Kind, not nice

Not everyone is the right fit for every role, at every company, at every point in time. This doesn't feel nice to say or to think, but we have to acknowledge the uncomfortable truth.

A mismatch can become apparent during the hiring process or after someone joins, even with wonderful people. The earlier an adjustment can be made, the better it is for everyone. However, it's important to be as kind as possible at every stage.

Some supervisors and managers try to be nice by avoiding conflict, but nice is not the same as kind. I aim to be kind but fair, which means having tough conversations and cultivating trust.

Here's what I try to get across:

We're on the same team here. I want you to do well. I want you to be happy. I truly mean it. And that means that if this is not the right fit for you, it's irresponsible of me to push it through. But I'd like to work together to help you be successful here, if you're open to it.

The kind thing to do is to let someone know where they stand, no matter the situation. To give them autonomy over their journey and destiny. To allow them to make their own decisions, even if that means voluntarily leaving. To give them the ability to change and improve, rather than cutting them off. And to set them free, when necessary, to find a better fit.

My perspective

I've luckily never been fired, despite having worked in some high-churn environments. However, I'm very open to it if I'm genuinely not the right skill fit for a company. While it would suck, I wouldn't want to work in an environment where I'm not succeeding anyway. My best roles have been ones where I joined despite thinking they'd quite possibly fire me after a couple months — I was okay with that.

All opinions here are my own and don't reflect those of my past, present, or future employers.

Hire kindly

If you're building an exceptional company, especially a small venture-scale startup, you need to hire the absolute best people. Every person counts in these situations and has a substantial impact on the future of the company.

Therefore, don't hire someone who you're not excited about. Now, "excited" is a vague term that could be used to make fallible vibes-based decisions. I say this under the assumption that your hiring process gives you a high enough signal-to-noise ratio to determine who's a great fit.

That being said, you don't want to miss out on less obviously great people either. I personally believe in taking bets and hiring for slope. In my opinion, some skills and traits are non-negotiable to make this work, but a candidate doesn't have to hit 100% of your ideal qualities to be a rockstar employee.

If you do take a risk on a candidate, it's important to make sure that those risks are considered and reasonable. Kindness means that the candidate should understand the risk too. For you, they're one of many people, while for them, this is their one life and their one job.

It's not kind to make an offer to someone who you don't feel reasonably confident will succeed, even if you're eager to grow your team. If interviewers came away with a significantly negative assessment of the candidate, by hiring them you're also putting them into a situation where some of their future coworkers may already believe them to be a poor fit.

Once you have enough information to say no, let them go from the hiring process rather than keeping them around for optionality. They are spending time to interview with you, and making decisions about other opportunities based on their progress.

If there's still a reasonable case for hiring them, make the uncertainty explicit rather than deciding on their behalf. Share the gaps you see, and express your willingness to close them together. If the candidate knows that the interview did not reflect their best self, they're likely to join you anyway, knowing that they will prove you wrong.

Review kindly

Let's say that you hired someone you were excited about, but they're unfortunately underperforming in the day-to-day job. This is unavoidable; we can't always make the right hiring decisions, and there's always an element of risk.

It may feel nice to pretend that everything is fine, but the kind thing to do is actually tell people where they have opportunities for improvement. Do this immediately, rather than waiting for the next formal review cycle. Give people the chance to improve, with clear guidelines and goals for doing so, and support them however is reasonable.

Don't just review the person — review the organisational context as well. I frequently refer to the Waterline Model, popularised by Molly Graham. The key idea here is to look at structure, dynamics, and relationships before deciding that a specific person is the problem. If the conditions around the person are the cause, simply replacing the person could reproduce the same issue.

At this point, you've assessed the person through the hiring process, and found them to be strong enough to bring them on board. Perhaps they'd actually been a strong performer at the company earlier on, and the performance issues are more recent. Either way, they've likely done great work before and will do great work afterwards. If that's the case, maybe the issue is not the person nor their overall fit, but an organisational issue above them, or a mismatch between their strengths and their assignments.

Kindness means putting in the work to help people succeed with you. Check in on their current tasks relative to their skillsets. Make adjustments to get them in the flow state. Consider changing their project, team, or role to something else that increases their success and value. Keep a critical perspective, but don't give up too easily.

Fire kindly

Let's say you've given an underperforming employee honest feedback and support, and you've reviewed the organisation around them for any external causes. If there's still no viable path for them to be successful at the company, it's unfortunate, but the decision needs to be made to let them go.

It doesn't feel nice to fire someone, especially if you've built up a relationship. However, avoiding the decision is not kind to their teammates, whose work quality and social relationships may be affected by someone else not meeting the bar. It's also not kind to the person who is struggling, and if you've been reviewing kindly, knows that they are.

High-performing people often want to work with other high-performing people, and it can negatively impact the workplace culture when that's not the case. It's not worth the risk of losing your best people because you avoided a difficult decision — whether they actually leave the company or just mentally check out.

Don't avoid it. Don't drag it out. Just do it.

Give appropriate severance to the person, based on time served. Help connect them with roles that will be more suitable to them. Don't speak badly of them within the company. Have compassion for them and the difficult moment they're likely going through. Understand that even though it didn't work out with you, they may thrive in another situation. Overall, be incredibly kind — you're unlikely to regret it.