Plus one: How to know when to give up on someone
Published on May 4, 2021
In the last couple weeks, a couple principals asked me, “How do I know when to work with someone and when to wish them well?” In other words, “How do I know when to fire someone?”
Of course, in education, it’s usually about whether to non-retain someone more often than firing.
One of the principals asked me, “How many chances should I give that person?”
I responded, “However many chances you would want, plus one.”
This is a good barometer. In some situations, I wish they didn’t give me another chance, because I was miserable and hated my work. In other situations, I felt that I could have done better if I had another chance.
Sometimes, you just need one chance. I worked with someone who was using drugs. He showed up to work under the influence. He was my coworker, not a direct report, and there wasn’t much for me to do, but I really wanted to fire him because he put me and everyone else in danger. If I were to show up under the influence to that particular job, I would want to be fired on the spot.
In another situation, I had a teacher who was inappropriate with kids. I gave her another chance and communicated clearly with her that what she was doing wasn’t right. She rose to the challenge to be better, and I never had another issue with her.
A very real challenge we face is that we are afraid of being sued for disciplining an employee or letting an employee go. This fear is rampant. It prevents us from making the right decision for the situation. I’m certainly not an attorney, but you must have these difficult conversations anyway. You’ve got to dot your i’s and cross your t’s, but you still have to have the conversations.
When we are working with kids, it is imperative to do what is right by them, even if it means being uncomfortable.
I had a teacher who would mock students, ignore them, and spend time on the phone with a spouse instead of serving kids. Getting her out of the classroom was the right thing to do, even though it meant that he retained his salary on appeal. That’s frustrating in a way, but I can sleep soundly at night knowing that he wasn’t harming the kids and they had a better teacher to serve them.
From that podcast episode, they used the metaphor of sitting on either side of the table or standing as an impartial judge was very powerful. Definitely worth a listen.
What things do you do to help you know when to “give up” or keep working with a teacher?
[1] Really, we need to do a better job of explaining the tough conversations we need to have. In the podcast I mentioned, Brendan took the easy route and used someone tapping a pencil as a frame for having a hard conversation. Come on, man. That’s weak. We need you to discuss the really challenging issues. Not wearing deodorant or tapping a pen. Talk about the real issues.
We need to discuss the real issues that we face, and not hide behind the weak examples. If there really is an issue, we need to know how to address it. Tapping a pencil is not the kind of conversation people need help with! It just isn’t.