Page 216 - Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles

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Trust

relationship was over. Regardless of how dependent I was on her
skill set, I could not have someone working for me whom I did not
trust. The next morning I met with her and said, “I am sorry, but it
is not going to work out,” and handed her a final check. She was
stunned and said, “Don’t you want to talk about this?” I said, “No.”
There was nothing to talk about—at least not with her.
After she packed her things and said her good-byes, I called
the rest of the team together. I expressed my regret at having to
let Nancy go and understood that it might have come as a bit of
a shock. We were such a small, close-knit group, and I was ter-
ribly concerned about how my team would respond—not just to
terminating Nancy but to firing our graphic artist and essentially
admitting that there would be no Christmas for ColorMe that year.
I felt completely dejected and had a hard time hiding it. I asked if
anyone had anything they wanted to say. What happened next
was one of the most memorable and meaningful leadership
moments of my life. There were three unified responses: first, “We
are surprised that you didn’t fire her sooner”; second, “What do you
need us to do?”; and third, “We will get through this.”
As a leader, I matured and learned a lot that day. First, team
members know who should be let go before the boss does.
Second, eliminating weak team players makes the team stronger.
Third, crisis situations bring teams together. Fourth, if your employ-
ees respect you, they will respect and support your decisions.
Finally, no matter how small your organization, people have to be
cross-trained; you simply leave yourself far too vulnerable when
only one person can perform a key job function. And there was
one more really important thing that I learned from that situation:
don’t ever let circumstances or fear prevent you from doing what
needs to be done.