Sometimes You’ve Got To Let People Go
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Jul 10, 2015
This is a rare statement from me, but I have a "former friend". It's rare because I'm very good at vetting people, deciding who's trustworthy and who's not, who gives me bad vibes and the like. I'm good at hiring people when I have the leisure of deciding whether any of the candidates fit as opposed to having to select the best one.
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In this case, it's not that I didn't go through my normal way of checking people out. She fit all the criteria and more, and was one of my best friends for at least two years. We worked together and had fun at networking events. I can't say I ever regretted being friends with her.
It turns out that sometimes life can mess things up. In this case, her physical life changed drastically for the worst, and it was brought on by her own behavior. I tried to help by offering advice and encouragement but, as I had to learn, sometimes people just don't want advice or motivation. Sometimes they're incapable of accepting it.
She went into a downward spiral and disappeared. I had no idea where she was and I didn't hear anything from her. No one else we knew had any idea what happened. I'm not one to chase people, so I let it go and went on with life.
That is, until I was contacted by someone who said she was in the hospital dying. There wasn't anything I could do because I was working out of town. In a way, I had been expecting the call saying she was deceased; this was about as bad as it could get.
Then, an amazing thing happened. Her brain somehow rewired itself, to the effect that she could no longer remember what she'd done or how she'd ended up in her predicament. She overcame all the physical issues, though it took some time. It seemed like things might work out overall.
Except they didn't. While physically things worked out, mentally they didn't. Suddenly, this wasn't a person I knew anymore. It took me some time to figure it out, mainly because I was still out of town and only talking to her on the phone. I did visit her once when I came home for a weekend while she was in some kind of facility and her behavior was off, but I figured that was because she'd only started coming back to reality a couple of months earlier.
When I was finally home for good, that's when the real lessons started for me. She wasn't close to the same person she'd been before. The lies weren't the worst part, though you'd think they would be. It was the constant pressure of asking for this or that and expecting that she was going to live with me; yeah, my wife would have loved that (sarcasm).
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It took a scary night on a snow slicked road, as I was going to try to bail her out of a bad situation where she'd made a bad decision (not an illegal one), lied, used me by having the police call and ask if I could come, and then when I showed up she wasn't there. That was the night when I knew I had to initial us having some space apart from each other.
Suffice it to say, her life was bad and was getting worse. We wrote email to each other once a week, but I was hearing all sorts of reports from others that we both know.
I've stated here often that my three most valuable morals are loyalty, trustworthiness and honesty, in that order. I've also said that it's a two-way street. I will go out of my way if a friend of mine is in trouble but is willing to work out of it.
My friend was having none of that. Every bit of advice I gave her went in one ear and out the other. Constant requests for money and lodging, even after promising me she wouldn't ask again, had me hiding from her. Suddenly I was getting all sorts of calls from different cellphone numbers, finding out that whomever she was with she was borrowing their phones to call.
Finally, after one more incident that involved me, I realized that she had now violated my number one rule, and more than once. I had done everything I could possibly do, but I wasn't going to be responsible for her. She has family, and they had decided they couldn't handle it anymore. There was nothing I could do, and I have finally ended the association.
Why did I go into all of that backstory? The hardest decision anyone ever has to make is the one regarding letting someone go. Whether it's someone who's been a close friend or a family member living only because of a ventilator, it's hard giving up someone who you've had in your life in a positive way for a long time. Yet, sometimes it has to be done for your own peace of mind.
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Every day there are leaders who have employees that aren't good for one reason or another. Sometimes they're lazy; sometimes they talk back. Sometimes they're horrible at what they do; sometimes they're violating all sorts of rules and regulations of the business.
Every day, many of those leaders, frustrated and angry, are also too timid to do anything about it. After all, who likes confrontation?
You know what? That's your job! Being a friend or family matter isn't; being a manager or director is. You get paid to manage and evaluate the talent working for you. You get paid to make the decisions on who deserves a push towards promotion and who's ruining the team for whatever reason and might have to go.
