If you are a bookstore manager or owner, how do you fire bad booksellers?
There are 99 reasons why I'm not management material, and firing people is only one. It's a big one, though, and I realized this week that I've been going to education sessions at book trade shows for more than 25 years, but can't recall a single time that staff termination procedures, a decidedly unpleasant yet unavoidable task, have been the topic of a panel discussion. Maybe my memory is bad. Maybe I just missed those sessions. Maybe I didn't want to hear the war stories. Or maybe... we don't like to talk about it.
You're Fired!
You might think that "You're fired!" as a heading is inspired by our current president, who gained some measure of fame by reciting the line like a sitcom catch phrase on his former NBC show, The Apprentice. But I actually started thinking about all this a couple of days ago when I saw a Fast Company video featuring James Corden, host of The Late Late Show on CBS, sharing his own trepidation about firing people and then demonstrating just how bad he is at it.
"I've never fired anybody in my life," he says. "I don't even like saying the word fire anyone out loud. I don't mind delivering bad news. What I don't like is being the reason for that bad news."
Good Managers, Bad Managers
Good managers fire bad employees--and bad managers fire good employees--all the time. At this very second, all across the planet, hundreds of people are being asked by their bosses if they "could just step into my office for a minute." Shortly thereafter, they emerge shocked... and sacked.
I'm most curious about the good managers. Can you fire well? Is it always awkward? Are there ever regrets? I assume bad managers fire just as they manage--badly. Images come to mind of David Brent's horrid fake-firing of Dawn in The Office; or Bill Lumbergh's passive-aggressive mistreatment of Milton in Office Space; or Captain Willard's marching orders to terminate Colonel Kurtz's command "with extreme prejudice" in Apocalypse Now (1:50 minute mark). My mind works in mysterious ways.
As it happens, my favorite bad firing of all time is bookseller themed. It happened on Black Books, when Bernard axed Manny on his first day for the worst bookselling reasons ever (18:30 minute mark): "You sold a lot of books. You got on very well with all the customers. I'm going to have to let you go."
Studies Have Shown...
According to numerous studies, book readers tend to benefit tangibly in terms of intangibles like increased empathy. That would seem to be ideal news for booksellers, but just make things harder for bookstore owners and managers.
I've read many articles with variations on this theme (via Big Think): "Research shows that reading not only helps with fluid intelligence, but with reading comprehension and emotional intelligence as well. You make smarter decisions about yourself and those around you.... Recognizing the intentions of another human also plays a role in constructing an ideology. Novels are especially well-suited for this task. A 2011 study published in the Annual Review of Psychology found overlap in brain regions used to comprehend stories and networks dedicated to interactions with others."
Does enhanced emotional intelligence make it harder to dump fellow readers? I'd like to know.
The Peculiar Anxiety of Someone Else Being Fired
For any number of reasons, sometimes it just doesn't work out. They gotta go. And the person who has to break the news is put in the discomforting position of firing a bookseller they hired once upon a time because both parties considered this to be a good fit.
Although the whole closed-door, employment termination ritual is a mystery to me, I do have vivid memories of co-workers getting the axe. Occasionally I knew ahead of time that it was going to happen, knew when it was happening "in the office," and then saw the person as they emerged in their new identity as an ex-bookseller. It always sent a chill up my spine.
How Do You Do It?
In the book trade, we track title sales and store openings and staff promotions and new releases and everything else, but we have no idea, I'm sure, how many booksellers were fired last year. Sometimes those bookish casualties deserve it, though people can be, and often are, let go unfairly (bad managers again) or because of corporate closures (Borders) or flagging sales numbers (B&N).
It's complicated, yet I'm still intrigued by how firing is done. Call it constructively intrusive morbid curiosity. If you'd like to share any of your stories and strategies--on or off the record--please contact me. I'd love to learn more about this mysterious rite of passage out the door. How do you fire booksellers?