30: How to fire someone from your business (when you have ADHD)

 

How to fire someone from you business when you have ADHD (Transcript)

 

Transcription

00:00:00

In this episode, we're gonna help you wrap your head around firing someone when you have ADHD.

 

00:00:07

Hi. I'm Katie McManus. Business strategist and money mindset coach. And welcome to the Weeniecast

00:00:12

In this episode of The Weeniecast, we're going to tackle a pretty tough topic. And it's a topic that no business owner wants to think about because we want everything to go well at all stages in our business, and we want to be able to grow without there being any issues. We want to be able to expand and hire people and never have a problem. And also we live in reality, and reality sometimes dictates that we have to end certain professional relationships.

00:00:41

And this is one of the worst parts of running a business, honestly, is when you have to I hate to say it, fire someone. There are several things that I want you to take into consideration when you start thinking that someone may not be a great fit for your business anymore. Now, I want to preface this conversation with you. Firing a freelancer, a full time employee, someone who comes in and does part time work for your business, does not make you a bad person, okay? It is just something that happens in our world.

00:01:19

And unfortunately, not everyone is a great fit for your business. I want to also acknowledge that someone may be a great fit for your business in years one through three. But then your business gets to a certain point and it outgrows this person being helpful. There's this great book that I encourage you to read. I don't often recommend books on this podcast but I’m going to recommend one by Ben Horowitz.

 

00:01:41

It's “The Hard Thing About Hard Things”.

And one of the main topics that he covers in this book is that there are CEOs that are really great at doing the startup thing. They're brilliant at getting an idea off the ground and profitable and hiring the first team and hiring the second team and getting investors and all that jazz. But if everything goes well, that business will outgrow them, right? The business that is in startup mode requires different things from its CEO than the business that is in we're running like a normal business and everything's great mode.

00:02:19

That's not the terminology he uses in the book, but you know what I mean. And while, yes, it can feel so cheap to get to a certain point with a business having given it so much stuff and realize that you are not what the business needs anymore and have to separate, it is in the best interest of everyone. Because let's play this out. Let's use the big business scenario here, right? So you have a CEO that's been with the business since its inception.

00:02:46

It's gotten this business through hard times, through investment rounds, has hired numerous different leadership positions, has helped organize the culture, the strategy, processes from the ground up. The CEO has been the face of this business in many different capacities at a certain point, this business is not just someone's idea. It's not just something that feeds one person. It's something that feeds hundreds of people. There are hundreds of employees, hopefully, that are being supported by this business.

00:03:17

Would it be in all their best interest for that CEO who's not qualified for the next level to continue? No, because the problems that will face this business in the future, as it's more established, will be so different from the problems it faced in its startup phase. It'll need different leadership, and there's nothing wrong with that.

00:03:44

Now, of course, you're running a small business, probably, right? I mean, if you're running a multinational, hundreds of thousands of people business and you're listening to my podcast, like, hi, can you let me know? Just email me, Katie McManus, or even go to the Weeniecast.com and scroll all the way to the bottom and leave a voice message about what it is that you do and what you find helpful from this podcast, like Bill Gates, are you listening to my podcast? Are you out there? Probably not.

00:04:13

Anyway, so you're running a small business. You want your business to be sustainable. You rely on it for your income. You hopefully are going to have a few employees who will rely on it for their income. You also have clients who rely on you for whatever help you offer through this business.

00:04:32

This business cannot stay in business if you continue to employ someone who isn't meeting a need that the business has. You do not have the capital most likely to pay this person for doing a bad job or just not doing a job that the business requires. So I know it's hard. That classic line and You've Got Mail, where Meg Ryan is getting this pep talk from Tom Hanks and he doesn't realize he's giving her a pep talk to take him down. Joe and you and I would never have been at war.

00:05:09

And the only thing we'd fight about would be which video run on a Saturday night?

00:05:17

Well, who fights about that? Well, some people. No. Great movie. One of my favorites.

