Episode 121: Leadership Failure - Dealing with Employee Discipline and Termination

Welcome to another edition of "Around with Randall" your weekly podcast for making your nonprofit more effective for your community, and here is your host the CEO and founder of Hallett Philanthropy, Randall Hallett.

I'm so appreciative for your time and interest in listening to this edition of "Around with Randall" and of course I'm Randall. We discuss today, enter into the subject matter that's probably stressful for both sides of the equation and is a challenge for many leaders, and that's the idea of, at least in the end, discipline and firing employees. Is that the employee's fault or is that leadership's fault that it got that far? That's an age-old question which we're going to try to alleviate at least half of today, is how do we as Leaders, if we are managing people or if we are an employee and we're looking at what we need and want from our leadership and our management supervision so we can eliminate at least half the battle. At the end of the day our jobs should be, as leaders, is to set the table for success. And if someone doesn't want to sit down and eat by the rules then it is what it is. But we can control more than you think and that's really what we want to talk about here today.

First and foremost the goal of any discipline situation is to realize that we can't avoid it. It's not something we can just brush under the rug and hope that it goes away. The reason why is this is an incredibly uncomfortable conversation nobody wants to deal with. This the employee doesn't want to deal with it the leader, manager, supervisor, director, whomever. Doesn't want to deal with it, so there's an avoidance. And what happens generally is when we avoid it, it gets worse, doesn't get better.

The second thing is that if we ignore it we might think we're actually doing the right thing and being nice, allowing them to grow. I equate this kind of thought process, and I've heard it before that my nine-year-old and my six-year-old, I'm all for their freedom, and their ability, and their desires to grow, but my job as a parent is to put guard rails. The way I always have described it particularly when I worked in secondary education before getting into healthcare, with parents, is your role as a parent in partnership with the school is like being a riverboat Admiral. The student, the kid gets to be the captain of the boat and as long as they stay in the river they can be on the left side of the river, the right side of the river, we're okay with that because we know where the destination of the river is. The river is going to end there, that's the goal. It's when the captain docks the boat and they start up the hill, we gotta push him back on the boat, say no we're not doing that. Sometimes our goal, our role as a leader is to foster an environment where we're putting up guard rails, where people know where the boundaries are. Some people need that. I think we all do in different things, but in a work environment the leader is supposed to be the one that steps forward and says hey, here are the guardrails, here's what we got to get done.

The second thing is is that when we get to that ultimate moment where we have to make an employment decision, I remember what my father always taught me and what I experienced in terms of verbalization the first time I had to let someone go some 20-plus years ago. I called him the night before when I knew I was going to have to do it and I said, I'm sick. I don't think I can sleep. I can't eat. I'm devastated. I'm upset. And his response surprised me. He said good. Now my father owned his own company and so he dealt with a lot of employment issues so I thought I was going to get some, you know, strategy, robust insight only a father who owns a company can give you advice. He said good. And I told him, I said dad I don't think that's what I was looking for, and he says well it's what you need because you should feel bad. Your mother and I raised you to be a good person, and if you didn't care I'd be more concerned, but the bottom line is that's your job and if you can't do it they'll find someone else to do it, and that means they don't need you. This is not simple and easy, and I've dealt with some leaders who, well, I just feel terrible about it. Good means you're a good person. You don't want this for them, and you don't want it for the organization. You don't want it for yourself and it's okay.

Remember, our goal is to never get to this point. Our goal should be if we were the greatest leader in the world that we do everything possible to while still meeting expectations, metrics, goals, key performance indicators, pushing the organization forward, having a moral and integrity-based ethos when it comes to our leadership that we should never have to fire anybody. We've identified the right people in the process. We've brought them along. We've trained them. We've given them the tools. They are successful. We're supporting them all the way now that if we could come out of Utopia, back into the real world, that's not the way this works but that's the way that our philosophy should be.

So let's back up and talk about what are some of the things that you can do, hopefully, to eliminate a lot of these challenges. And then so there's two tactical pieces. This what can you do now as you're not to that point, and number two if you have to get to that point what does that look like? So number one is when you are doing the hiring, take your time and hire the right person. Ask the detailed questions. Ask about their perception of themselves. Ask them about the issues involving their their, as Maslow says, self-esteem self-actualization. Are they a hard worker? Utilize tools, and we've talked about that in previous podcasts whether it's behavioral or examples, do reference checks. Get the right person if possible. Too many times we are worried about getting a body, then getting the right body. And I think sometimes that sets us up for a lot of failures. So the first thing is take your time do lots of great investigation and conversations. Have more interviews than you think are necessary. Give them, the applicant, some kind of testing process just to find out if what they're saying actually is what they can do. But once they're in the job even if they don't have everything you need, most of the things that you can do, really can provide an excellent environment for an employee to be successful. So the first part is are you sitting down one-on-one and having an honest, detail-oriented conversation about what their annual plan and goals look like? This is not a review of the job description, which I'll talk about here in a moment. This is about what you expect from them. When I was at the medical center before going into consulting, because it's a little bit different when you manage consultants, I had a defined process where I had a sheet that had all kinds of inputs and questions and they needed to answer them.