The same morality lessons of loyalty, trustworthiness and honesty work in business. People who don't give you their best adhere to none of these principles. Why would you want to keep anyone around who fits these criteria?
I'm not saying it's easy having to let someone go. What I am saying is that life throws harder decisions at us that affect us personally. Business is supposed to be business. If you can't handle a business decision, you're at the wrong level.
After all, business is business... it's never supposed to be personal... until it is.
One of the best things a supervisor can do is bite the bullet and … supervise. People want to be managed and will respect fairly placed rules and boundaries.
They don’t have to like you. They may even talk about you. But, you literally control their (working) fate and only the most foolish of subordinates will push you past the limits you have set.
The second most important thing a supervisor can do is to follow through on warnings. The absolute worse thing to do is to “look the other way”, because, while you’re staring at your thumbs, the rest of your subordinates are staring at YOU – judging you unworthy and a pushover or hypocrite.
Thanks for sharing this important message. I learned it the hard way, trying to be everyone’s friend. 🙂
Cheers,
Mitch
Thanks Mitch. I learned that one a long time ago, although I could still separate work from personal while at work. Business is business, and folks always need to remember that, whether in the position of leader or not. It makes things easier across the board.
Hey Mitch,
Wow, I’m so sorry to hear that your ex-friend took such a spiral downfall. That’s horrible and I can’t even imagine someone hitting rock bottom like that.
The lies and the deceptions would definitely have me questioning things. If it’s just her mental state then of course she probably can’t be 100% held responsible unless she’s not doing anything to get help. It still doesn’t excuse her behavior or what she put you through.
Your main takeaway though is that we have to make that all important decision when enough is enough. Whether it’s a friend, an employee or a family member. As you know I’ve had to let two of my very long term friends go and it was a very hard decision but it’s one that had to be made.
Thanks for sharing this lesson with us, as hard as it might be for us at times.
Enjoy your weekend.
~Adrienne
Thanks Adrienne. It’s sad when we have to get to that point in a relationship and make such a decision. I have to admit that in this case I’m not sure I would have made all the right decisions without my wife’s perspective.
In business though, it’s only a leader’s belief, and if all the signs are there then they have to do it, not only for their own peace of mind but for the peace of mind of the department, because we know they always know something’s going on also.
I always here that firing someone is such a very hard thing to do. I have only had to do it once. I guess it is hard because for people like you me, Mitch, we have compassion. I do not know if that person I am about to fire is one paycheck away from homelessness or whatever.
On the other hand I have walked away from most of my family. I have certain rules and standards like you do Mitch and if those are violated, well, then bye. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
I don’t need the drama in my life right?
Like the woman said, “Ain’t no one got time for that.”
Troy, I’ve had to fire people but not often. That’s because I always had criteria and always took notes of actions, counselings, etc. Every person I ever had to fire, other than the first person, knew that it was coming. That’s business; nothing personal. It’s not easy but you give people chances and your conscious is clear.
No, we don’t need other people’s drama in our lives, that’s for sure. Still, in circumstances like this one, it can be mentally tough.
Mitch,
First of all, thanks for drawing my attention to this blog and this post in particular. I knew ‘about’ this blog but never visited it. No, I’ll take that back, I have visited, once or twice, when we first met on Ryze many moons ago.
Yes, it is hard to let go of someone that you’ve known for a long time, but you have to cut the chord when it calls for, not only for yourself, but for their sake.
I remember a guy come up to me once and thank me for having fired him more than a decade earlier when he was still a young man. He said that that was the best thing anybody had ever done for him, because it taught him a valuable lesson that he needed to learn.
Life goes on.
Thanks for stopping by Rasheed. Yes, life does go on, thank goodness, but it might not feel like it at the time. I think as long as we take the act of letting someone go seriously and, at least in work situations, as professionally as possible that it’s easier to deal with.