00:05:25

Anyway, he tells her, It's not personal, it's business. It's not personal, it's business. It's really hard to believe that because when we have a small business, our freelancers really become our friends, our employees become our friends. There's a relationship there. There's trust there.

00:05:40

There's this camaraderie because they've been with you from the beginning. And I want you to know, just because you have to make a really hard decision in the name of your business does not make you a bad person. And they're going to have the opportunity to go and give their gifts to another business and have far more success there. You holding them here in a place where they're not thriving, where they're not contributing at the level that they are prepared for, is unkind. All around.

00:06:15

So let's go into how you make this really tough decision about whether you need to let this person go or not. Question number one are they meeting the needs of the business? If they are not meeting the needs of the business, they have no business being in your business. Simple as that. Now, there can always be a conversation about redesigning their work within your business.

00:06:40

This happens very often with new businesses, small businesses, and startups. The business evolves in a way that no one anticipates. And so you might have hired this person to do social media strategy for you and had social media strategy become obsolete for some reason and need to pivot them to work on something else. If they are willing and excited and effective in that something else, say producing a podcast or getting you booked on stages to speak, if they can do that effectively, then absolutely redesign what their job is for your business. I did this previously.

00:07:16

I hired my dear friend Helen to do outreach to get me booked on stages. And throughout this time, helen's this incredible writer. She's a brilliant copywriter. And even before she got trained as a professional copywriter, I mean, her writing was just gorgeous. It communicated feeling and it made you laugh and it made you cry.

00:07:37

And I just really enjoyed reading whatever she put out as the pandemic really hit. And as I got a dog and realized I didn't really want to travel too much to go speak at events, I asked her if she'd be open to doing some writing for my website because she was trained in SEO strategy and copywriting. And that's something that, while I enjoy writing, I don't enjoy having structured writing like that that requires you to use different keywords. And so I pivoted her, and she did a beautiful, beautiful job. And I'm so happy that I got to pivot her because I loved having her in my business and I didn't want to give that up, right?

 

00:08:17

And she was game for it. Now, if she hadn't, that would have been a different conversation. As my priorities of my business shifted, it would have been more of a conversation around, maybe we don't continue with this, right? Nothing personal, just that my business doesn't need this right now, which then would free her up to go out and do other things. So this comes back to the classic truth that no one is going to treat your business like their business because it's yours.

00:08:47

If you're expecting everyone who works in your business to make decisions for the ultimate good of the business, you're going to be sorely disappointed every single time because this is your baby they're just hired to come in and take care of it for a few hours. The second thing that I want you to ask yourself when you're reckoning with this decision of should I keep this person or should I separate from them. OOH, what am I going to say next? Well, you'll have to keep listening to find out. But first squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.

00:09:25

The second thing that I want you to ask yourself when you're reckoning with this decision of should I keep this person or should I separate from them, is, does having them in my business create more work for me than not having them in my business? So I want to tell a story about how I did this. I made this mistake very early on in my business, and it came from a place of generosity, right? So the pandemic had just hit. Everyone was freaking out, people were losing their jobs left, right and center.

00:09:56

It was a really scary time. And I was one of the few who was experiencing massive growth in my business, because while everyone was getting laid off or realizing they hated their job anyway and quitting, they would turn around and say, hey, I really want to start a business who can help me with this? And I was very fortunate to be already set up as someone who does that for people. And so while my business was growing, I realized that I couldn't do it all myself. And so I remember talking to a dear friend of mine in California and telling her that I was going to need to hire a VA at some point.

00:10:29

And if you don't know what a VA is, it's a virtual assistant. And she recommended a friend of hers who was a very nice person, very smart, had a master's degree from a highly renowned university, had been trained as a copywriter, all these different things, and connected me with this person. We got on really well, super nice, obviously very capable, and so I hired them. And the mistake I made was that this person had never been a virtual assistant before. And having never had a virtual assistant before, I didn't know what I didn't know and she didn't know what she didn't know.

