Why Does HR Make It So Hard To Fire People? - Part 2

Summary

Manager Tools Podcast
Episode: “Why Does HR Make It So Hard To Fire People? – Part 2”
Date: February 23, 2026
Hosts: Sarah and Mark

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Sarah and Mark continue their exploration of a common management frustration: Why does HR make firing employees so difficult? They debunk the persistent myth that HR arbitrarily blocks terminations, emphasizing that the real barrier is usually the manager’s failure to document and communicate employee performance issues using behavioral evidence. The conversation focuses on why behavioral documentation is critical, how managers should approach progressive discipline, and why effective use of foundational management tools not only protects the organization but also creates fair processes for employees and managers alike.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From Impressions to Evidence: The Manager’s Mistake (01:03–05:45)

• Subjectivity vs. Objectivity:

  • Managers tend to approach HR with feelings, impressions, and stories (“I just don’t like him.” “He has a bad attitude.” – [01:03] B), rather than documented behaviors.
  • Poor performance builds frustration over months, culminating in a panicked, underprepared call for HR to “help me fire her.”

• The Real HR Role:

  • HR isn’t against termination; they’re tasked with defending the organization’s standards.
  • Mark: “HR is not naturally, reflexively against termination, and they should not be... They know some employees are going to fail. They know their role in those situations when, in fact, termination is the appropriate answer.” ([02:25] B)

2. Proof is Required: Standards for Termination (05:45–08:42)

• Documentation Demands:
  • HR asks for behavioral evidence: What did the employee do? What did the manager do? What documentation exists?
  • Mark: “HR responds with something like, look, dude, that is not enough. … We need proof of failure. You’re telling me what you don’t like about him. That won’t hold up in court.” ([05:45] B)
• Legal Risks:
  • The legal team requires “an ironclad case” to protect against lawsuits, settlements, and reputational risk.

3. What Counts as Documentation? (08:42–11:35)

• Contemporaneous Notes:

  • Document issues soon after they occur—could be as simple as a handwritten note or a sticky on a weekly one-on-one form.
  • Mark: “It doesn’t have to be fancy, it doesn’t have to be typed, it doesn’t have to be sent to anybody.” ([07:55] B)

• Courtroom Wins:

  • Mark recounts winning wrongful termination cases by presenting consistent, contemporaneous documentation.
  • Mark: “We showed all the one-on-one forms with all the negative and positive feedback, and the judge looked at the lawyers and said, ‘case dismissed.’” ([11:25] B)

4. The Spiral of Managerial Frustration and Office Myths (12:09–16:13)

• Realization and Rumor-Building:
  • Managers realize that, lacking documentation, they must now spend months properly recording performance before being able to fire someone.
  • Attempts to shift blame (“HR won’t let you fire anyone around here!”) result in damaging, false office folklore.
  • Sarah: “It’s the manager blaming HR unfairly for their own failure to do their job.” ([15:21] A)
  • Mark & Sarah: “Shame on us.” ([16:11] B; [16:13] A)

5. The Right Way to Fire Someone (17:08–31:38)

• Manager Tools Trinity:
  • Consistent one-on-ones, feedback (positive & negative), coaching, and delegation make later terminations straightforward and defensible.

Key Steps:

• Build Trust First:
  • Sarah: “Don’t try giving feedback, let alone negative feedback, which is called for in this situation, unless you’ve first built trust. … Because you’re their manager, they inherently don’t trust you.” ([19:55] A)
• Take Contemporaneous Notes:
  • Note-taking during one-on-ones is essential. Even a few comments each week over months creates a “very powerful contemporaneous communications case for termination.” ([21:22] B)
• Use the Feedback Model:
  • Short, specific, behavior-focused feedback—make a quick note each time.
  • Mark: “Feedback is not about correcting or praising. Feedback is about encouraging future positive behavior.” ([22:07] B)
• Escalate with Systemic Feedback and Coaching:
  • For repeated issues, escalate to systemic feedback or a performance improvement plan (PIP).
  • PIPs are genuinely aimed at helping employees improve; they’re not just about building a termination case.
  • Sarah: “The purpose of a performance improvement plan isn’t just to collect a bunch of information to support the case for firing. It’s to improve a person’s performance so that firing is never necessary.” ([28:48] A)

