Story: The tough decision to fire my friend

The Story
In 1999 I joined a young and fast-growing company. They recruited me from a vice president role at a major international conglomerate, and they gave me free rein to establish a new division on the West Coast. The company was growing fast, and the CEO wanted me to get the division launched quickly, so I decided to bypass the cumbersome recruiting process and simply hire people I already knew. I figured that hiring known quantities instead of total strangers would help my group get up to speed quickly, and it would also smooth over any team building issues. Boy was I wrong. What a blunder. One of the key people I hired was a close friend. His name was Jeff. I had never worked with him directly, but we knew each other from our previous companies and industry conventions. We were good friends outside of work. We played golf and tennis, and we both went to Vegas with our wives for a fun weekend. He had a lot of flair. I considered him insightful, inventive and impressive. It took a lot of persuasion to get him to consider joining our fledgling startup, but since he and I had such a solid rapport, he said he trusted me and agreed to join. I presented him as a key hire to the CEO. Shortly after Jeff started, however, things began to go sour. It turned out that he had lots of great ideas but no follow-through. Within the first month, unfinished tasks were piling up on his to do list. I tried to remind him gently about his obligations, and he would always nod and smile and talk about subjects other than work. I felt that he was using our friendship to avoid dealing with his professional performance. He brought in lots of great ideas, to be sure, but none of the tasks he was assigned every seemed to get completed. Other people in the department began to comment about his performance. I was concerned about the morale of our young division. Finally, I asked him to come to the office early one morning for a thorough review of his workload. He showed up late and was uncharacteristically stubborn and uncooperative. I got the impression that he was hiding something. He exploded at me and stormed out. Later that morning, my assistant told me that there were rumors that Jeff was sitting in his car smoking a joint. I went out to the parking lot to find him. He had the bleary-eyed glaze of a stoner. I knew right then that I had to make the tough decision to terminate him. It made me sick to think about the decision. After all, I had persuaded this fellow to leave a terrific job at a great company. Plus our friendship was on the line. Maybe I had let him down as a manager. Maybe he needed more direction. Maybe he needed another chance. But then I thought about the 18 other people I had hired for my new division. And I thought about our obligations to the rest of the company. And I remembered the many missed deadlines and dropped balls that Jeff had fumbled. Plus erratic behavior and, now, his smoking dope in the parking lot. So I stuck to my decision and made it final. It ended poorly. Jeff was howling mad and resentful. He spoke ill of me to many industry colleagues. We fell out of touch for two years. That was a painful cost. He even tried to make trouble for me with the President of the company and some of the top sales people. I took the high road, and decided not to respond to Jeff anymore. It hurt to lose a friend. But the story ends well. The company was successful. Our division generated a lot of new business. By the end of the first year, we were setting the pace for the rest of the entire company. And recently, Jeff reached out to me again to reconnect. He said he wanted to bury the hatchet. He had time to reflect on his dismissal and came to realize that his behavior was not appropriate to the office, despite the way he felt at the time. We haven’t mended our relationship entirely, but at least we are at peace.

Never rely on friendships in business. If a crucial decision involves hiring or doing business with a close friend, it’s best to delegate the decision to another colleague who is neutral.