7 min read · The Pillars I Stand On
I was a manager in my late twenties and I was done with an employee. Completely done. Same mistakes. Same conversations. Same results. My hands were thrown up and I was already drafting the write-up in my head. This wasn’t the sharp kind of frustration. It was the dull kind. The kind that makes you stop asking questions and start making verdicts.
I brought it to my dad. Not for permission. I needed to vent.
He didn’t give me that. He gave me something harder.
What have you given him to succeed with? Have you been clear about what you expect? Does he understand what happens if this happens again?
I didn’t have clean answers. That was exactly his point.
He wasn’t interested in what the person had done wrong. He was interested in what the situation was actually made of. What had been given, what had been explained, what had been assumed. Frustration wasn’t going to get us anywhere honest.
He didn’t hand me the answer I wanted to hear. He handed me a mirror.
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The question he put in my head has stuck with me. I think back to our conversation when I’m in a similar situation, before I let myself enter a verdict. Not what did he do wrong, but what did I actually give him to help him succeed? Did I set him up for success, did I set the expectation clearly, and have I shown him what success looks like?
I’ve walked out of conversations convinced we were on the same page. I thought I had been clear. Then three weeks later I found out we weren’t talking about the same thing at all. Showing is different. You put the picture in front of them before you hold them accountable. That’s not lowering the bar. It’s showing them what the standard looks like before expecting them to meet it.
Once the bar is set, if something goes wrong afterward, you sit down again, one on one. Not corrective action, but an honest conversation about what happened, why it happened, and what must change going forward. It is a good idea to document this conversation, not for HR, but for both of you, so the expectation is clear. Neither of you walks out expecting different things. Before you have this conversation, you owe yourself a look inward. You cannot walk into this conversation with frustration leading the way. You must be open to the possibility that the problem points back at you.
I usually lead with this question.
Help me understand what went wrong, because when we left our last conversation we were on the same page.
You are not walking in to deliver a verdict. You are walking in trying to understand what happened between the moment you both agreed you were on the same page and this moment you weren’t. If you ask it like this, with honesty, one of two things happens. Either something you said didn’t land the way you thought it did, in which case the failure is partly yours and you can own it and fix it. Or there was no misunderstanding at all. You both knew exactly what was expected. The accountability finds its place not because you forced it but because an honest question left no place to hide.
If it happens again, you go back to the conversation. Not the frustration. Same mirror, same question. Help me understand what went wrong, because when we left our last conversation we were on the same page.
If it happens a third time, it becomes formal. Now it’s in writing. Now it follows them. Not because you’re building a case, even though you are, but because a record needs to exist for both of you.
By the fourth time, something happens that most leaders never get to experience. The final termination conversation isn’t hard. Because they already know. I know. You don’t need to explain it. This is on me. I know you have to do this. This only happens when you’ve checked yourself honestly at every step along the way. You didn’t ambush them. You brought them in each time to have an honest conversation. By the end they own it, not because you made them, but because you gave them no reason not to. And you walk away clean. Not because you don’t care, but because you looked in the mirror before you looked at them, every step of the way.
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I have always believed that most people come to work because they want to do a good job. Most people want to be told they’re doing well. Most people want to matter, some don’t, that’s okay, that’s reality. But I refuse to let those exceptions become the assumption I carry into a room. Because if someone loses their job and the honest answer is that the expectation was never clear, they were told the standard and never shown it, and I wasn’t honest enough to see that before the verdict landed, I will carry that. I am not willing to do that to them or myself, knowing I could have looked harder and didn’t.
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There was an engineer my counterpart wanted to let go during a period when we needed to make cuts. The engineer had admitted to me privately that this type of work wasn’t in his wheelhouse. I had done what I could to help him, but it wasn’t enough. The easy call was to move on. The employee’s eagerness was there. The desire to be good was visible even when the results weren’t. I paused and asked leadership if there was another door. There was. We found him a different position. I talked to his new manager before he arrived and told them what I had seen, and why I believed he deserved the shot. He ended up shining for us. He runs an entire program now.
Sometimes the answer isn’t a better process. Sometimes it’s a different door. But you don’t find that out by accepting someone else’s snap judgment. You find it by pausing long enough to ask if there’s something else we can do for this person.
There was another similar situation, a manager who reported to me, someone who gets results, someone I respect, who was ready to cut an engineer loose. He was done with him. The behavior wasn’t changing and his patience was gone.
I slowed him down.
What tools have we given him? Have we sat with him and actually showed him the way? Not told him what we expected but shown him what it looked like when it was done right?
The engineer was overwhelmed. He had been told, not shown. We took the time and showed him what the expectation actually looked like, what steps to take to achieve success. Slowed it down enough that he could see it in action. Then the lightbulb turned on. His output changed and he became one of our best engineers. He’s been promoted several times since. He needed an honest conversation and a picture of what success looked like. That was it.
That manager now runs his own version of this process. When someone on his team isn’t performing, he doesn’t reach for the verdict first. He pauses. He looks inward and assesses his part in the process. Same question my dad asked me, just in his own words now. Then he moves.
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Before the next hard conversation. Before you reach for the form. Before you throw your hands up and say you’re done.
Stop. Back up. Take a look in the mirror.
Ask yourself what you actually gave them. Did you tell them or did you show them? Was the expectation clear or did it only feel that way from where you were standing. Is this solely their failure or do you play a part in this too?
If you should find yourself having this conversation multiple times, go back to the conversation, not the frustration. Help me understand what went wrong, because when we left our last conversation we were on the same page.
Ask it like you mean it. Ask it like the answer might point back at you.
Because sometimes it will.