Fire from strength, not relief: managing people out well

Executive overview

Feeling relieved when someone quits means you waited too long. Underperformers harm good employees — and voluntary exits signal weakness to the rest of the team. The fix is acting proactively, from a position of strength, not waiting for problems to resolve themselves.

If you're relieved they quit, you already failed.

The cost of waiting too long

• Every month you keep an underperformer, you're penalising everyone else who is performing.
• When someone quits, remaining staff don't celebrate — they get nervous and consider leaving too.
• Acting only after someone resigns signals reactive, weak leadership.
• Letting someone go doesn't have to be harsh — it can be done with maturity and respect.

Letting people go isn't failure

• Not every exit is a failure — some people outgrow a role or fit better elsewhere.
• Like parenting, the goal is to develop people enough to succeed without you.
• Former employees who leave well often return or become advocates.

Hiring into existing teams without creating resentment

• Let the existing team interview and help select their new boss.
• When the team picks the hire, they own the outcome — resistance disappears.
• The interview process also shows the team why they couldn't do the role themselves.

The two-doubles rule for managers

• A manager can typically handle two doublings of revenue before the role outgrows them.
• At $10M, a marketing head can manage to $20M and stretch to $40M.
• By $80M, the job is fundamentally different — they won't make it.
• The third double is where most companies start replacing people reactively instead of planning ahead.

Planning for people ahead of growth

• Forecast hiring needs one, two, and three years out — especially in hyper-growth.
• If you doubled revenue six years in a row, you had to replace managers before they failed, not after.
• Treating people strategy as a lagging function guarantees disruption at the worst time.