Smells like Team Spirit - What to do before you decide to fire somebody.

When you hire someone to do a job, their success is your responsibility. Simply 'trying hard' never got anyone anywhere. New hires need guidance if they are to be successful. In some instances, team member performance may not be aligned with expectations or the required standards. Persons have suggested culling such persons from the flock and sending them off with an excellent recommendation to soften the blow - hoping that they land on their feet.

If you believe in preserving the reputation of a 'poor performer' and concocting a story of how 'good' they were doing more harm than good. First, it harms the perception of the performance standards at your firm reputationally. Secondly, the person doesn't grow, improve, and didn't learn anything - except?'if I'm nice but perform poorly, I will get a great recommendation on my way out.'

?A bad hire reflects poorly on the managers who made them. Don't want people questioning your decision-making chops or your past decisions?

Do this instead?- Never fire someone for not being 'good enough. What does that even mean? It's too spurious, and it's open to interpretation - yours. Unless team members have a performance clause with KPIs and well-defined, monitored, and improved targets, then firing for that reason should be a firm no. It's also an indictment on you, the manager, to improve your performance and continuous improvement framework.

Do this, too -?Assess the team member's performance against the success/ performance criteria, then create a plan to help them close that gap. Create targeted training that can develop the team member's skills to be successful. Have frequent sessions to offer guidance and course correction and gain valuable feedback. That way, you can know if you're offering the correct type of guidance.

Publicly berating someone to make an 'example' of them only sets one example - the one that says vilification is an excellent tool for behaviour modification. Destroying someone's reputation is taken too lightly today. Suppose a team member doesn't share the same values as the company, and you hired them. In that case, that's your fault, and the onus is one of you for course correction or behaviour modification.

Bullying the bully isn't going to fix the problem, and destroying someone's reputation may have unintended consequences for that person's family or way of life. Saying 'he/ she should've thought of that before...' isn't a reason for your actions. It's an excuse. You want to justify your acts by blaming them as if they control your actions - don't do that. It's essential to try and understand why people act the way they do and try to influence them towards changing that behaviour if they are willing to.

Reframe your thoughts in this way?- show team members that the leadership is aware and attuned to the fact some persons struggle with aligning opinions, values and actions. It's also important to show that reorientation is the preferred route to behaviour modification. Therefore, we can take a situation seriously without resorting to termination in the first instance.?

Separation should be the last thing on a manager's mind, not the first, so should punitive means of behaviour or performance modification. Always try to retain and retrain team members out of alignment and refrain from reflex actions or popular sentiments. Remember, we should always do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Until next time, take care.

Sheldon Rose?is a supply chain professional with over 17 years of experience managing and optimizing supply chain systems. He helps people and firms to connect the dots between supply chains and organizational strategies by leveraging the relationships between strategic supply chains and strategic value systems.?