I was a manager long before I was a product manager. In one of my roles as an R&D manager, I inherited an employee from one of the other teams on the day I joined. My boss explained to me that this employee is very talented, very experienced, and highly estimated in the company, but not always easy to manage. Having successfully converted some hard to manage people in my previous roles into productive and happy employees, I told my boss that I’ve got this. 

I honestly thought this is going to work, again, since – trust me – I’ve seen and successfully handled tough cases before. Little did I know that “not always easy to manage” is an understatement, and that this developer actually didn’t want to be managed at all. True to my belief that I can coach him, I invested everything I could in it. I tried the positive angle (“I see you are not happy, so tell me what you want and we’ll figure it out”), but the answers I got were nothing I could work with (“I want to work alone and for no one to ask questions about what I’m doing”). I tried the negative feedback angle, handholding, and everything in the book, but nothing helped. 

This employee got me to crying (literally, not figuratively) multiple times, and had a negative impact on the entire team. I took the hit on myself and in parallel did everything I could to minimize the impact on the team, including juggling the work that needed to be done so that he could work as independently as possible. I worked really hard to turn this into a success story.

Two months after I moved to another role (regardless of this employee), the new manager who took over fired him. It really didn’t take long for him to see that this wasn’t going anywhere and that he does more harm than good. 

Whether I wanted to avoid the unpleasant situation of letting him go or felt it would be a personal failure of mine if I couldn’t succeed with this employee, or even if I truly believed that this was still going to work, in retrospect I can say that I was wrong either way. This wasn’t going to succeed, and I waited far too long before I took action. In fact, I actually didn’t take action at all, which makes me wonder what would have happened if I didn’t move to another role – how much longer would I have continued to pay the heavy price of a mal-functioning team member?

This was also the follow up question of the CPO Bootcamp participant who asked the original question that initiated this guide: how do you know it’s time to give up?

Laying off people is never easy or pleasant. Still, in some cases, it’s the right thing to do. Here are a few ways to know if that’s the case for you.

Too Little, Too Late

I assume you already gave them the negative feedback, they want to improve, and you are actively trying to help them succeed (if that’s not the case, read part one and part two of this guide). Of course, if you are doing it for real, you need to give it some time to bear fruits. But after a while – a month in more severe cases and a quarter up to six months in others – ask yourself how this is going. Are they truly improving? By how much? How fast? Is this going to get you to what you really need? 

If you couldn’t solve it in six months, or at least generate a significant improvement, the odds that anything significant would change if you gave it more time are really low. As Jack Nicholson once said – what if this is as good as it gets? 

When you ask it that bluntly, it is easier to answer the question. Even if you still feel that things might change, you already have a new perspective on what to expect. 

Understand What You Really Need

Once you know how far you can get with your current employee, it’s time to forget about that and ask yourself objectively what is it that you really need from this position. Imagine what the ideal candidate would look like. How big is the gap? Do you believe they can close it? Note that when asking yourself the question this way you might realize that there is actually something else that you would need them to work on and improve at, so if you believe they can work on it you should give it some time before you assess it again.

If they can’t close the gap, you need to understand what compromise you are making. If you had the ideal candidate, what would you be able to achieve that you can’t now? How important is it?

It can be that the compromise isn’t that bad and that it is still better than the alternatives (more on that later). But you want to make sure that you make it an informed decision and not just continue with a bad compromise just because you didn’t stop to think it through.

Be Aware of the Negative Impact

Laying someone off has many implications on you as the manager, on the team, on the employee, and even the broader company in some cases. It can have a negative impact on your reputation (especially if you were the one to hire them in the first place), the team’s morale, and your ability to deliver the desired results with fewer resources. 

But in order to be smart about it, you should remember that not laying them off would impact the same things as well.

Are you able to deliver the results you need to deliver, with a mal-functioning person in your team? How does having them around impact the team’s morale? And how are you and the team perceived by the other people in the company when you let this situation continue?

We tend to think that we have time to decide, and nothing bad happens if we don’t change anything. But in some cases, this is far from the truth. Be aware of the price you pay by letting this linger. Please try to do it before you get into tears, and if you do – it should give you the answer.

Flip a Coin

“When facing a hard decision, flip a coin. When it’s in the air, you’ll know which side you’re hoping for.” – Arnold Rothstein

Despite Rothstein’s reputation in other areas, I find this sentence very true. My husband always laughs at me that whenever I consult with him on which option to choose in a dilemma I’m facing, I do the opposite of what he tells me to do. That’s because when he “decided for me”, I immediately knew that it wasn’t the option I wanted.

Jokes aside, this is a very powerful technique for decision-making when nothing else works. When you considered the good and the bad, you fully understand the implications of doing nothing as well as the implications of taking action now, but you still can’t decide, when there are good reasons for each of the alternatives – let someone decide for you. 

Imagine someone took the decision and decided to let that person go. It wasn’t your decision at all. How would you feel? If you feel relieved – you have your answer. If you feel this wasn’t the right thing to do and you would fight the decision – you have your answer. Either way, have an opinion. You can’t be indifferent, since both you and I know that you care a lot about your team and the results you deliver together. It means you have an opinion, even if sometimes you need to dig very deep to find it.

If you need to make a decision regarding letting someone go, go through the steps listed above. The right answer will reveal itself to you, all you need to do is let it show.