6. Case Study Reference & Resources (30:38–31:38):

• The Corky Story:
  • Highly regarded example from a former manager (now with Manager Tools) who successfully applied all recommended steps to terminate an underperformer with robust documentation—demonstrating that HR is compelled to act when properly presented with evidence.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “HR is not reflexively against termination as a general rule… This is a managerial problem, not an HR problem.” — Mark ([01:42] B)
• “What HR will say is, we need some of those records to be about those repeated, many repeated conversations you had… and the steps you took to help them succeed.” — Mark ([11:39] B)
• “HR’s standard is the organization’s standard.” — Sarah ([05:06] A)
• “Shame on us managers for perpetuating an incorrect, corrosive myth because of our own failings.” — Sarah ([16:11] A)
• “Trust is not part of the deal. So… you’ve got to take notes in your one-on-ones every week, jotting down notes.” — Sarah ([20:47] A)
• “Feedback is not about correcting. Feedback is not about praising. Feedback is about encouraging. I say again, encouraging future positive behavior.” — Mark ([22:07] B)
• “The myth that HR won’t let you fire anybody around here was started and is sustained by managers who didn’t do their job and want to blame HR for it. HR is right, the managers are wrong. And we as managers who know better ought to do better by our HR counterparts.” — Sarah ([32:50] A)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 01:03 — Differences between behavioral evidence and impressions
• 02:25 — Modern vs. traditional HR attitudes towards termination
• 05:45 — HR’s requirements for proof and legal protection
• 08:42 — Mark’s courtroom experiences with documentation
• 12:09 — The manager’s realization and cycle of frustration
• 15:21 — The damaging myth that “HR won’t let you fire anyone”
• 17:08 — How to fire someone the right way: Overview
• 19:55 — Why trust-building is essential before feedback
• 22:07 — Feedback model specifics for effective performance management
• 26:13 — Systemic feedback and escalation tools
• 28:48 — Performance improvement plans: intent and effectiveness
• 30:38 — Reference to the Corky Story, a model case study
• 32:50 — Final clarity: HR’s true stance; the origin of the myth

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Final Thoughts

Sarah and Mark drive home that the claim “HR makes it too hard to fire people” is largely the result of managerial shortcomings in documentation and feedback. When managers consistently use the established tools—especially one-on-one meetings, feedback, coaching, and note-taking—they not only build stronger teams but also have everything needed should termination be the only option.

The episode closes with a call for managers to take responsibility for their role, leave behind damaging myths, and respect HR’s proper function as stewards of the organization’s standards.

“Be a professional colleague. A good colleague.” — Mark ([33:13] B)

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For Further Listening / Reading

• Manager Tools Trinity resources (One-on-ones, Feedback, Coaching, Delegation)
• Systemic Feedback Models
• Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) Guidance
• The Corky Story episode for a model case study

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This summary captures all key insights and guidance from the episode, with direct attributions and timestamps to provide context for managers seeking actionable steps and perspective.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to Manager Tools. This is Sarah and I'm Mark. Today's podcast why does HR make it so hard to fire people?

[B]

Part 2 of 2 the questions this cast answers are, why can't I fire someone? Why does HR prohibit me from firing someone? And how can I fire someone?

[A]

If you want answers to these questions and more, keep listening. Great managers adapt, while average ones don't. The MTDISC assessment gives you the insights into how your team works best so you can communicate, delegate, and coach more effectively. Know your team, get clarity fast. Learn more by visiting us at manager-tools.com dispatch picking up from last week, we ended up talking about behaviors and how the collection of individual behaviors as opposed to impressions is very, very necessary.

