The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us From Violence

by Gavin De Becker

  MAKE THE TERMINATION COMPLETE

  Often, employers are tempted to offer a gradual separation, thinking it will lessen the blow to the terminated employee. Though it may appear that this approach extends the term of employment, it really extends the firing, and the embarrassment and anxiety along with it. It is analogous to hooking someone up to life-support systems when he has no quality of life and no chance for survival. Though some may believe this extends the process of life, it actually extends the process of death.

  DO NOT NEGOTIATE

  This could be called the golden rule, and it applies to getting out of any kind of relationship with people who refuse to let go. Once the termination decision has been made, your meeting with the employee is to inform him of your decision, period. Other issues may come up, but do not negotiate, no matter how much he wants to. This is not a discussion of how to improve things, correct things, change the past, find blame, or start over. Revisiting the issues and contentions of his history with the company will only raise sore points and raise emotion. He cannot likely be convinced that terminating him is a good idea—it isn’t in his nature to recognize that, no matter what the evidence, so keep the presentation brief. I suggest to clients that they actually write a script of the few points they want to make in informing the employee of the decision. I also suggest they come up with what my office calls call a “boomerang line,” a sentence that can be repeated each time he tries to derail the conversation: “Bill, if you had made this decision instead of us, we’d respect it,” or “This is not the time to rehash the past; we have to work on the future.”

  KEEP THE DISCUSSION FUTURE BASED

  Avoid rehashing the past. Establish some issues about the future to be resolved during the meeting. For example, “What would you like us to tell callers about where to reach you?” “Would you like us to forward mail or advise the sender of your new address?” “How can we best describe your job here to future employers who may contact us?” Make the employee feel that his input has bearing. Uncertainty about what a former employer will tell callers causes high anxiety, so address it directly and show that it is resolvable. This way it is not left simmering beneath the surface. These points may seem minor, but they direct focus to the future, to his starting over again rather than dwelling on the past.

  BE DIRECT

  Instead of simply informing an employee that the decision to fire him has been made, some employers sidle up to the issue so delicately that the person doesn’t fully realize he has just been fired. After listening, he might say he understands he has to improve his performance, to which the employer responds, “No, you don’t understand; we’re firing you.” This can make the fired employee feel foolish on top of all the other feelings that go with being fired. Trying to be delicate often results in being vague. There is a joke which that seem at first to endorse delivering bad news in a roundabout way, but it shows that directness actually makes more sense:

  A woman calls the friend who is house-sitting for her and asks how things are going. “Well, your cat fell off the roof and died,” the friend reports. “My God,” the woman replies. “How could you tell me like that? You should have said, ‘Fluffy was playing on the roof having a wonderful time, and she began to slip. She regained her footing and seemed okay, but then she slipped again and fell off the roof. She was rushed to the vet, and the injuries seemed serious, but then Fluffy rallied, and everyone thought she’d make it, but… well… finally she passed away.’ That’s how you should have told me.”

  The house-sitter apologizes for being so unfeeling. A week later the woman calls again to see how things are going. The house-sitter hesitates and then says, “Well, your mother was playing on the roof…”

  People benefit most from hearing bad news forthrightly.

  The whole theme of the termination meeting should be that you are confident he will succeed in the future, find work he will enjoy, and do well. (You may actually feel he has emotional problems, is self-defeating, and will always fail, but there is nothing to be gained from letting these messages surface.) The tone of the meeting should be matter-of-fact, not solemn and depressing: “These changes are part of professional life that we all experience at one time or another. I’ve been through it myself. We know you’ll do well and that this needn’t be a setback for you.”

  TO THE DEGREE POSSIBLE, CITE GENERAL RATHER THAN SPECIFIC ISSUES

  Many employers want to justify to the terminated employee why they are taking this action, as if they could possibly convince him that his being fired is a good idea. Others use the termination meeting for more efforts to correct the employee’s attitude or improve him, turning the termination meeting into a lecture. Many employers give more frank and constructive criticism at the moment of firing someone than they ever gave that employee while he was employed. Forget about that—it’s too late. A wiser course is to describe the decision in general terms, saying it is best for all parties. Say employment is a two-way street and the present situation isn’t serving either side. Say he is obviously a capable person but this job is not providing the best environment for him to excel in. Do not get dragged into a discussion about who will replace him. Use a boomerang line or say those decisions haven’t been made.

  REMEMBER THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE

  In consideration of the security and safety of those handling the firing, the employee not be aware of the termination meeting ahead of time. Believe it or not, many employees are summoned to their firing meeting with the words “They’re going to fire you.”

  TIME IT RIGHT

  A firing should take place without notice, at the end of the day, while other employees are departing. This way, when the meeting is over, the fired employee cannot immediately seek out those he feels are responsible. Further, he will then be going home at the same time as usual as opposed to finding himself home on a weekday morning, for example. I suggest firing at the end of the work week. If fired on a Friday, he has the weekend off as usual so he doesn’t feel the impact of having no place to go the next morning. Unlike on a weekday, he will not awaken with the knowledge that his former co-workers are at the job (and possibly discussing him). He won’t have the experience of everything being different from usual, different shows on TV, familiar people not at home, etc. Though some believe that firing on a weekday is advisable, I find it makes possible targets of aggression available to him at work while he is still at a point of high emotion.

  CHOOSE YOUR SETTING

  A firing should take place in a room out of the view of other employees. It should not be in the office of the person doing the firing, because then there’s no way to end the meeting if the terminated employee wants to keep talking. The person doing the firing needs to have the ability to stand up and leave if it is no longer productive to stay. One experienced executive I know avoids using his office because he feels that a person will always vividly remember where he was fired and might return there if angry.

