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What if you could never fire anyone?

by | Aug 17, 2018 | Open Leadership, Response-ability, Self-Knowledge, Smashing Paradigms

you are fired

Now, what if you could never fire anybody in your organisation, every, under any circumstances?

What would you do differently?

This is more than a thought experiment, I am seriously asking you to consider this question.

More and more organisations are fully or at least mostly adopting a “no fire” policy. They each have sound reasoning for this and have underpinned this with well thought out philosophies, strategies and implementation.

From my own experience, a few years ago I was asked to take on the role of CEO of an international business coaching organisation that, from day one, had never fired anyone. I learned much from that time.

Let us explore this idea, then, and I will highlight and elaborate on three key points that are key for leaders considering this question.

Culture is Paramount

Hire Slowly

(Self-)Responsibility and Response-ability

So, let us explore these three points in order.

Culture is Paramount.

The other day I posted “Be rid of brilliant jerks“, highlighting from Netflix their absolute clarity on the culture they have and how it permeates everything they do. Netflix is a high-performance culture, unapologetic about it, yet they are not jerks about that.

Netflix is instead, absolutely focussed on their culture being integrated through everything they do, As it says front and centre on their culture page:

“Real Values – Many companies have value statements, but often these written values are vague and ignored.”

Amen ! Culture is not soft, it is the hardest measure of all. Values are non-negotiable.

Over many years of supporting organisations with clarity and deep integration of their culture, I encourage them to have no more than three or four values.

That said, I’m always willing to learn (to adopt a growth mindset!) and here are Netflix’ ten values. For more on them, again read their culture page.

  • Judgment
  • Communication
  • Curiosity
  • Courage
  • Passion
  • Selflessness
  • Innovation
  • Inclusion
  • Integrity
  • Impact

I’ll come back to a few these in my last point below on Responsibility.

Hire slowly

Spire is a satellite data company with operations in five countries.

Three years ago, at the time three years into their journey, The Guardian interviewed their founder, Peter Platzer, and the article began:

“If you’ve been hired by the nanosatellite and data startup Spire, chances are you will never be fired.”

Having committed to a “no fire” policy, Platzer, as someone who has been a career coach for his alma mater, Harvard, for over 15 years, focusses heavily on the culture of Spire from the beginning, and the article also notes:

““It is literally easier to get into Harvard than it is to get into Spire”

The business I led didn’t even call it hiring, we called it “matching” and it could take literally months for both potential new recruit and the organisation to be fully clear on “fit” before moving on to confirming someone joined. We had several internal learning conferences each year, and at every one I attended, there were always several people present who were introduced as “matching”. Everyone knew that there was a mutual assessment going on the whole time.

Oh, and some did question why we would allow people in “matching” to be fully participative in internal learning conferences where many frank discussions were had. Simply, the core values of the business were:

  • Open – Full Participation
  • Honest – No Withhold
  • Fair – No judgment

With such values, it always felt natural to have “matching” people fully involved at conferences.

Oh, as an aside, in the Cayman team (never more than six full-time people in our boutique office) we always reserved at least two full days per year to review, and re-engage with our values and purpose and what it meant to us.

The Spire Careers and Culture pages highlight such elements as :

  • A focus on the intrinsic motivators of Purpose, Mastery, Autonomy as brilliantly articulated by Dan Pink in his book “Drive” (see his brilliant talk, animated by the RSA here , probably the learning tool I have recommended more than any other in the last decade!)
  • The value of coaching (and their employees are supported with at least quarterly coaching discussions). Tell me, how often do you provide your people with coaching resources?
  • A focus on three areas. Being self-driven and goal-oriented. Collaboration. High Emotional Quotient
  • I also highlight this one line under the word Collaboration. “Everyone relies on each other to and is responsible to one another.”

So, Culture is Paramount, and hiring slowly is deeply linked to a huge focus on a culture that is integrated, embedded and permeates everything you do.

I hope that so far you are seeing value both in considering the idea of “no fire” and also beginning to see the building blocks necessary to make it work.

Now to the third point, the fulcrum upon which a successful “no fire” policy rests.

(Self-)Responsibility and Response-ability

So, now to the “secret sauce” of having a full or partial “no-fire policy.

Where does responsibility sit in your organisation?

First, the more it is devolved to the individual to be self-responsible, where you trust rather than control your people, the more likely it is that you will never have to fire them. Instead, they will leave of their own accord. In the business I led, we called it “self-selection”, people who didn’t fit culturally and/or weren’t delivering commercially would “self-select” out. In all my time there, we still never fired a single person worldwide.

To use the examples above:

  • Look back at Netflix’ values, consider values words like Judgment, Communication, Integrity, Selflessness. Live those in everything you do so that if you feel you don’t fit, you ask for support, and ultimately if you are being self-responsible, then if you are still not performing, you leave of your own accord.
  • Look at Spire. If you aren’t feeling intrinsically movivated by your work, you will (living their values) communicate with others. If you need support, you talk to a coach (they provide that). Remember also their focus on collaboration, the line “Everyone relies on each other to and is responsible to one another.” Add all of these together and it is clear to me that any need to fire somebody in an organisation that lives such commitments is a failure of leadership, not of the individual.

If your people are self-responsible and everything you do is geared to supporting that culturally and structurally, you have a platform under which you will never need to fire anyone.

Second, the other layer to this. Are your people “response-able”, are they able to respond?

This is nuanced and is about behaviour and beliefs as much as capability, skills, expertise. To explain, then, I go back to my favourite book of all time, and one I have referenced numerous times in my writings here on this site, Viktor Frankl’s “Man’s Search for Meaning”.

A passage from my article on the book:

One of the core themes in the book is so relevant to leaders. I frame it as “are you “response-able””. Frankl writes :

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

and

“The one thing you can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what you do to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.”

I’ve heard leaders argue that they are under stress, they have too much to do, that others don’t understand what it is like. The first half of Frankl’s book tells his story of surviving in a Nazi concentration camp. He was able to respond.

Focus unremittingly on Self-Responsibility and Response-Ability and watch the power of this for your organisation !

I’ve lived it, I’ve taught it, I’ve supported leaders integrate it into their organisations. Every single time it has delivered enormous value both commercially and at a human level. After all, humans are the core assets of any business. They will always be most productive when they feel intrinsically motivated, empowered, resourceful..and, however we express it, responsible !

So, to close… I’d love to talk to anybody who reads this about whether or not they feel they could consider a no-fire policy (totally or in large part).