What are your, what is the goal that you're trying to achieve? How are we going to measure that goal? What are the resources you need to be successful? What are the challenges that are going to arise? What do you need from me or others to be successful? And each sheet was one goal and the goals were specific whether it was building a program, raising more money, making more calls. What are the things that are going to go into that goal? What are going to help you be successful? How are we going to measure it? And so my office, we'd have a hundred of these sheets, depending on the number of people in the office and that would then define what our strategic view was that year. That annual planning process saved me a lot of problems. And if you're not going through a process that identifies those specific things in some way, shape, or form, and if you want the document I always used you're welcome to email me at podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com I'm glad to send it to you. It allowed us to know and be on the same page when that year began and because it was specific there wasn't a lot of wiggle room.

So the first thing is sitting down and not just an end result we're going to raise more money - that's not helpful. What are the things inside the need to raise more money if that's one example that are going to make up that goal, bring it to fruition. The second thing is job descriptions, which I said I'd talk about here for a moment. Not all aspects of a job description actually are goals for that year. Sometimes a job description is misconstrued as the goal process for an employee. No, the job description tells you what the position does on a daily basis. It's a legal HR compliance series of limitations on what you can ask them to do. But that doesn't establish goals, for the most part. The other thing is that we have what I think or call creepism, where somebody's been there for a while and they've assumed other responsibilities but the job description doesn't match it. That's really the biggest issue. Does what you need someone to do in the job description daily match the goals or lead to the goals, and are there things they're doing that aren't in the job description or leave conversation? Are there things in the job description that need to be there because you're in a large organization, but they really don't apply to what we're trying to get to? So it's not going to hinder your goal opportunity if you're the employee having an understanding of what's in the job descriptions and what's expected in that daily responsibility, and then making sure you and the employee or the employee and the supervisor are on the same page is critically important.

Third is are the goals reasonable? We're going to increase philanthropy by, for you, by 50 percent. And you've been there 14 years you're raising $3.5M per year. Is that reasonable for gift officers? I usually, and I've built this out as a part of what I do with clients all the time is, I've built out a process to identify how we create a reasonable series of metrics. And by the way, I'm not just talking about reasonable end result of dollars raised. If you're a fundraiser there's all kinds of metrics that go into this. The second part of it, when we talk about reasonable, do they have too many goals, not enough goals? And by the way if it's not enough, or a goal as a supervisor you think that they should have, did you talk about it and put it in writing? And is that reasonable that halfway through the year said well I really wanted you to do this?

Reasonability applies to size, scope, listings, all kinds of stuff. Is everything there that needs to be to best understand what is expected? And finally, is the routine, regular check-ins, are you doing a goal setting session? And then you don't pull the goals out until a year later when it's evaluation time? Frankly that makes you an absent leader. Are you checking with the employee every quarter, every month seems a little much but in terms of are they where they at on their goals, are they a quarter their way through generically. Are they, when you're three quarters through the year and they're a quarter of the way through the goals so you're behind or they're behind, are you having that conversation? The more often you set different time frames to meet quarterly is a good one, 30 minutes, let's look at your goals. Where are you at, how you feeling? By the way that also allows for adjustment if other things have occurred. That means you're doing the things that are going to be required of a leader.

Let's put the shoe on the other foot. let's say you're the employee. You're giving your goals. They're reasonable. They're in writing. They match job descriptions. Feeling good about them. Do you know if your supervisor or supervisors, whatever the circumstances, their perspective has changed, their needs have changed, the organizational structure, strategy, has changed and that might affect? You you should be asking, could we sit down for 30 minutes and look at my goals and where I'm at. Is this where you see me because it's a lot easier to change during the process than it is at the end. By the way, back to my kids, this is why we have conferences three times a year so there's no surprises. We can help ourselves if we just think about some really basic things.

The last couple minutes is a conversation about, you're now at a point where you have to motivate an employee, and I'm not talking about positive motivation, I'm talking about we got to pick up the pace. So there's four things I want to bring to your attention, but overreaching all of them is this is not a place where I recommend asking for forgiveness rather than asking for permission. A lot of times in life I believe sometimes it's easier to do something and then say this is what I've done. This is not one of those areas. If you work in an organization that has an HR department, or an HR Personnel, or an HR series of policies, the first thing no matter what I tell you is you got to follow those because if they're done correctly they're following state law, they're following best practice, they're following Federal Regulations. If you have a Union contract they're following Union and contractual obligations. This is not a place to be a rogue element.

I think HR, particularly if you're an organization has a dedicated person or department, can be very helpful. Start with them. They're going to help guide you. But there's basically four levels of conversations we need to have with our employees if we need to get them going, need to protect the organization. The first is what I call counseling, that this is a discussion that is required for me to sit down and say look, I don't see the production or I don't see the results that I'm looking for. So let's talk about where you're at and what's going on, and usually there may be a review of the plan you wanted to do, A, B, C. I don't see a lot of effort towards these goals. There may be multiple counseling opportunities in a formalized process. It doesn't have to be one, and they can be growth-indicated, meaning you got through the first things we needed to do that would improve your your performance. Let's elevate that. In some ways this is to me the most important and missing piece of leadership when it comes to employment, into our responsibility to the people that report to us. In some ways on the other foot, if you as I mentioned are the employee asking for regular hey, I don't hear a lot about what you think about what I'm doing can also be a form of counseling in an effect. It's really important to try to get ahead of the issues before they become issues. Sometimes that's formal in terms of counseling. Sometimes it's informal. Counseling's the first.

