Performance dismissal

Ivan knows how to get rid of people from the firm when revenues are sliding ... Performance manage the victims to the point of performance dismissal ... Care is needed ... Revenge of the sackee ... Dorothy's blog

George, enveloped in a cloud of gloom, sat down in the spare chair in my office. 

"Morgana has just been made corporate counsel at Big Bugger," he said. 

The little cloud of gloom expanded and settled over me.

"It is great she landed on her feet," I said.

George nodded.

The gloom deepened.

I'm terrified of Morgana. So is George. 

In fact, all the partners are terrified of her. But George and I are the only ones prepared to admit it.

We know her well: until recently, she worked for us.

The scariest thing about Morgana is the lack of any filter between a disparaging thought she might have about you, and her expression of it.

One picks up a call from Morgana with trepidation. You may as well answer it because, if you don't, she will come around to your office and berate you in person. Which is worse. 

Then, while you are picking your chin from the floor, she will tell you a funny story about her child, oblivious to the offence she caused.

There is no point in taking it personally. She is generous and indiscriminate with her disgruntlement. 

She is also generous and indiscriminate with her kindness. 

When little Frieda in accounts got a call saying her 22-year-old brother had been killed in a car accident, it was Morgana who saw that the firm paid her airfare to Darwin, went with her in the cab to the airport, put her on a plane and arranged for the flowers and someone to go to the funeral.

And, as a lawyer, she is a force of nature. We knew when we gave Morgana a file that she would apply that same intensity to the problem she has been asked to solve.  Et voila:   in a week or a month, all would be fixed, with surgical efficiency.

She worked in our firm for 18 years. She came here as a graduate, and we saw her through her adult life:  marriage, bearing - after some difficulty - a child, separation, rapprochement, separation, divorce, and lastly a long stint of single motherhood. 

She was part of the rich tapestry of our firm. Still is, alumnically.

Ivan sacked her. 

There was a bit of a downturn in revenues and pressure was applied on Ivan to drop the headcount.

Ivan decided to conduct this process by what he called "performance dismissal". This would save money on redundancy payouts and thus increase his bonus. There would also be no headlines in the legal HR mags, which scream loudly every time there is a round of redundancies.

The process of performance dismissal, Ivan style, goes like this: arrange a meeting with the victim and Katie from HR, go through a written list of the victim's character and professional defects, and tell her she has three months to correct them.

This is impossible for her to do, because the defects describe sins she cannot overcome: personality traits and a shortage of work - the reason for the directive in the first place.

"You must improve your chargeable hours," he says. "OK give me some more work," she says. "That is your responsibility" he says.

Ivan reported on this process in a partners' meeting. He went through the list of victims, and the steps he had already taken to "performance manage" each of them.

The mood was grim by the time we got to Morgana.

Ivan said the period to improve performance had expired and that Katie from HR was going to help him commit the act next Friday at 10am.

George said, "I work with her and I am telling you she has no performance issues. And if we piss her off, we are likely to piss off Big Bugger."

Ivan frowned. "I doubt" he said, wisdom oozing from his eyebrows, "that a person like Morgana could influence the buying decisions of a client like Big Bugger".

George sat back and crossed his arms, crossly. 

"She is pretty angry about this," Gloria said. "We need to be careful how we treat her."

Ivan looked at Gloria patiently, and spoke particularly slowly, to facilitate her understanding of the complex concepts he was about to articulate. "That's what I mean about not coming up to par. She is not accepting the process. '

This is Ivan's logic: inflict some horrible process on someone which allows him to bully them mercilessly and question their only source of self worth and then punish them for not taking it in agreeable good humour.

"Besides," he said, "she is just feigning anger to get a payout. It is the oldest negotiating trick in the book."

That shut us up. How do you deal with logic like that? 

We decided unanimously, with the exception of Ivan, that she should not be sacked.

That Friday, at 10am, Ivan, with the help of Katie from HR, told Morgana she no longer had a job.

She was gone by lunchtime. With an enormous payout: for redundancy and to settle the bullying claim. 

So now, five months later, Morgana, with a (justifiably held) Deadly Grievance, directed not just at Ivan but at the Entire Firm, has the hands on the legal tiller of one of our biggest clients.

"Let's go out for lunch," said George. "And get really pissed."

We didn't of course.