If it wasn’t so sad, it would be laughable. The question, “Why did we fire you?” expressed with surprise and genuine confusion was asked by a senior HR exec to a talented and fired sales rep at MegaFirm.
This sales rep was the “last one standing” that actually understood how to sell the products that MegaFirm had inherited with one of its many acquisitions. The products are still there, but the people aren’t. MegaFirm unleashed the neutron bomb from its powerful HR arsenal.
Oh, once the light bulb went on, several of the recently fired were offered their jobs back.
In the movie “Liar, Liar,” Jim Carrey is incapable of saying anything but the naked truth. If this were true for just a moment in the HR world at MegaFirm, here’s how I imagine the conversations with the newly fired associates to go:
“Sorry, we screwed up. We fired you and everyone else because you were there and we needed you to not be there for the numbers to work out on our spreadsheets. You should see this formula we created. All I have to do is reduce the number in one column and our business looks great! I might get a promotion for this.”
“What’s that you ask? Talent, skills and knowledge. No, those aren’t important. We actually don’t care. What counts is that our numbers work. You should have figured out that we actually don’t give a rip about developing people or retaining talent, because we don’t have to.”
“Yeah, so what that we paid to buy your company. You came along with another deal. Yeah, your thousands of customers will not be served…we’ll let your former competitors pick them up. We don’t mind alienating our customers, because we don’t give a rip here either.”
“Hey, are you sure you don’t want your job back? You sound like a smart guy. We probably shouldn’t have fired you. I’ll take someone else out of the spreadsheet if you want to come back. Have I told you about our insurance program?”
—
I promised that I would keep this case anonymous, so all of you former colleagues that are guessing about who this is, well, you’re wrong.
As for the recipient of the “Why Did We Fire You?” question, this individual is a one-person success generating machine with the heart of a prize-fighter and the battlefield instincts of Patton.
This individual should be running your sales team.
The bottom-line for now: run, don’t walk, to start finding ways to bring talent like the subject of this post into your organization. MegaFirm’s ignorance should be your gain if you are doing your job.
While the MegaFirms of the world are working themselves down into MiniFirms by focusing on the ratios, you should be arming yourself to the teeth with the best talent you can find. And yes, you will have to make some tough decision on people in your own environment. Make the right choices to make room for the talent…don’t let the spreadsheet rule the day.
There’s something about going into battle in the market with the best soldiers that seems so right.
I refer to this as “bean counter management.”
Managers who fall into the trap you describe review numbers and spreadsheets and make decisions based on myopic data points without considering the overall mission and vision of the organization or the needs of the buyers in the market.
I worked with a CFO once (bean counter) that decided an inside sales organization was significantly more profitable that having region seasoned sales managers in the field calling on, serving and building relationships with our clients.
On paper this looked like a great idea, the results were miserable. Talk about alienating customers and sending a morale shock wave through our organization…Luckily we tested this “bean counter management” decision in one small market and we quickly recovered.
Not sure if it’s “ignorance” or “arrogance” that cause executives to make decisions when they don’t know what they don’t know.
Nice post, Art. Sounds to me like Circuit City about a year ago.