Watch the YouTube version of this episode HERE

Tyson Mutrux recently had to fire someone he genuinely liked. In this solo episode of Maximum Lawyer Live, he explains why personal affection and professional fit are two different questions, and why putting off a difficult employment decision can hurt more than the person you are trying to protect. Tyson walks through the internal debate, the questions law firm owners should ask themselves before deciding, and the importance of being direct about expectations long before a termination conversation.

He also shares how he handled the actual termination call, why he avoided turning the conversation into a trial, and the hidden cost of leaving a struggling employee in a role that is not working. From clients waiting for mistakes to be corrected to coworkers carrying extra work, Tyson makes the case that compassion requires honesty, accountability, and consideration for the entire firm. This is a candid conversation about making a hard decision without making it personal.

What You'll Learn

• Why liking someone is different from determining whether they belong in a particular role.
• The questions Tyson recommends asking before concluding an employee is the problem.
• How unclear expectations and inconsistent feedback create unfair surprises.
• Why empathy can become avoidance disguised as kindness.
• How poor performance affects coworkers, clients, managers, and firm profitability.
• Why a termination meeting should be clear, respectful, and prepared rather than an argument.

Timestamps

• 00:00  Tyson explains the recent termination and why it was difficult
• 02:30  Separate liking an employee from assessing fit
• 05:30  Questions to ask before deciding to terminate
• 09:00  Clear expectations and honest feedback
• 12:10  When empathy becomes avoidance
• 15:30  The cost of delay for the team and clients
• 18:45  How Tyson handled the actual termination call
• 21:00  Closing lessons on kindness and accountability

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Full Transcript: 

[00:00]  Welcome back to max law live i'm tyson mutrix and today i'm talking about how i had to fire someone last week i don't like doing it it's one of the worst things you can do as a business owner but I had to do it. It was an attorney, so it was someone that I had to fire. Typically, non-attorneys, I don't take care of that. That's something that is done by Kristen and Amy, and so I typically don't have to deal with that. But I did have to on this one. It was an attorney. And what I want to talk about is... How to fire someone you like, because I really like this guy. I thought this person, I think this person's a good person, but doesn't mean that the person is a good fit for the firm.

[00:59]  And I'm going to obviously keep the details pretty scant. I'm not going to go and talk about the specifics of it. I'm not even going to talk about why, but I don't think that that's really the point of this episode. But I guess I've got five different points I want to talk about when it comes to this, because I think it's something that a lot of us hold off on because we like the person. And the thing is, is like, we can like someone that isn't a right fit for the job. it is, it's one of those things where like, that's a normal thing. And what we tend to do is we tend to collapse several things into like, Oh, they're a good person. I like working with them.

[01:54]  Maybe even they work hard because you can work hard and just not be a good fit. Right. They really care. Like you can, you can collapse all those into one thing. And then you say, Oh, they should keep their job then. because of these things, you, you list off all these things that are relevant to the job. Okay. yes, we want all of our people to be good people. So I guess that is, that is relevant to the job. we want you to be a good person, but whether you like working with them, it doesn't mean that the job is going to get done better or not. Okay. Really, whether they work hard, many of you all know the employee that worked really hard that just could not figure it out, right?

[02:51]  You can care a lot. You can care all you want, but it doesn't mean you're going to do a very good job. But what we do is we collapse all those and we say, oh, they deserve the job. They deserve to keep the job. But that's not a logical response if we're being truly, truly honest with ourselves. Because a person can be smart. They can be loyal. They can be hardworking. They can be funny. They can be kind. They can be all these things that are great as a friend or as a person that you like to hang out with. But does it mean that it is... right they're not it doesn't necessarily mean that they're right for that seat that you have assigned to them okay so what you have to do is you have to separate the person from the performance you have to and that is really hard to do You had to separate the person from the performance.

[04:00]  And so one of the things that I had to remind myself last week was that I wasn't deciding whether I liked this person. It's not what I was doing. I already knew the answer to that question. What I was deciding was whether keeping this person in this role was the right decision for the firm. That was the decision I had to make. and when you make a distinction like that it makes the decision from a leadership standpoint a little bit easier not a lot it does it's not like it's still easy but it makes it a lot easier than if you're just oh my gosh i have to fire this person that i like and your job as the law firm owner It's not merely employing good people.

[04:55]  Okay. That's not your job. It's to put the right people in the right positions where they can succeed and where the firm can succeed. Okay. Cause your, your, your, your ultimate, your ultimate obligation is to the firm and to your family and to take care of your people. Right. that's, that's what your ultimate obligation is. And if you've got someone that's not in the right seat, then they've got to go. And sometimes the question that we ask ourselves is like, Oh, do, do I really want to fire this person? And instead, I don't think that's the question. I think you can ask a few different questions, but if you were to say, knowing everything I know today, would I enthusiastically, that's, that's the key part of this.