[B]

I just don't like him. He's got a bad attitude. Nobody else likes him on the team. He has no friends. Oh, my God, I've heard it all.

[A]

Exactly. And folks, we mentioned this last time. I mean, the behaviors exist, although we feel them in terms of impressions. And those impressions, those feelings get us increasingly frustrated by that performance that we're seeing or we're not seeing and wish we were seeing more of. And what happens then is after months of poor performance, the manager goes to HR and says, you have to help me fire her. She is not doing her job.

[B]

Yeah. And by the way, folks, you should know at this moment, HR is not actually. This is not true of this moment. It's true all the time. HR is not reflexively against termination as a general rule. Some are okay. Some have drank the Kool Aid and believe that their job is to just say no to termination to protect the employee. Yeah, they are on the other side. Yeah, there's a. There's a sense that a lot of people in HR now believe that they're kind of a quasi union for employees and as opposed to actually the people responsible for the systems and processes that allow human flourishing within the organization. And that is the other side of the rumor that managers produce or communicate, which is HR won't let you fire anybody when the person believes, my job is to keep people from firing people. And that is a relatively modern instance. 20 years ago, 25, 30 years ago, that didn't exist. But it's gotten so bad that now there are some in HR who have gotten defensive about managers always saying, you can't fire somebody. But again, we stand by our guidance that this is a managerial problem, not an HR problem. HR is not naturally, reflexively against termination, and they should not be. They understand that some employees are going to fail. They know they're not. We're not. We're not perfect at hiring. And even if we were perfect at hiring, jobs change. Because as Drucker teaches, two things organizations have to do is marketing and innovation. They know their role in those situations, when in fact termination is the appropriate answer. And most HR people, the vast majority, will do an excellent job supporting the manager's intentions if the intentions are supported by proof. Slash facts. Slash behaviors. Over time.

[A]

Over time, yes. But it's at this point that HR must uphold the organization's standards irrespective of whether or not, as we will see, the manager has done their yes. Expectations. HR does the right thing and starts asking questions. They don't reflexively say no. The questions they ask tend to be things like describe the failure performance or what behaviors have you engaged in to improve their performance? Or what documentation do you have to support this significant action? So they start asking about behaviors.

[B]

Yeah, reasonable. This is all reasonable.

[A]

What has the employee done? What have you done? And what documentation have you to support the fact that these behaviors have occurred and you have communicated these behaviors?

[B]

Yeah, and this is where it all starts to fall apart. This is where the story gets spicy and it makes for gossip. Most managers respond. Sarah mentioned this earlier with impressions, feelings, opinions, frustrations, stories, and in most cases, an utter lack of behavioral proof for the performance failure.

[A]

And folks, again, remember, we're not saying here the employee hasn't earned a termination. They might have earned determination. That's not even being discussed or disputed at all here. The manager certainly thinks they've earned it, else they'd not be here having this conversation with HR right now. But remember, HR's standard is the organization's standard. And the majority of the time when managers go to HR to have this conversation, the manager themself has not met the organization standard for firing an employee.

[B]