00:11:07

And so we were both people who didn't know who what they didn't know, trying to teach her to do the things that neither one of us knew that she should be doing. And because we didn't even know the questions to ask of each other to figure out what she should be spending her time on and how she should be doing it, it quickly devolved into me asking her to do certain things for my business, her doing them not fully understanding, but also not understanding what questions to even ask me to clarify. Her sending me the finished product, me realizing how off the market was trying to give her feedback and basically going on and on through this vicious cycle. Until I realized that I was doing ten to 15 more hours per week with her and my business than I was on my own. This experience taught me two things.

00:11:56

Number one, we don't give jobs as favors doesn't matter how much you want to help someone, it doesn't matter how much you like them and care about them and want to see them succeed. If they are not trained in the exact things that you need for your business, they do not belong in your business unless you're independently wealthy and you can just throw money out the door.

00:12:20

And number two, as soon as you realize that their cost to you is more than the value that they bring, you have to make that decision to end your business relationship with them. Because ultimately for your business to continue to grow, you need the support that's going to help you most. And if this is not that support, it doesn't belong in your business. And again, it's kinder to this person in the long run for them to have the freedom and the capacity to go for another job that is going to utilize all of their skills and abilities and strengths in a way that really lights them up and is effective.

00:13:01

And the last question that I want you to ask yourself, if you're considering ending a business relationship with an employee or a freelancer or anyone who's supporting you and your business is why are you keeping them? If you're keeping them because you feel like it would be hard to replace them, that is not a good enough reason. If you're keeping them because they are invaluable in a lot of different ways, that's a good enough reason. Absolutely hold on to them. Do not let them go.

00:13:29

Give them a raise. But if you're simply suffering through different things, not working correctly because it would be harder for you to ramp up someone brand new who hasn't been with you before, know that this is just not the right fit. And again, we want to go back to that whole CEO conversation. They probably were a fit for you at the beginning. I had this happen recently in my business that the person that I was working with who had been an immense help to me for a year, unfortunately my business just grew beyond her capabilities to support me.

00:14:06

And it's really sad to end those kinds of relationships. It really is. And hopefully you have that conversation with compassion and honesty so that it's the end of the business relationship, but it's not the end of the relationship because ultimately, yes, you give a you care about this person and they've spent a lot of time supporting you. You obviously have a friendship there. If you decide that you need to let someone go from your business, the key thing here is clear, concise, honest communication.

00:14:41

Oftentimes when someone makes a decision to fire someone for the very first time, they get really squirrely about it and weird and then they try to find a reason to make it happen that is not their fault. Like oh, I've run out of money or this you can absolutely run out of money. You can absolutely run out of money and have that be a reason you have to stop working with people, okay? That happens to all of us in every stage of our business. Look at all the companies that have been laying people off.

00:15:07

Right now, literally, some of them are giving their board members more money, but there are other businesses who genuinely just can't afford to keep as many employees on salary. That decision has to be made all the time, every single day, all around the world. But if it's not true, don't use that as an excuse. This person works in your business. They're going to be able to smell blood.

00:15:29

The kindest thing for you to do is go to them, explain your thought process around this, and tell them what you have decided to do going forward. And if you can do so in integrity, please offer to give them references to recommend them. And also, if you have any worry that this person may do something harmful to your business after hearing this news, you are not in the wrong for changing passwords, for protecting any assets of the business before having this conversation. And while it's a very unfortunate situation when that happens, unfortunately, we're humans with emotions, and we react badly to hearing things sometimes. And I will say that it's better to be overly cautious than risk leaving yourself open to someone who may do something from a place of hurt and anger that they may later regret.

00:16:28

So this is one of those topics that impacts every business owner all over the world every single day. And also, here's how it's different for folks with ADHD. We've talked about this many times on this podcast. Folks with ADHD have this thing called rejection sensitivity. Dysphoria all right.

00:16:45

We are so sensitive to rejection when we're rejected. And even when we perceive rejection that didn't actually happen, it sends us into this awful spiral that we feel terrible about. Oftentimes. We also have empathy. Hopefully, if you don't, then you're probably a sociopath.

