How to Fire or Break up With Someone | Chris Voss & Dr. Andrew Huberman

00:00:00.000 | Let's talk about breakups, business breakups, romantic breakups.

00:00:07.800 | Right.

00:00:08.800 | You're breaking up with me?

00:00:10.720 | No, no.

00:00:13.160 | But thanks for the hypothesis test.

00:00:14.640 | No, in fact, in fact, I'm enjoying this conversation so much, as I always do, I'm learning a ton

00:00:19.840 | from you, that if anything, I'd like to expand and deepen our relationship, Chris.

00:00:25.000 | There, you got a lot of knowledge out of me.

00:00:31.200 | Platonic and professional, but expansive.

00:00:37.760 | What is the process of ending a relationship, and again, this could be romantic relationship,

00:00:43.920 | could be business relationship, could be employer-employee, could be individuals, could be telling a

00:00:52.760 | whole group, or an entire group telling an individual.

00:00:56.640 | You know, the reason I raise this as a particular example is that I'm assuming that both sides

00:01:05.080 | don't want the same thing.

00:01:06.780 | One side wants to continue, the other side wants to end.

00:01:13.240 | I'll avoid the use of the word win-win, or the words win-win, excuse me, and just ask,

00:01:20.200 | is there a way to have that conversation in any of the contexts I just mentioned, in a,

00:01:27.200 | as you so beautifully described it, a straight shooter manner where it's direct, it's honest,

00:01:31.760 | but it lands soft?

00:01:33.240 | Because what we're talking about here is feelings of rejection, and nobody likes feeling rejected.

00:01:38.440 | I don't know anybody that likes being fired, even from jobs they don't like.

00:01:43.640 | People's egos suffer.

00:01:47.540 | So is there maybe a more specific way of asking the question is, is there a way to encourage

00:01:54.060 | the person getting the bad news, to get their ego out of the way and see that if both parties

00:02:00.500 | don't want it, it's best for everybody involved?

00:02:03.920 | I almost want to say no, but first, what are the caveats?

00:02:08.160 | Most of the time when people are struggling with this, they're not trying to save the

00:02:10.600 | other side, they're trying to save themselves.

00:02:13.400 | So who are you really trying to save?

00:02:16.000 | By postponing it, softening it, trying to act like it's something that it's not.

00:02:25.160 | I don't know that anybody has ever been fired that didn't have a sense that it was coming.

00:02:30.240 | The person that was getting ready to fire them opens up by saying, how are you?

00:02:38.160 | They know how the other person is, and a person getting ready to get fired has got some gut

00:02:43.060 | instinct that things are going wrong.

00:02:44.820 | Like you said, the gut's very powerful.

00:02:47.760 | So you got to lower the boom as quickly as you can, but also as gently as you can.

00:02:55.240 | I was involved in a nonprofit a number of years ago affiliated with a church, and we're

00:03:00.880 | struggling with whether or not to let the executive director go, I go to the minister

00:03:04.240 | of the church, Norman Vincent Peale's protege, a guy named Arthur Caliandro, one of the best

00:03:08.960 | human beings I've ever met in my life, phenomenal guy.

00:03:13.600 | And I'm struggling with, I thought firing, letting this woman go was going to be bad.

00:03:17.560 | And I thought Arthur was going to counsel me a way out.

00:03:20.420 | And he looked at me and he said, you know, there's no gentle way to cut somebody's head

00:03:25.040 | off.

00:03:26.040 | And I thought, yeah, the humane thing here is how do you bring it to conclusion as quickly

00:03:35.200 | as possible, because there's no humane way to cut somebody's head off.

00:03:38.560 | There's no humane way to terminate the relationship.

00:03:43.400 | Now what are the caveats?

00:03:44.920 | Maybe there are.

00:03:45.920 | First caveat, if you're going to fire somebody, never fire somebody on a Friday, fire them

00:03:49.200 | on a Monday.

00:03:50.200 | Fire them on a Monday, they got a work week to work their way out of it.

00:03:54.040 | You fire them on a Friday, they got a weekend to be miserable and to feel horrible, and

00:03:58.280 | they can't do anything about it.

00:04:00.480 | Caught off guard or not, on a Monday, they can pick themselves up, they can start looking

00:04:04.760 | for a new job, no matter who you are.

00:04:07.560 | Fire them on a Friday, they can't start looking for a new job on a Saturday, it's two days

00:04:10.640 | of misery.

00:04:11.640 | Yeah, if you're going to fire somebody, fire them on a Monday, not on a Friday.

00:04:14.920 | If you got bad news to give somebody, warn them it's coming.

00:04:22.420 | People are ridiculously resilient to pain if warned, and then that you lower the boom.

00:04:30.200 | You're not going to like what I have to say, it's going to be heartbreaking, you're going

00:04:33.600 | to hate me.

00:04:35.480 | Dictate no more than three seconds, they got their guard up, let them have the bad news.

00:04:43.680 | That's the humane way to cut somebody's head off.

00:04:47.480 | Don't linger.

00:04:49.120 | Don't make them think that, "How are the kids?

00:04:51.360 | How are you?

00:04:52.360 | I care about you.

00:04:53.360 | You're a great human being."

00:04:54.360 | None of the stuff at the beginning.

00:04:57.080 | Warn them bad news is coming and hit them with the bad news.

00:05:00.540 | Rip the bandaid off.

00:05:02.300 | The pain is not if you try to rip the bandaid off slowly.

00:05:06.320 | That's excruciating and you're trying to save yourself.

00:05:09.400 | If you got to terminate a relationship regardless of what it is, the quicker you do it, the

00:05:15.960 | less painless it is, the sooner people can move on.

00:05:19.880 | Stop trying to save yourself.

00:05:22.240 | Realize how human beings handle pain.

00:05:25.060 | If anything, human beings are incredibly resilient if given the opportunity to brace themselves

00:05:30.040 | first.

How to Fire or Break up With Someone | Chris Voss & Dr. Andrew Huberman

Chapters