[05:50]  Would I enthusiastically hire this person into this role again? And that is a completely different question and it changes the dynamic of it completely. And if the answer is no, then you've uncovered, uncovered something pretty important. and something else you want to ask is if this, some, if this were someone I didn't personally like as much, okay, would I have already made the decision? That's another pretty revealing question. Because, as you probably know, especially people that try cases, when it comes to bias and everything else, when you like someone, it really affects your decision-making. It really affects it. There's a really good quote.

[06:34]  When we're talking about good versus great and all that kind of stuff, because they could be an okay fit, but you... You really, sometimes you want to step things up when it comes to your firm. So there's this John Rockefeller quote that I have, and it's, don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great. Because sometimes what we do is we hold on to their good employees and I'm not saying you should go out and fire a bunch of your good employees. That's all I'm saying. But sometimes you want to, you do want to upgrade, you want to level up. So maybe you've got a B player. I don't know if you considered, I think I had considered a B player, a good, a good employee.

[07:36]  So let's say you want to, you want to go a player, right? You want to go great. Sometimes it can be hard to give up those good players to go for the great players. And, but it's just something to think about something to consider that, sometimes you have to do that. If you really want to level up, you've got to give up the good to go for the great. So, so here's another thing I want to talk about is, Sometimes we jump to firing. And I see this a lot in masterminds, right? Someone starts talking about an employee that things maybe are not going well. And a lot of times the initial jump is fire the person. People all the time want to jump straight to firing someone.

[08:31]  However, before you do that, I still want to just remind everyone, and we did this with this employee, before concluding that the person failed, and they may not have failed either. It may have been that they're not the right fit. Instead, ask, did I actually give this person everything necessary to succeed? Did I give this person everything necessary to succeed? Now that is something that is a harder question that you have to look at yourself. because it may not be an employee problem. It may be a you problem. And so there is, there is a, a little five question thing I want to go through where before termination, cause I want to, this may be helpful to you, but before firing someone, you like ask yourself these five questions.

[09:26]  Did they know exactly what winning looked like? And by the way, these are all job scorecard type of questions. So hint, hint, get your job scorecards together if you don't have them yet. But number one, did I know exactly what winning looked like? Or did they know exactly what winning looked like? Number two, did I clearly tell them where they were falling short? Number three, did I give them reasonable time, coaching, tools, and support to fix it? Number four, did I document and follow up on those conversations? Number five, should this decision actually surprise them? So the fifth question is the huge one because this person should not necessarily be surprised.

[10:14]  Now, if they're completely oblivious to what's going on around them, Then they'll be surprised. We've had that before where we fired an employee and they had no idea. And it's mind boggling because we've had all the conversations. They knew what their expectations were. They weren't meeting the expectations. This is a different employee and they were oblivious. So make sure you go through those questions because it is one of those things where it could be a you problem. okay here's something else this is just an important thing and this none of this stuff that i'm getting into is like the legal side of stuff right so consult your employment attorney for your estate yada yada all the disclaimers but don't here's something like don't manufacture some sort of performance problem at the end I've heard and I've talked to a lot of people about things like this and it's almost like they, there is a desire.

[11:20]  And I will, I will say, I almost like kind of, and there was a performance problem with this particular employee. that was, there was a problem, but I did almost find myself falling into this, like, us versus him kind of a thing and i did i was like wait a hold on that's not what this is about this is not what it is this is this is one of those things where like we i really like the guy it was just there is no no point in coming up with all these other reasons and and stacking on piling on right it there is none of those and so a big part of this like what we will you you you may have this desire to manufacture but You may have also, I'm trying to connect the dots here for you because what we will sometimes do is at the end, we will try to manufacture an issue, right?

[12:28]  When just a few months earlier, you were saying you're doing a great job, right? And then next thing you know, they're being told, you know, we're letting you go. So don't, there's two parts to this. If they're not doing well, don't telling them, don't tell them they're doing a great job all the time. Okay. Don't tell them that if they're not doing a great job all the time. And then at the, at the, the flip of that is at the end of the, of the road, don't manufacture reasons for why they're getting fired. None of that makes sense. Okay. Just be honest with them. Tell the truth about things. That's all you got to do. Be honest with them, be upfront with them throughout the entire process and it'll be fine.

[13:24]  Be very, very careful. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about why... What we sometimes do, some of the things we do, and why making... Why firing somebody you like is hard is, a lot of times what we'll start to do is we'll start to make these excuses for people. Like, oh, you know, they've just had a rough month or they've been trying really hard or such and such. They're really good friends with such and such or I just want to give them one more chance, right? And I do at times, I think some of these are legitimate, but eventually empathy can turn into like just avoidance disguises kindness. So what you're doing is you're telling yourself, I'm a kind person.