00:17:02

Stop listening to my podcast and get out of my world. So what happens when RSD and empathy get mixed together is we can feel all that pain of being literally rejected on behalf of the person that we're having to let go from our business. And I just want to name that. Yes, having empathy for other people is a good thing. It means you're not a sociopath.

00:17:27

Congratulations. But also, you feeling all of their feelings and then some on their behalf is not helpful to them. It's not helpful to you, either. It can also feel like your life gets plunged into a cyclone of chaos after you've had to complete work with one person. And you either are onboarding someone new, or you're in that in between phase where you're still trying to find their replacement.

00:17:55

And I want you to have so much compassion for yourself in this stage. It happens to all of us, and it's going to happen again and again and again in your business. If you're successful and if you continue to grow. Know exactly what your must dos are every single week. Okay?

00:18:12

Anything else that was their responsibility, I don't want you to carry over as your responsibility. So the must dos are money in and money out. Make sure that you're collecting payments from clients and that any people that you need to pay are getting paid. Another necessity is visibility. Make sure that any marketing things that need to be happening are happening, even if they're not at the normal quality that you had with this person supporting you and delivering delivering to your existing clients, making sure that their experience of working with you is not impacted by this, that's it everything else.

00:18:52

Once you hire this next person, you're going to be able to go through, here's what this person used to do for me. Here's how I would like it done differently. Here's what I want to happen that wasn't happening. How do we do this with you? And you get to create that with them.

00:19:07

Do not worry about setting up the system for them to jump into. If you're hiring the right people, they're going to be able to create the systems for you that will allow for them to be the best support to you. I also want to name, because I'm a coach and we take personal responsibility here, is that if you find yourself hiring someone and firing them three months later and then hiring another person and firing them three months later and continuing on that journey, I want you to start thinking about who is the common denominator here. I hate to call you out if this is happening to you, but I think we're all guilty of expecting ourselves to have skills and talents that we were never trained on. I can't tell you how many times I've gotten on a call with a new client.

00:19:57

They're like, oh my God, I'm terrible at sales. I'll never be good. And then I ask them, Cool, well, have you ever been trained in sales? And they're like, no, of course not. People are just naturally good at that.

00:20:07

And I always call, bullshit. No. There's not one salesperson out there who wasn't trained. So leadership is the exact same thing. We're not trained in leadership.

00:20:16

There's not a leadership class in the public school systems in the United States, at least as far as I know. I never had one. There was a leadership club, but they organized pet rallies and did bake sales and car washes. I don't know what kind of leadership they were training in there. So you were not traded as a leader.

00:20:36

You were not trained in how to do leadership. Well, if you're seeing some results that might indicate that your leadership skills could use some work, want to just remind you there are leadership coaches out there. There are leadership training programs out there. If you are the problem, you can also be the solution here. And there's no shame in admitting, oh, wow, I don't have this skill.

00:21:03

I need to go and get this skill so that I can grow my company and be better at what I do. You admitting that and going and seeking help is actually going to elevate you beyond all other employers as you grow your business. How many bad employers have you worked for in your life who could really benefit from some leadership training? I imagine a lot. I know I've worked with a crap ton of them.

00:21:26

I would have loved to work with someone who still was a shitty leader but was at least working on themselves to become a better leader and was aware of all the ways in which they fell flat. That could be you someday. Not to get too inspirational here, but if that's not happening, if you're not hiring and firing on two or three month cycles over and over and over again, if you have to fire someone once, if you have to end a freelance relationship. I don't want you to start making a whole story about yourself, about how you're bad at hiring, about how you make bad decisions in your business or how you're a crappy leader. One piece of data does not a whole narrative make right.

00:22:12

And I want to remind you that our brains are meaning making machines. We're really talented at taking one piece of data and making it mean a whole bunch of stuff about ourselves. And also, that's massively unfair to you and probably not true.

 

© 2022 - 2023 Katie McManus – Business Strategy For Weenie ADHD-preneurs