By New Churches Team: Have you found yourself in a situation where you need to fire your best friend? Maybe he helped you plant the church five years ago, but as the church has grown he just can’t seem to keep up. It’s not from lack of effort and he hasn’t done anything wrong, the church has just grown past his capacity. What an awkward situation to be in. You don’t want to risk losing your friend, but you know that for the health of the church and the staff it is time to let him go.
Here are six tips to remember:
1. Read a book.
Necessary Endings by Henry Cloud will help give you the vocabulary, questions, and parameters to determine if it is really time to fire your friend. Likely, if you have come to the realization that it is time, those around you and on your staff already know it is time as well.
2. Fire with grace.
Do it quickly. Don’t fire someone over a single incident, unless it isn’t legal or moral. But once you have noticed a pattern in someone’s work or behavior that is no longer suitable for your church, act quickly.
3. Consider the timing.
No one wants to be fired first thing in the morning and have to clean out their office in front of everyone else. When it comes time to do the firing, do it in the afternoon and toward the end of the week. This allows the person to have the weekend to begin to heal.
4. Don’t beat around the bush.
This isn’t an easy conversation for anyone to have, but the more you stretch it out, the more awkward it becomes. Get to the point quickly. And make sure to do it in a private location. People become emotional when being fired, and it isn’t kind to make them go through that experience in public. But also remember to never fire someone alone. Always have a witness in the event that the conversation becomes heated.
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Tweetables:
- “He hasn’t done anything wrong. And he hasn’t done anything except honor and serve the church, but he’s not able to keep up. How do you fire your best friend?”-
- “You probably don’t realize someone needs to be gone until it’s already evident to a whole lot of other people on the team.”-
- “Don’t tell them it will hurt you more than it will hurt them, because that is just not true.”-
- “If you are being fired, remember this: people will remember how you left long after they forget what you did while you were there.”-
- “How you as an employer treat an employee on their last day, will be remembered long after they’ve forgotten any birthday card you signed for them or any Christmas gift you handed out.”-
Source: How to Fire Your Best Friend