Dear Crucial Skills,
What advice can you give to a group after someone popular has been let go and there is dissent and frustration? I am not permitted to share the reasons for the decision to let this employee go, and it wasn’t my decision to make, but how do I help my team deal with this and get back to work?
Signed,
Moving On
Dear Moving On,
There are two reactions we have when someone we care about suddenly disappears from the workplace. First, we grieve losing them. And second, we wonder if it could happen to us. If you want to help your team, you’ll need to appropriately address both concerns.
The best (and only) tool you have available is dialogue. It’s tricky because you want to have an open and honest conversation, and yet you’re limited in how open you can be. Fortunately, you’re dealing with adults capable of understanding those limitations.
Here’s a process you might use in a team meeting. I’ll refer to your colleague as Pat.
Set the agenda and boundaries. “I know there are many questions and feelings about Pat’s departure. I want to give everyone a chance to express anything they’d like about the situation. I care about your concerns and have feelings of my own as well. I hope you can understand that it’s inappropriate for me to answer questions about Pat specifically. However, I am happy to answer questions about HR policies.”
Offer honest feelings and invite others to share theirs. At this point, if you have genuine feelings of appreciation for Pat, share them. Don’t be disingenuous. If your feelings are mixed, simply invite others to share how they’re feeling about the situation. You needn’t either agree or disagree. Simply validate their feelings to show that you care about how they’re feeling while reaffirming the boundary to avoid implications that you’re subtly referring to Pat. For example, if someone says, “The company had no right to fire Pat like that!” Try to empathize with their anger even if you don’t agree with it. Validate them without sliding into the controversy: “You think what’s going on with Pat is unjust. As I said, it’s improper for me to discuss Pat’s situation. But I’m sorry this is so upsetting to you.” Such a comment may not satisfy your colleague. They might be hoping to either provoke you into disclosing details or expecting you to agree with their view. Your goal in this conversation is not to convince them that you or the company are right. It’s just to demonstrate that you care enough to listen to their feelings.
Give general reassurance about due process. After all have had the chance to share, offer general statements of reassurance like the following: “I want to say some things about HR policy to reassure you that no one here need be concerned about suddenly being dismissed. I don’t say this in reference to Pat’s departure, but only because I get the feeling some might be worried in that way.” Describe your HR policy in a way that offers a sense of due process to those who might be nervous.
Close with compassion. “I suspect this discussion may not have given you everything you wanted. I just hope it helps you know I care about your thoughts and feelings.”
One of the greatest challenges of leadership is being okay with people not being okay with you. This can require greater emotional maturity and independence than we sometimes have. These are strengths that are developed by these very demands, not summoned in advance.
Warmly,
Joseph
This is a very good article and pertinent guidance in handling sensitive employee issues. I have two suggestions for altering the feedback.
1.) When someone says it was not their decision, they are deflecting and removing all authority they have in managing and leading their team. If it was a member outside their team, then that is certainly different.
2.) I don’t agree that we should be referring to policy as HR Policy. While it may be administered by HR, they are company policies and as leaders, we should be able to explain company policies or direct employees to those that are more familiar. By using terms such as HR Policy, it implies that “I didn’t write that” and could be interpreted that they don’t agree with “HR Policy.”
I agree with Jay’s two points, and I’m glad he took the time to make them. I recall an abrupt dismissal of a very respected manager. I believe she was “let go” because she advocated for more enlightened approaches and was not always in synchrony with “the party line”. Our department employees were not concerned at all about the same thing happening to us. We were simply appalled because we believed the firing was very unjust. We wrote a letter requesting an explanation as to why our manager was fired. Someone did come and give us “amtssprache” or “office speak”. None of us were satisfied. Ultimately, it seems to be a matter of values differences.
Amtssprache is described by Marshall Rosenberg, founder of nonviolent communication. He says, “In Hannah Arendt’s book, “Eichmann in Jerusalem,” Eichmann was asked, “Was it difficult for you to send these tens of thousands of people to their death?” And Eichmann answered very candidly, “To tell you the truth, it was easy. Our language made it easy.”
His interviewer asked what that language was, and Eichmann said, “My fellow officers and I coined our own name for our language. We called it amtssprache – ‘office talk.'” When asked for examples, Eichmann said, “It’s basically a language in which you deny responsibility for your actions. So if anybody says, ‘Why did you do it?’ you say, ‘I had to.’ ‘Why did you have to?’ ‘Superiors’ orders. Company policy. It’s the law.'”
There’s no force on Earth that can make us do anything that we don’t choose to do, though we may not always like the choices that we’re aware of.
Wow.
I was unaware of that aspect of the Holocaust.
It reminds me of a survivor that I heard speak decades ago. She began by saying, “When I was a kid, the word ‘Jew’ meant ‘rat’.”
I think your comments and those of Helene come down to psychological safety (PS) in the workplace. I usually think about PS as regarding employee safety, but I see now that managers also have PS concerns — like when “Moving On” says that he’s “not permitted to share the reasons.” I assume b/c “management” wants to make sure that they can’t be sued. How do we make it safe for managers, especially middle managers, to be candid?
Thank you Joseph, Mary and Helene — you’ve given me something significant to think about.
When a company lets someone who’s perfectly acceptable go because their new boss doesn’t like them, the company loses my trust. If a company lets a lot of people go at once they lose my trust. When a company puts profit first at the expense of people who have been loyal to them, they deserve to lose our respect and trust.
The idea of a meeting to give employees an opportunity to express their feeling is going to be mostly crickets. People will not trust them enough to speak up when they’re given platitudes and everything they say will be passed up or put on their record.
That is a very good point. If this manager wants to have a genuine discussion with their team, they would need to explicitly set confidentiality for participants as part of the ground rules at the outset, along with the limits of the conversation with respect to Pat’s right to privacy.