And HR knows it because they know the standards. They get trained on it. And so HR responds with something like, look, dude, that is not enough. I'm sorry. I get it. I see what you're saying. But we need proof of failure. You're telling me what you don't like about him. That's an example of one. But that won't hold up in court if we get sued for wrongful termination. And look, I can understand why you feel this way. I would feel that way too if I were in your shoes. I think this requires termination, or certainly it's a reasonable thing to come to a conclusion about. But we have an obligation to meet a higher standard when we consider terminating somebody's employment. I know if I go to our gc, our general counsel, our chief legal officer, depending upon the size of the company and how many stupid people they have in the C suite, or our HR legal advisor, they're going to want an ironclad case. Now by the way, ironclad is really, really hard. And the standard, it will be burdensome, believe me. But you know, it could be a half a million dollar verdict against the company and the company may have to go to court or what they're going to have to do is rather than go to court and incur a bunch of fees, they're going to have to make a settlement and then that person feels like they can tell all their friends even though there will be a non disclosure. Yeah, I sued and won. Well you didn't win. We just settled because it's too expensive to pursue a full on court case. So HR knowing that they have an obligation, a legitimate appropriate obligation that the legal team in your firm has taught them about relative to the risk of adjudication a lawsuit, they're going to ask you for documentation. And it can't just be a long memo you wrote tonight or the last night. Okay. It has to be contemporaneous, for which I thank my good friend Rebecca. Happening very near that means happening very near the time of the failure or the behavior. It doesn't have to be simultaneous. You could watch someone miss a deadline for a 10:00pm document drop and then at 2:00 clock write a note to yourself saying at 10:00am this morning Robert Smith didn't meet the deadline, hit 31 documents. I had to go find it. I didn't get the documents until 30. So overall the 250 documents that were in the document drop could not be transmitted to the customer appropriately until we got all of his documents in. And then you might also add, and I gave him negative feedback for it. And by the way, it doesn't have to be fancy, it doesn't have to be typed, it doesn't have to be sent to anybody.

[A]

Just written down by your hand.

[B]

Yeah, handwritten. I've told people this before. I have actually testified in seven wrongful termination lawsuits to companies that I was advising. And because I was advising about 1 on ones and feedback and so on, I was called mistakenly by the plaintiff's attorney to testify regarding the methods that I had taught people about one on ones and feedback because this manager had done one on ones and feedback. It was a solid case. And by the way, we've won all seven of them, all the court Cases. And I don't like testifying, but I'll do it. And if I do it, I'm going to be good at it. But in the case, I actually, in one case held up a one on one form that was a Manager Tools classic one on one form. It had lines across it. Some people prefer no lines whatever. But in the course of a week, what this manager would do is the direct would do good or bad things and he would write minus F or plus F on one of those one by one inch little yellow sticky notes. And he would stick them on the front of his one on one notebook for that person. And then when he delivered the one on one feedback, he would stick it on that one on one document. And we xeroxed it, we photocopied it, and I held it up in court and I talked about this person has been doing one on ones for this person for, you know, a year and a half. So he has like 75 one on ones. And we showed all the one on one forms with all the negative and positive feedback and so on. And then I showed one that had like 13 yellow stickies. Actually, it's probably closer to nine or 10, but I remember it looked like a lot. And the reason it was distinctive was because if you photocopy something with a yellow sticky on the top of it, it stays yellow. No, no, no, it doesn't. It won't stay yellow on a black on a cheap copier. But what happens is the outline of the, the sticky covers up the lines. And so you don't see the lines, you just see these little notes all over the place that when you photocopy it, it's very clearly a piece of paper with a whole bunch of sticky notes on it. And the judge said to me, well, what is that? I said, every single one of these little yellow stickies, if you can see here. And then they put it on the screen for everyone in the courtroom to see. This is every single time this manager this particular week had given this person either negative feedback during the one on one or at some previous time during the one on one. And the judge says, well, how many are there? I said, well, there are nine. And he said, are they all? I think he said something like, are they all positive or they're negative? And I said, there's one positive, met a deadline or something like that. And there are eight negative, let's say. And he said, how many of these are there? I said, several hundred, your honor. And the judge looked at the plaintiff and looked at the lawyer. That I was working with the corporate counsel and said, case dismissed. You know, there was hundreds of instances of actual communication to the direct report.

[A]

And not just communication. Documentation about communication.

[B]

Yeah. Contemporaneous note taking. So what HR will say is, we need some of those records to be about those repeated, many repeated conversations you had with this employee and their performance. Failure. Multiple. It could have multiple factors. It could have singular factors, whatever. And the steps you took to help them succeed. Coaching, negative feedback. Positive feedback. Delegation, potentially training. All those kinds of things. Partnering with somebody else, whatever.

[A]

Yeah. And so the manager has now gone to HR with feelings and not behaviors HR has rightly responded with. We need more than that. Where's all this other information? And at this point, the amateurish manager becomes even more frustrated. Now, remember, a manager never would have gone to HR if they were not frustrated to begin with. So now it's. It's frustration stacked on top of frustration. And why? Because they're suddenly realizing, yeah, and this is it. That they're not gonna get to fire the person they know needs to be fired.

[B]

And hr, probably quietly, off the record, would agree with them.

[A]

Right, Exactly. I mean, HRs probably like, I get it. Yeah, but you don't have enough.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And the manager, I mean, they went there for help. They expected to be helped, not hindered, not said, well, where's all this other stuff? You need this, too. The manager in this moment realizes they don't have contemporaneous notes, any notes at all, frankly. And they know they can't recreate contemporaneous notes after the fact. Which means, ultimately, what they're realizing in that moment is that in order to fire this person who has already been failing for a full six months, they need to spend another six months doing all the work that is necessary to support the organization's standards that they should have been doing all along, but they weren't doing. And it's like starting all over again. It's like committing to do all that all over again because you didn't do right the first time.

[B]

They came in frustrated. They got more frustrated than we're told. No. And then when they realize what the burden actually is, then the frustration is over the top. And the story doesn't end here, guys. Okay? What makes this set of failures from the employee and manager is especially problematic based on what the manager does next. She goes back to her desk and tells everyone who will listen. And here's the crux of the story. Here's the. The vile rumor that gets around that HR doesn't deserve. And HR is right and managers are wrong. We put a coda on the wrong when we say HR won't let you fire anyone around here. This guy is terrible. You know it. I know it. I went and asked HR to process it. They told me no. Can you believe it? HR is terrible. You can't fire anybody around here. Now, if that's not juicy, dramatic stuff, believe me, that person, even if they're a friend of the person who's going to get fired, is going to share that with other people around the office. Oh, man. Don't go in and talk to the boss right now. She's hot. She's best, you know?

[A]

Yeah. And it's only even slightly true.

[B]

Yeah, that's the point. What the manager is saying is not true.

[A]

It's not true. It's the manager blaming HR unfairly for their own failure to do their job. But that's not the story that gets shared around. That's not. The juicy piece of it is, oh, hey, I didn't do my job, so now I have to go back and actually do my job. And that's not cool. It's not fun. What gets shared is that HR won't let anyone fire anyone. And it's a gross unfairness to HR because they're the ones who are doing the right thing by the employee, by the organization, by any ethical standard. It's their job to do it. And it's all shame on us managers for perpetuating an incorrect, corrosive myth because of our own failings.

[B]

Shame on us.

[A]

Shame on us.

[B]

And I hope I get some nice emails from hr. We have many HR people in our community and they have often sent me notes saying, I really don't like it when you say we hate hr.

[A]

I'm going to send this to all my HR friends.

[B]

I said, of course, immediately. I have to send it to Melinda Kerrigan at Norli Must, right? Immediately. Yeah.

[A]

Your career rises and falls on your ability to communicate. Manage youe Tools Effective communicator training helps professionals deliver clear messages, handle tough conversations and influence without authority. Whether you're presenting ideas, talking to leadership, or giving feedback, communication is the skill that sets you apart. Learn more today about how you can become a better communicator by visiting us online at manager-tools.com ecc

[B]

so let's go to the final bit of this, which is the right way to fire someone. And we've talked about this before. I don't remember, Sarah, whether or not we've done a comprehensive case study, but I think maybe we should just in

[A]

case we haven't, you know, Remember you gave a presentation at an M conference about it.

[B]

Really? I don't remember that. About how to fire somebody. Yeah, yeah, okay.

[A]

I believe so. I believe so. I think. Yeah, but. And I think you've sent some notes to people before in the past, but I don't know.

