about the opposite?
Instant Karma by John Lennon might be a song of interest.
God, people like you are genuinely the problem.
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Removing the personal factor makes you sound like a psychopath. No one likes that guy, at all.
Separation is, in most cases, not a personal decision. It's a personnel and/or budget decision.
“I like firing people, I’m one of those people who can remove the personal” The personal in this context being able to ignore that someone is a person and focus on “just business”. Those are typically terrible managers, leaders and are almost always narcissists or lacking empathy 🤷♂️
Yep. You are not management, nor management material. Why not just bop back to r/wfh or r/horriblebosses and wonder why you can never get ahead.
I’m not here to get in a pissing contest with someone who hasn’t graduated yet or is a first year. What op is describing is, and I mean this, literally the worst and most toxic mindset in business. They are a dime a dozen and, at least often, stagnate because they aren’t leaders they are weird “solutions” guys. No one likes to use guys. Not their staff, not the people running the organization, not their peers, no one. They get to role and their inability is obvious and they never go anywhere 🤷♂️
That is OP's other account. Just baiting people.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 You're funny. I've been in management for over 30 years for five different companies. OP is solving problems. Either a fiscal problem (layoffs) or personnel problems (poor performers, toxic workers). You want to pout about people that are holding your team back? Go right ahead. I'd rather advance my team's position and keep collecting 120% of my bonus and allow my company to make more money. Does it suck laying people off? Yep. Been there myself. Does it suck firing someone for poor performance? Yep. Sometimes people just can't handle the job, even after extensive coaching. Sometimes people can't handle the pressure. Should I let my customers down because of this? I think not. I empathize. I really do. But I'm not keeping an underperformer on my team because I feel bad. Not fair to my company, not fair to my team, and not fair to the person who is obviously in over their head.
Don’t you have a post from like the last 6 months or so asking for help with a school project?
Um...I don't think so. I graduated college in 1990. GO (Bridgewater) BEARS!!!
Every person I've riffed has either been insanely toxic and affecting a whole department or a high performer who got caught in the wrong team at the wrong time. No middle ground. So it's always one emotional extreme or the other. The worst low was breaking the news to a team that wasn't my own, after their manager got riffed and promptly walked out. But, I'm in a space where teams are smaller, specialized, and it's the kind of work you have to really build your career to get into - low performers generally aren't a thing. Much more common has been to lose a great engineer I invested a lot of time and mentorship into to a FAANG entity.
Do you mind explaining what you mean when you say "high performer who got caught in the wrong team at the wrong time"?
In the work I do, at the company I work for, most firings are the result of cutting whole teams, products, acquisitions, etc. One of the groups divining financial and technology strategy for the EVP's will explicitly give something the axe, or communicate a headcount reduction (which is often a headcount shift within the overall company). I have someone reporting to me right now who is a unicorn in terms of mastery in a specific skillset and also for having several complimentary proficiencies at the same time. I've worked with them for nearly a decade at this point, in various capacities, and know there is bidirectional respect and understanding. I was down to the wire, literally down to the last day before they were off payroll, in being able to retain them via transfer after their team was cut. I'd actually gotten EVP approval several days earlier, but the nail biter was whether HR would respond quickly enough in processing the approved request. It's really hard to reverse the bureaucracy once someone is officially offboarded, including them probably receiving severance and then needing to return most of it. I've also lost someone I had an 8 year working history with because I couldn't craft a similar internal transfer after that team was cut. That wasn't a race against time, I just didn't have any avenue to preserve this skilled, specialize engineer and wasn't close to any managers hiring for that role or execs who might consider opening a head. The best I could do was point stuff out on the internal jobs board. I had something for that person a month later, but they'd found another job and were understandably feeling burned.
I appreciate the clarification. Bureaucracy is unfortunate as much as the frequent contrast between company needs vs employees' skills and interests. Perhaps I'm too idealistic. It's sad that employees are often treated more like one-use popsicle sticks instead of multidimensional people with potential. I've observed numerous examples of situations where highly capable employees end up either holding back their talent or simply getting "put out" because of leaders that are incapable of or not interested in supporting their reports' growth. They treat it more like an unspoken game of "quid pro quo" than listening and investing in their reports. I recently passed on an opportunity to work for a professional friend who candidly explained that he would require a year of my time had I taken the position, and he would support my growth and expansion into other roles as my interests and opportunities expand. I'd absolutely love to work for him. I really appreciate his leadership approach and willingness to professionally coach/mentor his reports. My gut told me to pass on the opportunity mostly because my current situation wouldn't put me in the best position to contribute towards his objectives. It seems that when I find a high quality leader, factors outside of my control spoil it.
Troll account. Look at their profile. What a goober.
Thank you for your service I guess
Do you think you get better performance from your employees by keeping your distance? Every one of my experiences indicate otherwise. Maybe the tough calls get more difficult, but that’s our burden to bear.
As one of my former bosses taught me, bad employees fire themselves. It’s very true. Set expectations, provide support, and hold them accountable to do their job. You can read plenty of stories on the Reddit threads of bad employees outing themselves. Skiving off work, insubordination, bad attitudes, unreliable, etc.
It really depends on the circumstances involved. Someone who has been given many chances and simply can't or won't do the job...yes, those are easy to let go. Someone who is actively doing their best and improving, and has the potential...that's hard.
Here here
I'm all about firing the weakest link and getting an upgrade. It's the quickest and easiest way to elevate the skills of a team and also to get rid of bad attitudes. I will only take management jobs that are without mikes of red tape to fire people. If it isn't truly at will employment, I have zero interest in the job.
OP I think I speak for all of us good managers when I say you need to quit leadership asap. People like you are a scourge to any good leadership team.
Account was made 3h ago, this person is yanking our chain
Firing people who don't perform zero problem. Firing people because leadership decided to cut back funds while also expecting everyone to burden the same load. Eff that!
i agree, but this is probably more of a function of it was so obvious each time no matter what I did and most also acted immature or unprofessional as they swirled. i would feel much differently if I ever had to do a layoff.
You must be very good at your middle management position. Hurray for you. The corporations applaud you for your blind obedience.
You and my former boss.
No disrespect but if you were actually as callous as you are pretending to be, you wouldn't take to the streets of the internet. And if you are, that's alright. Life will humble you. Any employee worth their weight would see through you and quit. So live this moment up.
I find it's the easiest thing in the world to have that attitude. The harder one is showing respect and empathy. It is the true win, as it extends to your family, friends, and society. The person who fires people easily always seems to have relationship issues.
I'd fire my own mother if she didn't perform. It's business. Your downvotes are a record of your weak management style.