Probably the hardest thing in business is when you realize that you have to fire your friends. You are faced with three options:
Maybe you decide not to do it. Keep them on the payroll regardless. Maybe for you, friendships come first.
Maybe you decide not to have friends. Or at least, don’t make friends with anyone at work. Oh, and don’t recruit existing friends to work with you. It’s a choice, although it doesn’t seem like a pleasant one.
Or else, maybe you realize that sometimes in life you simply have to make hard decisions, no matter how heartbreaking they might be.
Our teachable moment this week comes courtesy of American Airlines, which announced that one of its top executives, Vasu Raja, executive vice president and chief commercial officer, will be making his final departure from the airline.
American Airlines is struggling. Bloomberg reports that the airline fired Raja after a report from Bain & Co. that said initiatives he had championed contributed to lower revenue.
And as Gary Leff of View From the Wing put it, either Raja or CEO Robert Isom probably had to go. Since Isom is ultimately the one making the decisions, I suppose that it’s not surprising who is leaving.
That said, buried in remarks that Isom gave this week about Raja’s departure was a brief passage that caught my eye and ear:
In June Vasu Raja Relieved of his Role. I’ve known Vasu for a long time. I admire his creative thinking, his passion.
He’s an innovator, a disruptor. He is a good friend. But sometimes we need to reset. And in this case, we do.
It’s an interesting passage, those 11 words: “He is a good friend. But sometimes we need to reset.”
Was Isom just using the phrase, “good friend,” to be nice–the way some of us might describe “work friends” that we aren’t really close with, and that we might never see or talk to again if they left our companies?
I don’t know. I do know that the two men have worked together for quite a while:
Raja joined American Airlines back in 2004 straight out of his MBA program, and really worked his way up the ladder according to his LinkedIn profile and the online bio American Airlines had for him until recently. He was chief revenue officer starting in 2020 and took over as chief commercial officer in 2021.
Isom has been at American Airlines since 2013, when American bought U.S. Airways, where Isom had been chief operating officer and executive vice president. He stayed in the same role at American Airlines until 2022, when he took over his current top leadership position.
Anyway, let’s just take Isom at his word, at least for our purposes: “a good friend.”
How do you fire a good friend? I think we can point to 5 key rules:
Talk it out first. This should probably go for any valued employee, but if you’re going to have to let someone you consider a friend go, it’s probably best if it doesn’t come as a surprise.
Make the decision jointly. I’m assuming you’re the boss and the one doing the firing. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have a conversation in which the person you’ll be letting go winds up agreeing with you that it’s the only option — or at least, a reasonable one.
Prepare the soft landing. I’m assuming that there’s nothing illegal or unethical in our hypothetical situation. (And to be clear, I have no reason at all to suspect that in the case of American Airlines and Raja.) In that case, whether it’s timing, or severance, or a mutually agreed upon story, make it as easy as possible on the departing employee.
Say the right things. I don’t think you want to belabor the point, but the more nice things you can say — both publicly and internally — the better for both of you.
Make the decision and execute. Notwithstanding everything above, when you’ve made the decision, move quickly. This isn’t the sort of thing that gets better with age.
Look, I used the word “heartbreaking” above, and having had to let people go in the past that I’d become close with, or at least friendly with, there really is an element of that emotion.
But sometimes you have to make the tough calls. And as Isom put it: Sometimes you really do need to reset.