[B]

Sure, I know. After 20 years of answering questions and putting out content, there are quite frequently times when people write me if you want to Write me, folks. Mahorstmanager-tools.com and I will get that and I will respond. They write and I answer. And at some point I've answered the same thing and I've copied and pasted in some cases that I think that that was a podcast and in fact it wasn't. And I go back and look at our map of the universe, which is my favorite page on the website. I actually don't have a. A bookmark for Manager Tools homepage in my browser. I have a bookmark for the map of the universe, which of course allows me very easily to get to the homepage. I just click on the logo and I'm on the map of the universe three or four times a week and I go to the map of the universe. I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I never actually wrote that. Wrote that in a podcast and put it out to millions rather than just one, which seems really inefficient.

[A]

It really does.

[B]

Okay, so we're going to do the best we can here. It's a high level, but we commit to you. Sometime in the next couple of years, we're going to will put out voluminous, detailed, specific guidance about how to fire somebody. The solution to this insidious myth that we managers sustain of you can't fire anybody around here is to follow our Manager Tools core guidance. One of the beauties of the Manager Tools trinity, one on one's feedback, coaching and delegation, is that it serves exceptionally well. If you do the foundational things right, a whole bunch of other stuff gets real easy, real fast, including firing somebody. We've touched on all of those one on one feedback, coaching, delegation, many times. So we won't dig into them fully here. And on this podcast's webpage you will find links to all of our core managerial guidance. Okay. And also a link to systemic feedback, which likely would be part of the process. Once you've been given feedback a number of times, what do you do when you've given feedback? Four, five, six, actually, we Recommend seven times and somebody still doesn't change their behavior. You need to escalate to something.

[A]

Yeah, there's a trajectory.

[B]

It's not more serious.

[A]

Yeah, no, I love that. So as you can imagine, we start with one on ones to build the trust. Now folks, trust is the ultimate metric for managers. The more your directs trust you, the greater your results and retention will be. One on ones build trust because human beings build trust by talking to other people about the things that are important to themself. So what we say is don't try giving feedback, let alone negative feedback, which is called for in this situation, unless you first built trust. And if you think your directs ought to trust you because you're their manager, think again. In fact, what I would suggest is because you're their manager, they inherently don't trust you.

[B]

The role power destroys trust.

[A]

It destroys it. Yeah. And it makes it even harder to ever build trust to begin with. I mean, as a manager, folks, trust is not part of the deal. So relative to our guidance for contemporaneous note taking, you got to take notes in your one on ones every week, jotting down notes. And as you can imagine, this will be a very important part of your presentation to HR when they ask for that contemporaneous note taking, you'll be able to present a one on one note taking sheet for every week you've been doing one on ones.

[B]

I gotta tell you, even if you didn't capture every single feedback, but you had two or three bits of feedback every week for 40 weeks. Yeah, that would be a very powerful contemporaneous communications case for termination on someone just doing that. I talk to this person every week in detail, both about what they want from me and what I want from them. And when we're talking, when I'm talking, I'm talking about their performance.

[A]

Yeah. And writing all that stuff down like followed up on X, still not done right. Miss the deadline here. Those things are also. They're not, they're not feedback, if you will, but they are definitely contemporaneous note taking about what a person has not achieved and ought to have.

[B]

