It’s troubling what passes for management wisdom these days, so I’ve learned to not be picky and simply take it where I find it.
And believe it or not, this week I found it in a most unusual and unexpected place: from celebrity whatever-she-does Kim Kardashian.
I know, I know; I can hear your reaction from wherever you may be reading this. You’re probably asking: How can someone with no discernible skills (except marketing herself and her very lack of discernible skills) teach us anything at all about management?
Well, here’s how: Kim Kardashian may not have any tangible or apparent skills, but she clearly has sharp instincts. And those instincts told her that it was time to cut the cord and dump her basketball player husband sooner (after 72 days of marriage) rather than later.
Say what you will about the timing, the brusqueness, or her lack of faith in the institution of marriage, but she figured out it wasn’t working and that hubby Kris Humphries needed to go — now! — before he got any more settled in.
Here’s how she put it, according to USA Today:
“After careful consideration, I have decided to end my marriage,” she said in a statement. “I hope everyone understands this was not an easy decision. I had hoped this marriage was forever, but sometimes things don’t work out as planned.”
Truer words were never spoken. Yes, sometimes things don’t work out as planned, and it is never an easy decision when you need to deal with something involving another person that has gone bad quickly.
But as a manager who has seen more than his share of bad hires turn into bad employees that lingered on and were a terrible struggle to get rid of, I applaud Kim K’s ability to rationally size up the situation and coolly dump hubby Kris Humphries before his 90-day probationary period ran out. She could teach a lot of managers a thing or two about cutting your losses and decisively dealing with a bad hire, I’m sure.
Here’s how this all fits with your hiring, management, and HR practices:
Some think this decision by Kim Kardashian to divorce hubby #2 is just a hoax or publicity ploy. I don’t buy the hoax argument, because it would mean that the entire Kardashian clan would have had to have been in on it. I don’t think even that self-absorbed bunch is capable of that level of deception. And even if they were, could such a mouthy family keep it a secret for this long?
The publicity ploy also doesn’t ring true, because this family is pretty good generating media attention without resorting to something like divorce and all the negative baggage that goes with it.
No, I think Kim K was just ready to cut the cord from the start if it didn’t go the way she wanted. And clearly, it didn’t. There were no worries, no feelings of guilt, no wanting to give it a little more time. When she decided it wasn’t working, she jettisoned Kris Humphries without regret or second thought — and she did it within the 90-day probationary period to boot.
Yes, I know; marriages don’t have 90-day probationary periods. But you get my point.
As a manager, you need to be ready and willing to do what needs to be done for the betterment of the team and the organization. No one likes to do the negative stuff — no one with any sense of decency, at least — and no one really wants to do it to a relatively new employee. It’s a tough thing to confront, but that’s when any good manager really earns their pay — when they need to do something really tough and unpleasant.
Cutting loose a new employee certainly falls into that camp. And despite what you may think of her and her marriage, Kim Kardashian showed us how to do it quickly, if not so easily, and then get on with life — especially if that life as a soon-to-be-divorcee generates some additional dollar signs.
It may not be the way Peter Drucker would draw it up, but it’s a good example of how to quickly cut your losses. If you want to be a better manager, you can certainly learn something from that.