[14:16]  I'm a kind person. And all you're really doing is you're avoiding it. You're avoiding what needs to be done. And that is a problem. really big problem because the thing is like waiting too long. Isn't kind waiting too long is actually kind of a cruel thing to do because what's happening is, is that everyone around this person is getting pissed off because everyone knows this person's not performing. And so everyone's getting mad. And so now you're creating a really, really terrible environment for not only your other employees, but you're, you're, you're creating a bad environment for this person. That is not kind. And what happens, a lot of times people will delay firing someone precisely because they care about them.

[15:08]  But if you do care about that person, the right thing to do is to fire them, help them find another position if you want, give them a letter of recommendation, whatever it may be. But if you really do want to be kind, Keeping them on the payroll is not the kind thing. Getting them off the payroll is the kind thing. And that's hard to grasp for some people, but you're creating a really terrible environment. Okay. Because you have to remember, every employment decision affects the employee, the team, the clients, and the firm. It affects all those people. So you need to not only just think about yourself or the employee, but you got to think about the team as well and the clients.

[16:01]  Okay. cause you, what you're into, you're doing is there's a cost to waiting and you're reallocating that cost to everyone else is what you're doing. So, the coworker that has the fix, the, the mistakes, the client that's waiting for something to get right, whoever's managing this person spending hours a week several hours a week manage managing them around different issues that they're creating the firm's profitability pays a price and eventually what happens is the employee is going to pay anyway right they're going to end up getting terminated anyways so make the decision just make the decision now Because you can become so focused on protecting someone's feelings that you stop protecting everyone else's working environment.

[16:50]  And that's a problem. It's not compassion. It's just avoidance is all it is. So that's a big one. Don't wait. Don't wait. All right. Another one, and this is one where it's – I'm going to toe the line a little bit when it comes to the legal side of things. So remember, consult your employment attorneys for your estate. But when the decision is made, don't turn the firing into a trial. The call we had – because he was remote – we did a google meet call it lasted less than two minutes it was very quick and we you know we'll let him know all of these details will be i and i had a script i didn't read the script but i i had my script that i'd sort of sort of memorized that i'd went through and I did it where it sounded natural and everything.

[17:52]  But went through all the, I had all the details, all the specific details we needed him to have and let him know that everything else would be, sent in an email, everything else you need. But it was quick. Like it, it was nothing. There were no accusations made. There was nothing where, we told him how terrible of a job he did. We didn't do any of that stuff. let him know the decision we made, determine his employment was effective immediately, yada, yada, yada, went through all the details that we needed to cover. And then, you know, let him know that, I mean, it made it very clear, you know, at the end, Hey, really wish, things didn't end this way, but I truly hope you understand that we, we wish you the best of luck.

[18:50]  And I really, I really wish the best for you. And he said, you know, likewise. And so it was, it was very quick to the point, but don't turn this into some, some trial because there is, there is a part of this that, there is this relationship, right? Now the employment, and that's all employment is, it's a relationship. And that part of the relationship will end. However, how people look at things and view things, it's usually through like the most intense parts of whatever that relationship is. And this was a really intense relationship. And also part of that, Danny Kahneman has done a bunch of research about the most intense moments of a relationship and then the end of that relationship are the things that people remember the most.

[19:46]  So this is one of the most intense plus it's also the end of the relationship. So this is one of the things that they're going to remember the most. And what I'm hoping is this employee will remember, you know, know they were very kind to me at the end they were very kind to me at this at this part of it you know there was no they didn't you know come at me with a bunch of accusations about things nothing like that because there was no point doing any of that there's no point in kicking someone while they're down all is to say is like you all that you have in this world is your reputation. And so you don't wanna create an enemy for life by doing this, you really don't.

[20:42]  We still have employees that have left our firm and they refer us cases all the time, right? we there's a an attorney she moved to kansas city she refers us cases on a regular basis and we refer her cases on a regular basis we are technically competitors but we still refer each other cases and stuff so you don't just because you end the relationship doesn't mean that it's got to be everything's terrible it doesn't have to be so don't turn in a trial but Remember that at the end of the day, this is a relationship, and so it doesn't have to be some terrible ending at the end. You want to make this as pleasant as you possibly can. I know it's not going to be pleasant, but make it as pleasant as you possibly can.

[21:41]  Okay. That's all I have. Just remember, liking someone is not a job qualification. If you leave from this, take anything from this, it's that liking someone is not a job qualification. So you don't keep someone on just because you like them. All right. Have a great week, everybody. Next week is Max Law Con. So if you're listening to this as a recording, then you probably have you're either at max or con and you've already been to it or you missed it, but either way, hopefully you did attend. And for those of you watching live, I look forward to seeing you next week in Atlanta. See everybody have a wonderful week. Bye.