Yep. Now once you build some trust, you can start using the manager tools feedback model. Positive first. In other words, can I give you some feedback? Sure, boss. When you come in with your stuff ahead of schedule, it. It allows me to focus on other stuff. Thank you very much. Or when you stay late and help me rearrange things for the big meeting tomorrow, I get to go home earlier than I would have. Thanks. Or hey, when you re reach out to that internal customer and let them know that there was going to be a problem, they call me to say thanks. So thank you for that. Well done. That's positive and negative feedback is, hey, can I give some feedback? When you miss a meeting, that's not great. You miss what we're talking about. Can you be on time? Can you come to the meeting next week? Or hey, can I give some feedback? When you don't get me your stuff by noon, I have to come find you and I'm delayed in getting my stuff to the boss. Can you work on that for me Now? Notice, folks, there's no difference in tone between positive and negative. I know many of you, hundreds of thousands of you are listening to right now, rolling, rolling your eyes, going, I know that mark. I know that Mark. But there's probably one new person who may be hearing about this for the first time. And feedback is not about correcting. Feedback is not about praising. Feedback is about encouraging. I say again, encouraging future positive behavior. We do not encourage future positive behavior by shaming or demeaning or attacking previous past poor performance. All you're going to do is engender in the person a feeling of resentment towards you regardless of your willpower. Yes, exactly. So encourage them to do better next time. It's as simple as that. Don't try giving feedback, let alone negative feedback, which obviously is called for. In a situation where you're going to fire somebody without building trust, you can't, I mean, please do that. Don't listen to this and not know about one on ones and just start giving feedback. Okay? And even in a situation where you're going to fire somebody, we still would recommend, if you're rolling out the trinity, that you start with positive feedback to get good at the model before you start using negative feedback. And anyone who tells you you should sit down and talk to somebody for 15 to 20 minutes every time they make a mistake, those people are smoking crack. They don't actually do that. They don't give much feedback at all. And the reason is because you don't have time every time somebody who's failing makes a mistake to have a 15 minute conversation, a dialog with them. We have a podcast about the myth of feedback dialogue. It's just insane. We've tested it on tens of thousands of managers and we know it doesn't work. So when you give feedback, when you give negative feedback or positive feedback, you simply make a short note. A one by one sticky note is fine. Something written on the, on the actual One on one form itself is great. You can write minus late weekly report and that's enough. And the fact that it's on a page that was written 26-10-2025, you're fine. Okay, that's contemporaneous. A lot of those small notes, small contemporaneous notes, each captured briefly, is far more powerful in a termination proceeding than some long documentation or you testifying about how terrible the person was to fire somebody. You should be approaching 75 to 100 instances of negative feedback. And remember, they're only 10 to 20 second exchanges. So we're only talking if we assume 100 instances at 20 seconds, that's what, 2,000 seconds divided by 60, that's six into 200, which is what, 30? That's what we're talking about. We're literally talking about 30 minutes. If you want to double that to an hour because you have to write a note, fine. The point is, that's all. That's all it takes. And it is much better than to have slow and steady rather than nothing and then suddenly a big blow up. It's better to have the drip, drip, drip of water torture rather than throwing water all over somebody's face.

[A]

And folks, we also have a model Mark alluded to earlier mentioned. It is called the systemic feedback model. When a direct makes the same mistake repeatedly. Think of the systemic feedback model as an escalation of from those little pieces of feedback that Mark just gave us as an example to a slightly larger tool. Because the individual has made that same mistake and in the feedback model has agreed to change their behavior and yet has not changed their behavior. The systemic feedback tool is one of the most rarely used yet incredibly powerful tools that you'll find in the manager tools, guidance and in this too. You're still taking those contemporaneous notes.

[B]

Yep. And I've said this before many times about systemic feedback. We have a hall of fame of casts on our website. But when people ask me, what are your favorites? I always start with the stupid line, oh, my casts are like my children. They're all equal. I don't have favorites. That's ludicrous. They're not my children. And so I say, yeah, okay, pre wiring is one of them and systemic feedback is another one. Aggregated behaviors are performance. Thank you, Matt Bentliff. And also the one I can never remember the name of it, about turning tasks into deliverables. Assign task and reporting.

[A]

Yes, exactly. Assign tasks.

[B]

Assign reporting.

[A]

Yeah, assign reporting and tasks. Or assign tasks and reporting. I can't Remember, it's one or the other.

[B]

Yeah. That's a significant contribution to the managerial canon of work.

[A]

And also folks, before you go to hr, you can also use the manager tools late stage coaching model for three or even more months as you're collecting that be those behavioral notes on performance. Right. Following our guidance and I do want to put in a small plug here for performance improvement plans. I sometimes think of our late stage coaching models. That's what it is, a performance improvement plan. Manager tools. Ask if you will, if your organization hasn't got one. And let's remember that performance improvement plan is about improving performance. Which I know sounds silly to say out loud, but I just had a conversation at a conference recently with an individual about performance improvement plans and I was like, but you know the purpose is to improve performance, right? And he kind of laughed. It's like, yeah, but we all know it doesn't do that.

