I’m writing this for the young managers that haven’t received an MBA in management, but need to manage a team regardless.

I work with a lot of kind and agreeable people, that are also ambitious and want to get things done.

The problem with being agreeable at times is that when someone gets in the way, the agreeable person would let them do so for longer than necessary, because they generally don’t like conflict and would like to avoid it at any cost.

That causes all sorts of problems and unintended consequences.

Here’s why you should fire, and fire fast:

When someone is not doing their job right, the first thing to do is to tell them, and coach them into how they could/should do it better. I’m not here to discuss this.

I’m here to discuss what you should do immediately after realizing that the person is not doing so (either by not adding value, not listening to/acting on feedback, etc…)

You should immediately fire them.

You may think that you want to be empathetic and kind towards this person, and that you don’t want to cause them trouble or harm by letting them go. You may even subconsciously try to avoid making such decision just to avoid the unnecessary conflict and the uncomfortable conversation.

But by letting that person stay, you’re saying fuck you to everyone else.

You’re sending a signal that you can be complacent, incompetent, or an asshole, and still get rewarded by staying.

Imagine if you run a sports team (football/basketball) and one of your team members is not performing. They either are complacent in training, or they suck on the court, or they’re terrible to their team mates. That person is taking space in your team that someone else could fill. They are also making everyone’s life a bit shittier, and saying to those who have earned their place and put in the hard work that it doesn’t matter.

So when you decide to keep someone who’s not performing for too long, fuck you.

You’re being selfish.

You’re putting your worst player ahead of your best players.

You’re wasting valuable resources and untapped potential of everyone else.

You’re being ‘kind’ to one person, and being an asshole to the team/tribe.

Think about that next time you’re faced with this situation.

This is also a note to myself, as doing such things is never easy, and I’ve made the mistake of waiting too long more times than I could count.

Once you know, act.

Most of the time, you’d only beat yourself up for not doing it much sooner.

When you do it, of course, do it as gracefully as you can. I found this to be a good reference for doing so. I don’t claim to be perfect at this – there’s no such thing as a perfect firing. It always sucks. But you need to suck it up and do it.

Put the tribe/team first. Let your actions send the right signals. Act fast.