The second is kind of the next elevated status which is a verbalized conversation about work performance. Again, you're going to start with the goals or we see you and here's how we're going to measure it. I don't see the progress. This is the first time that you may be introduced in this process or series of steps to a pip or a performance Improvement plan, where something's going to be put on paper of what you as a leader are expecting, or if you're the employee what your boss thinks you need to be doing. Mandatory to do a pip in a verbal, but it does clarify it because it makes it very, it illuminates what needs to be done to meet expectations. When you do these it's always about facts. It's not about personalities. They're short. They're hopeful. These are not meant to be, you know, a negative moment. If they don't have to be, I want you to be successful. I'm seeing some patterns that I'm not crazy about. What I'd like to talk to you about is figuring out how we can get you on track. You're worth my investment. You're worth this organization's investment, but we have to get better performance. Here's how we're going to do it.

The third moves into the written and almost exclusively you're going to have some type of performance improvement plan as a part of this conversation, and there's going to be probably a deadline in the next 90 days. We need to see, this is getting serious and sometimes becomes more acrimonious. It may be the first time the employee realizes maybe this isn't working or I got to pick up my gain. The key here is, again, to be fact driven, to be non-accusatory, and to not make it personal because it isn't. If you're the employee and you're in this situation, the same applies for you. The more emotional you get the more likely there is to be less factual knowledge about what they see and what their expect of you. Usually it's a little bit shorter meeting it may actually include someone to witness it. There's probably going to be formalized documentation that the organization embraces, uses as a standard form. but it's going to require a great deal of thought and honesty and non-emotional accusatory conversations. And by the way, for the leader, you still want them to succeed but you want to be clear as to what you expect and when it needs to be done.

The final is we got to let someone go, and this is the moment that we started the podcast with. It stinks. There's no way around it. It's no, but nobody, nobody wants to do this. But the key here is you've got a series of things you need to do which is to inform them that this is, we're going to end this relationship, that they need to hand in or do certain things, that they are going to be given certain benefits based on the laws of state or federal, meaning benefits or the Cobra or whatever the requirements are, whatever the vacation requirements were are left. The key here is to do it respectfully, quickly, and make sure that the person can get out quietly and with as much grace and dignity as possible, because I don't want to be in the situation either. And if it happens to you, if you're the one who's been fired and I have been, it sucks, even if you know you didn't do anything wrong people make decisions for all kinds of reasons. Maybe it's a reduction in force that has nothing to do with this. The manner in which you handle it is really important. If you yell and scream and throw a fit that's only going to reflect on you and it's not going to change their mind, whatever the reasons were good, bad, or indifferent. The decisions may, accept it. What are we going to do next? I'm not saying that makes it easier, it doesn't.

The shorter more witnessed documented this meeting is from the employer or the boss perspective. The better from the employee side the shorter and realization I've got them it hurts, but I gotta I gotta get out of here, the better it off it is for everybody. Again, if we do a lot of things on the beginning we don't have as many of these kind of situations so counsel, maybe, a few of those. Here's what's going on. Here's what I see. Or, do you see me doing the things I should be? Verbal. We get into some official, might have a performance improvement plan, a pip, written. There's written documentation. We're noting things, that this is not going well, and we're going to have to put some parameters around what we need to see from you in a shorter period of time, departure, termination, being fired, firing, we're going to terminate the relationship. Four steps, not any fun, but I think if you spend any time thinking about this podcast, think about the first part. How do we help people be successful rather than the last part. But use the last part when you need to. The more we do on the front-end the less we have of the back-end, and that's what leadership's all about. And by the way, if you're the employee what you should be asking for, how am I doing, where am I at, what are my goals, how do we measure it, how do I know I'm being successful in your eyes. Tough subject but an important one, even in the world we're probably heading into where there's a lot of riffs, reductions in force, that are coming.

Don't forget check out the blogs at Hallettphilanthropy.com. Two a, week 90 second reads, maybe something for you to contemplate and think about. If you'd like to get a hold of me it's podcast@hallettphilanthropy.com. Don't forget what you do is important and if you're dealing with something like today we talked about in terms of employment relations, hang in there. Remember, you're part of something that's important and even if that means you're going to somewhere else you're probably going to be doing something similar. It's going to be important to somebody else. It's critical that the philanthropy, non-profit world steps up and fills some of the holes. Don't forget my favorite saying, some people make things happen, some people watch things happen, then we wonder then there are those who wonder what happened. At the end of the day philanthropy and nonprofit's about doing things to help other people. The definition of philanthropy, love of mankind, love of humankind, making a difference. I hope you can see that in the work you do each and every day. I'll look forward to seeing you right back here on "Around with Randall" and don't forget make it a great day.