On Letting Go Well
Letting someone go is hard. Letting go of the pain and resentment about being let go seems impossible. Whatever your side of the story, it sucks. How can we let people go with compassion, dignity, and respect? And how to overcome the trauma of being let go?
When earlier this week I saw the letter by Airbnb's CEO Brian Chesky announcing letting go of 1,900 Airbnb people, I told myself: here is one that is doing it with clarity, compassion, dignity and respect. I noted a few lessons from the Airbnb announcement and went on to look for more advice on (1) how to let your people go correctly and (2) how to overcome the trauma of being let go.
There is a Russian proverb: "Measure seven times, cut once". To me, it reflects the right attitude when you have to let your people go: you need to be thoughtful and thorough in preparing the decision, and fast in communicating and executing it.
And you need to be patient and kind to yourself, yet resist resentment when the person let go is you. Here are the pieces of advice I've found on letting go well.
A. Preparing the Let-Go Decision
The more thoughtful and thorough will be your preparation, the more chances you have to go about it with dignity and respect. And it's important because life is a long game. It's not just about the cost-cutting and the numbers on the balance sheet and P&L statement. It's your people and their families that get impacted by your decision, as well as your reputation, so assuming you care, you'd better get it right. There are many things to think about:
Reasons - for ordinary times
In normal times, you rarely let a quarter of your people go. Letting someone go is rather an individual matter. Before anything else, you need to do the root cause analysis. The cases of bad behavior, incompetence, or laziness are easy to handle, but they are rare unless you have a deficient hiring process. Ben Horowitz puts it bluntly in "The Hard Thing About Hard Things":
The reason you have to fire your executive is not because he sucks; it's because YOU suck… Therefore, the first step to properly firing an executive is figuring out why you hired the wrong person for your company.
He goes on to outline a variety of reasons, including poor job definition, hiring for lack of weaknesses, hiring for scale too soon, hiring for the generic position, hiring of someone with the wrong kind of ambition, failing to integrate your hire. Whatever the underlying reason, you have to be clear with yourself about it, as this analysis is the basis for the next steps, and most importantly, for your clear communication about the decision.
2. Reasons - for extraordinary times
I found Brian Chesky's letter exemplar in clarity explaining the drastic measures the company needed to take: he starts with statements on how the current crisis has hit the company and its revenue prospects, which measures they have already taken and why they need to go even further, guided by a more focused business strategy. He goes on to explain the key elements of this more focused strategy. And most importantly, he outlines the core principles used to approach reductions:
- Map all reductions to our future business strategy and the capabilities we will need.
- Do as much as we can for those who are impacted.
- Be unwavering in our commitment to diversity.
- Optimize for 1:1 communication for those impacted.
- Wait to communicate any decisions until all details are landed — transparency of only partial information can make matters worse."
3. Mapping of the new organization
Here again, Brian Chesky's letter is a good example of clearly outlining the process of making reductions and reshaping the organization:
Our process started with creating a more focused business strategy built on a sustainable cost model. We assessed how each team mapped to our new strategy, and we determined the size and shape of each team going forward. We then did a comprehensive review of every team member and made decisions based on critical skills, and how well those skills matched our future business needs.
The objective of the process is to have a new organizational structure with clear new reporting lines. It will facilitate your communication with the board, with the people who leave, and with the people who stay.
4. Informing the board
Whether it is about the firing of an executive or a large group of employees, the CEO has to inform the board and it can be tricky. Ben Horowitz suggests three goals with the board:
Get their support and understanding. Your root cause analysis and remediation plan have to be crystal clear.
Get their input and approval for the separation package.
Preserve the reputation of the people you let go.
5. Separation package
You have to have separation packages approved and ready. You have to iron out all the details BEFORE you communicate the decision. Again, the Airbnb letter is a good example of clarity on the separation package that includes severance, equity, healthcare, and job support.
B. Communicating & Executing the Let-Go Decision
I like Bill Campbell's advice quoted by Ben Horowitz when the latter decided to fire an executive:
You cannot let him keep his job, but you absolutely let him keep his respect.
Once the decision has been made and thoroughly prepared, you need to communicate and execute the decision as fast as possible.
121 Conversation
Arranging a 121 conversation between each leaving person and his/her manager is crucial. The endings are just as important as the beginnings. Denying a 121 conversation robs the person who is leaving the company of dignity and respect, and removes the possibility to leave on good terms.
Here are a few important pieces of advice I appreciated in Ben Horowitz's "The Hard Thing About Hard Things" and "Signal v Noise" blog:
Choose the right place. Never do it in a public space. Ensure privacy. If it's in the office, choose a conference room away from the team and ideally close to the exits.
Announce the decision straight away and be clear on the reasons. You worked on that while preparing the decision. Now it's time to communicate it without small talk and sugarcoating.
It's a decision, not a performance review or negotiation. You've made the decision and it's not up for debate. Use decisive language, replacing "I think" with "I have decided".
Outline separation package. And make it clear straight away that this is non-negotiable.
Don't say how bad you feel about this decision. The person you let go of feels much worse about it anyway. However, use this opportunity to thank the person.
Discuss and decide how to break the news to the team and the outside world. Be mindful of his/her preference and thoughtfully consider what is appropriate to disclose.
2. Company Communication
You’d better arrange a quick communication across the company - preferably within a couple of hours on the same day, in the following order":
The team of the leaving person, in particular, her direct reports because they are the most impacted. New reporting lines and next actions have to be clear.
The other members of the staff - especially important if firing an executive, because staff members will have to answer questions about it.
The rest of the company.
Once the communication is done, execution should follow promptly - as fast as possible according to the local regulations.
C. Surviving the Let-Go Decision
Even if the company and your manager handle the layoff in the clearest, most human, and compassionate way, and even if you know that it is not your fault, you will feel bad about it. And if you were not laid off correctly, you will likely feel mad about it. Being laid off is often a traumatic experience, especially if your job has been an integrally important part of your identity. Very often, being laid off is not just an individual financial crisis, but also an internal identity crisis. It's hard to cope with both. And yet, you have to deal with it, because, to quote a recent episode of Esther Perel's podcast "How's Work?",
How we leave a job is key to how we establish the next one. Being laid off is a traumatic ending that needs to be processed.
So how do you process it?
Recognize your emotions
You will likely go through the five "classical" emotional states that accompany a loss: denial, anger, depression, bargaining, and acceptance. You have to recognize them and accept that it will take time - days if not weeks or months - before you fully come to terms with the new reality.
2. Resist resentment & negativity
To quote Esther Perel again,
Resentment is like swallowing poison and waiting for the other person to die.
It may feel good sometimes to vent, to get it all out, but you should resist this temptation. The only thing resentment and negativity can help with is to make your layoff experience a dominant theme of your story. And it's not a good idea, especially if your industry is small.
3. Every new beginning starts with an ending
You will not be able to engage in transition and renewal if you do not deal with the endings. William Bridges in his book "Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes" states that most of us handle endings poorly. We either take them too seriously and confuse them with finality ("All is lost!") or fail to take them seriously enough and try to avoid them. You need to digest your past and appreciate the ending of the previous chapter, however, the pain of the layoff experience should not hide all the good things you take away from your role: the people you've worked with, the skills and talents you have developed, your accomplishments, your network. Bridges identify 5 aspects of the natural ending experience, 5 "dis-" states:
Disengagement: willingly or unwillingly you may find yourself disengaged from the activities, the relationships, the settings, and the roles that have been important to you.
Dismantling: it's a cognitive process parallel to 5 emotions accompanying a loss. You not only disengage from your old connection, you also take apart all the internal structures required by those connections.
Disidentification: this is the inner side of the disengagement process. It can be really distressing if your job was a large part of your identity. Your old identity may stand in the way of transition, transformation, and self-renewal, and you will have to transition into a new identity yet it will take time.
Disenchantment. While you have already separated from your old identity but have not defined the new one yet, you may float in a kind of limbo between two worlds. "The lesson of disenchantment begins with the discovery that if you want to change you must realize that some significant part of your old reality was in your head, not out there.. Disenchantment, whether it is a minor disappointment or a major shock, is the signal that things are moving into transition"
Disorientation. Our plans for the future will fall casualties of disorientation. Disorientation is meaningful, but it is not enjoyable.
Living through these 5 "Dis-" and making sense of them will take time and will not be enjoyable, but you have to tell yourself that these are important steps of the ending that will open a new beginning. Sometimes a symbolic ritual, for example, a burning ritual, can help visualize and accomplish the ending and create a clearer mental space for your new beginning.
4. The healing is entirely and absolutely up to you
I will end with a quote from Cheryl Strayed's "Tiny Beautiful Things":
Nobody will protect you from your suffering. You can't cry it away or eat it away or starve it away or walk it away or punch it away or even therapy it away. It's just there, and you have to survive it. You have to endure it. You have to live through it and love it and move on and be better for it and run as far as you can in the direction of your best and happiest dreams across the bridge that was built by your own desire to heal. Therapists and friends and other people can help you along the way, but the healing - the genuine healing, the actual real deal down-on-your-knees-in-the-mud change is entirely and absolutely up to you.
Art: Sarah Wilkins