Business Without the Bullsh*t: 49 Secrets and Shortcuts You Need to Know (17 page)

The hardest job for any manager is firing somebody (even if that person isn’t right for the job) or, worse, laying off multiple employees when they’ve done nothing to deserve it. There’s no way to make this process easy, but here’s how to make it less traumatic:

Words such as
downsizing
and
rightsizing
are intended to make managers feel better because they tend to mask the fact that real human beings are involved. It’s like when military organizations say
collateral damage
when they mean
dead civilians
.

Even phrases such as
letting people go
exhibit management gutlessness. It’s as if the managers are pretending that the “people” were champing at the bit to leave and management is finally giving them what they want.

If you’re firing somebody, say, “I’m firing you.” If you’re having layoffs, call them layoffs. Tell it like it is, even if the truth is hard to say. After all, the truth is going to be even harder on the people who are losing their jobs.

Because firing people is such an unpleasant job, it’s not at all unusual for a big boss to ask a lower-level manager to do the dirty work, and
then fire that manager. From the big boss’s perspective, this turns a series of hard tasks into one relatively easy one.

Treat your soon-to-be-ex-employees as decently as possible, if only because you may run into them in the unemployment line.

You owe your employees a real reason they’re losing their jobs. Don’t dance around the truth. By the way, most of the time, the real reason for a layoff is “Your management, including me, screwed up.”

That being said, you may not have the option of acting like a decent human being, because of legal restrictions and government regulations. To keep yourself from being caught in the middle and possibly making things worse for yourself and everyone else, follow whatever corporate policy has been made in terms of what you can say to the people you’re firing.

Firings and layoffs should be handled like a life-threatening operation at a hospital. You want the patient (i.e., your firm) to get through trauma as quickly as possible, not bleed the death of a thousand cuts.

Do the firings or the layoffs quickly, so everybody can move past them. This is very much in your interest because if the process is drawn out, your best people (the ones you would never want to fire) may get nervous and find employment elsewhere.

In any case, your remaining employees (especially the top performers) will feel weird and uncomfortable because they’re still employed while their erstwhile colleagues have departed. Make certain the survivors know they’re valued, and help them make the transition.

Of all the relationships you’ll have at work, the most important is your relationship with yourself. Your success in the workplace depends directly on how well you manage the only two things over which you have any real control: your mind and your body.

Companies now demand that employees to do more in less time, and those who survive are often tasked with carrying the workload of those who have been laid off. As never before, it’s up to you to make your own future.

This part of the book provides the secrets you’ll need to consistently and easily advance your career: