Editor’s Note: As I wind down my stint as Editor of TLNT — yes, I’m going to be leaving next month— I wanted to share some of my favorite posts. Here’s one from September 2011.
If there’s one thing that struck me this week about the firing of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, it’s this: Why would you fire a person, especially a CEO, over the phone, especially when you could do it in person?
This is something I know a little about because, yes, believe it or not, I had to do it once when I couldn’t be in two places at one time.
The Wall Street Journal had a story this week about how to fire someone — titled Bad Call: How Not to Dismiss an Employee — and it was instructive not only because it was spun out of how the Yahoo Board of Directors handled the termination of their CEO, but because it had a laundry list of many of the things you absolutely don’t want to do when you are firing someone.
Here are a few of the “don’ts” the Journal listed: