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Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

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Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#41

Post by tomrod »

perpetualpatzer wrote: post #32
tomrod wrote: post #3

Extremely important advice. Add to that: push upper management for change details, keep timelines and punctuality, define delivery, be up front on status and results, go home at a reasonable hour, take people to lunch or otherwise spend time with them, make your team appointments your number one priority, and praise publicly/coach privately.

Can you elaborate more on what you mean by "define delivery"?

If you're leading a software team, championing a clear definition of "done" for the team and business partners (usually collaboratively). Other teams have analogous targets. There are some teams where the "work" resists completion.

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#42

Post by micromacrofoot »

stevage wrote: post #14

It's weird, I have worked at many organisations - and at almost none of them did my manager have the ability to fire me. Is this an American thing? In most of these orgs, getting rid of someone is kind of hard work, usually involving a lot of HR. A manager would have much more luck getting you moved to a different team.

It depends on the organization whether or not it's hard internally, but technically it's very easy in America... most states are "at will" employment, which means you can be fired by an employer for no reason at any time.

So if someone within the organization has enough power they can fire people on a whim. I lived paycheck to paycheck throughout my childhood (with a single parent) and into my 20s and I've got a deeply embedded fear of losing my job at any moment.

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#43

Post by JohnFen »

My initial reaction was that's so obvious that surely it doesn't need to be said. Then I remembered the first two people I ever hired (who were friends) and that I made that joke within the first two weeks.

Nothing bad came of it, but it does show how easy it is to do.

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#44

Post by dfxm12 »

terramex wrote: post #11

As a more general advice - person in position of power should not joke about causing harm. Whether is is manager joking about firing employee, stronger person joking about beating up weaker one or parent joking about throwing child out of house when they misbehave. This kind of humor works only when it is coming from weaker position and even then only in certain situations.

The weird thing is, in my experience, a lot of managers don't see themselves as having power, or at least, aren't willing to use that power for others. Bad managers who don't go to bat for their reports, who joke about firing you while forgetting they can actually fire you, not helping advance your career in any way, etc.

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#46

Post by JohnFen »

stevage wrote: post #14

It's weird, I have worked at many organisations - and at almost none of them did my manager have the ability to fire me. Is this an American thing? In most of these orgs, getting rid of someone is kind of hard work, usually involving a lot of HR. A manager would have much more luck getting you moved to a different team.

I think it depends on the size of the organization. At a medium-to-large company, there will almost certainly be an established process involving HR.

At a small company, there is often no such thing as HR, and your manager often has the direct power to fire you.

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#47

Post by Wowfunhappy »

option_greek wrote: post #30

Don't Joke is a good advice in general for management and leadership. You have to assume people will read into most of the stuff you say as you are their primary information conduit for anything related to workplace.

While I certainly agree that jokes are dangerous, they're also a key way humans form social connections! I do think a sense of humor is important for building a rapport with colleagues.

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#48

Post by JohnFen »

arthur_sav wrote: post #7

What about quitting? I always joke about quitting

In my opinion, joking about quitting is about as good of an idea as joking about firing someone. I wouldn't even advise talking about quitting in any way unless you've already made the decision to quit (and even then, it's not a fantastic idea).

Re: Advice to New Managers: Don't Joke About Firing People (2020)

#49

Post by wccrawford »

Likewise, don't attempt to comfort people about their position when you don't actually know how likely they are to get fired.

I knew someone who had done this and the person was fired that day.

I'm sure he believed it, too, or he wouldn't have said it. But he apparently didn't have all the facts. He regrets saying it and told the story a few times while I worked with him.

On the flip side, I worked with someone who was doing poorly in their job (after having done better in the past) and tried to help them keep their job.

The longer it stretched on, the worse they did.

In the end, they lost their job and I found out afterwards that they thought we were attempting to gather enough data to fire them, when in reality there were a few of us that were actively trying to help them keep it, and even management didn't want them gone, they just wanted them to perform adequately again.

I often wonder if I should have been clear about the risk to their job, or if that would just have been seen as a threat instead. At this point, I don't think I'd do anything different.

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