[B]

But it does.

[A]

It does. That's its purpose. The purpose of a performance improvement plan isn't just to collect a bunch of information to support the case for firing. It's to improve a person's performance so that firing is never necessary. Now, sometimes we could argue on the number of times, many times it doesn't result in improvements in performance, but it can. And that's its purpose. So employing those kinds of tools also.

[B]

Yeah. And in fact, we talk about in our late stage coaching model guidance about, tell your direct, I want this to work. I want you to continue to work here. I believe in you. I'm going to help you improve. And the way we're going to do that is we're going to start measuring you more frequently. Now, other people will say to you, oh, you're on a pip. That's usually a way out. I'm sorry to hear that. You know what? Don't believe it. All that is is cynicism. All that is is managers and individual contributors getting cynical about hr. That's not fair. This is you and me working together to get you to a place where you can hold your head up and you can feel good about your performance. And I intend to prosecute this effort with positivity and hope that you're going to stay full stop. Now if you don't, yeah. I'm going to have to be the guy that has the tough conversation with you. I admit it. Okay? And I'm sorry about that. But I would love to go to HR and what they see a PIP as is a chance to gather a bunch of data because I have to capture a bunch of data. And they'll say, okay, now you've met our standard. What I want to do is say, I went through it and we won.

[A]

Yeah, we won.

[B]

And HR will go. Oh, HR will might actually be a little saddened about it. Like, man, I won't be. You deserve to be here. If you're willing to do the things we need.

[A]

Exactly. If you're willing to do the things to get there, then absolutely, I want you to stay.

[B]

Yeah. And I'll mention one other thing. If you want a comprehensive review of how a former manager chose employee Danny Martin, by the way, applied our guidance before she came to work here in a termination story, listen to a podcast we have called the Corky Story. The name of the person who got terminated was Corky. It is so beloved. It's a hall of fame cast, but it is so beloved in our community. People just talk about it all the time. Oh, my gosh, it was fantastic. It is one of the best stories ever of a manager doing her work consistently and professionally to achieve an ethical end. And Danny actually will walk through all the stuff she did over months to fire Corky, who was best friends and golfing buddies with the CEO of her company. And HR couldn't resist the firing when she went to them with her folder over s gathered over six plus months on Corky's performance. Yeah, I love that.

[A]

Yeah, me too. Me too. All right, so we're going to wrap it up. I do want to ease some of the managerial concerns out there a little bit. We've been very hard on you today, and I would suggest that from my perspective, a lot of this comes back to lack of training, lack of information. I mean, managers trained. Exactly. That's exactly it. Managers are not trained how to do their jobs. You are not talked to or taught about this burden of information as it pertains to firing. Yeah. Managerial training and understanding and awareness will help alleviate things like this from occurring. So if you are listening to this podcast, share it with your friends who are also managers, so that they know about this burden of proof before they're in that same frustrating, stinking situation where they go to HR and they don't get help. Because managers go to HR with no behavioral proof, no contemporaneous notes, and they expect HR to help them fire someone. But, folks, HR rightly, rightly, rightly, exactly holds the line and insists on the manager doing their job. The myth that HR won't let you fire anybody around here was started and is sustained by managers who didn't do their job and want to blame HR for it. HR is right, the managers are wrong. And we as managers who know better ought to do better by our HR counterparts.

[B]

Yeah, that's exactly right. Be a professional colleague. A good colleague.

[A]

Exactly. Alrighty. Thank you all.

[B]

Thanks, Sarah. That was fun.

[A]

Bye, Mark. Thanks so much for joining us, folks. We hope this helped you. Now help us help others. And tell all your friends. And of course, follow rate and review our podcast. And remember, five stars stars only, please.