The Long Goodbye
Good morning, fellow leaders. This last week, I sat down in the office of an old friend who is the COO of a specialty insurance company. A VERY successful one. A very sophisticated one, too. My friend is a massively capable guy with deep experience, who regularly leverages million dollar deals as part of his role as a fiduciary for the company’s self managed pension fund. So you get the picture of his high competence, right? When I asked him what the hardest part of his job was, however, he mentioned the same thing the deli owner down the street would groan over: hiring and firing. He then told me his most recent struggle with an employee, and I re-learned a valuable lesson in the conversation.My friend recently had to let a female employee go after a long process of trying to make a wrong situation work well. He had transferred her to several positions to try and find a fit, had done careful evaluations and write-ups of performance, and when the time came, he arranged a very generous severance and outplacement package for her. And then he made the move that he regrets: he agreed to her request to stay on for six weeks until her final day. The six weeks began to turn into a nonstop lobbying move by the employee to get everyone in the company she could onto her side of the argument to create pressure for her to stay. Things got touchy real quick, and my friend had to rescind his offer for her to stay. He ended up forcefully asking her to leave after only one week. Bad scene for everybody, and not a little risky down the road in lawsuit happy California. The lesson learned from my friend’s story: don’t let anyone stay longer than two weeks in a position after a termination has been agreed upon. No exceptions. Establish a policy that is binding to everyone in the firm. Otherwise, long goodbyes can feel like eternity.
As always, if you have any stories or questions to share, I’d love to hear them!
Joe Pursch
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