  CHOOSE YOUR CAST

  Who should be present? I suggest that a higher level manager than the employee usually worked with should make the termination presentation. It should be someone distant from the day-to-day controversies that surrounded the terminated employee. It should be someone who is calm and can retain that demeanor in the face of anger or even threats. When workable, a second participant can be someone in management the fired employee is known to admire, or someone with whom he has a good relationship. The reason for this second person is that the employee will act his best self in front of someone he feels likes or respects him.

  Who should not be present? Armed security guards, local police, or Big Ed from the loading dock should not be part of the termination meeting. Though some employers believe that this presence puts them in a position of strength, it does exactly the opposite. It sets all your vulnerabilities on the table for the potentially dangerous employee to exploit. No equal co-worker or direct supervisor should be present either. They increase the likelihood of embarrassment, along wit
h the likelihood of getting into a heated discussion about the past. The manager running the termination meeting shows his strength by not appearing to need any reinforcements.

  ▪ ▪ ▪

  Many employers view firing as something done from a position of power, but it is not so. There was a day when Richard Farley was the most powerful man at ESL. There was a day when David Burke was the most powerful man at USAir. They had anger and righteous indignation, and as Emerson said, “A good indignation brings out all one’s powers.” Righteous indignation can be the engine for behaviors that an employee might never have even considered before. Remember, this man is not a monster. He is someone they hired who might have worked at a company for years. But now he is in shock. This firing has shaken his world. Either he didn’t expect it or it confirms his view of the world because he always expected it. In any case, it is an unwelcome and belittling change that is being forced on him.

  He could stand not being liked in the company, but being ignored, rejected, erased—that is quite a different matter. The firing is much bigger to him because of what he links to it: loss of status, loss of income, loss of security, loss of purpose, loss of identity and above all loss in a fight. His opponents have won and he has lost.

  Because of all this, an important power shift takes place at the instant of firing. Everything changes as a wide range of options and alternatives opens up to the fired employee that he could never have applied when he was trying to keep his job. The primary leverage of employers is the ability to fire, but once they do it, once that power is exercised, their one shot has been fired and the gun is empty. After that, the power is in the hands of the employee. Many companies have learned that the cost of underestimating this power is far greater than the cost of respecting it.

  Given the industriousness of lawyers and the prevalence of wrongful termination suits, some companies have been more concerned about litigation than hazard. When a fired employee threatens a lawsuit, he may get more attention than for other threats, but this is ironic, because in the context of the kind of employee we are discussing here, the threatening of a lawsuit is actually good news. As long as he is focused on a lawsuit, he sees alternatives to violence. The problem with lawsuits comes not when they start, but when they end. We know that eventually, particularly when claims are unreasonable or outrageous, the employee will lose the legal battle. Then the company may have to face that person’s anger again. When employers avoid provoking or engaging a fired employee, however, time itself will heal most wounds, hopefully including those to his dignity and identity.

  What is the best way to respond to threats in a termination meeting? In chapter 7, I provided many concepts about threats that apply to this question. Remember that the value of threats is determined by our reaction. Accordingly, if an employee makes threats when he is fired, the best theme for the reaction is “I understand you are upset, but the things you are talking about are not your style. I know you are far too reasonable and have too good a future to even consider such things.” This reaction is not intended to convince the threatener that he isn’t angry but rather to convince him that you are not afraid.

  It is also important to let the threatener know that he has not embarked on a course from which he cannot retreat. A good theme is “We all say things when we react emotionally; I’ve done it myself. Let’s just forget it. I know you’ll feel different tomorrow.”

  Even in the cases in which the threats are determined to be serious (and thus call for interventions or extensive preparations), we advise clients never to show the threatener a high appraisal of his words and never to show fear. This doesn’t mean they shouldn’t take precautions. In fact, when clients are firing difficult employees, we guide them through many precautions, including monitoring the meeting by video from nearby rooms, having security intervention teams at the ready, installation of emergency call buttons, and improved access-control procedures after the firing.

  All termination meetings, whether they go well or poorly, provide valuable insights into how the fired employee is going to behave later. As important, this meeting also shows the fired employee how management will react to his behavior. Immediately after a termination meeting, the person who conducted the firing should make a report of the attitude, behavior, responses and statements of the fired employee. The information can then be assessed by professionals whose opinions can help inform decisions about security and other relevant matters.

  Among the issues to be decided after a difficult termination is whether anyone needs to be notified about possible risk. The failure to warn people who might be the targets of violence can be negligent, as can be the failure to take back access credentials, monitor an angry employee’s departure from the building, notify security personnel and receptionists, or take any other steps appropriate when someone is believed to be dangerous to others.

  The worst possible reaction to a threat is a counter-threat. When threats work for the employee, it’s because, having little to lose, he might actually do a reckless thing—and management knows that. Conversely, the employee intuitively knows that management will not do a reckless thing. Also, counter-threats make things worse. Think of violence as inter-actional. The way you respond to a threat might up the ante and turn this situation into a contest of threats, escalations, and counter-threats. It is a contest employers rarely win, for they have far more at risk than the terminated employee and far more ways to lose. Examples of counter-threats include management’s saying, “Oh, yeah? Well I’ll have the cops on you the minute you try it!” Counter-threats engage the threatener and put you on his playing field. You want exactly the opposite, which is to disengage and to play by your rules.

  Having said this, there is also a time to let go of rules altogether. My office consulted on a case in which our client, a mid-sized city, put rules above safety. An employee who was retiring on a mental disability rejected the $11,000 the city offered because it didn’t include a $400 reimbursement he felt entitled to. The rules prohibited reimbursement for expenditures that were not approved ahead of time, so the city refused to pay it. One afternoon the ex-employee arrived without an appointment and demanded to see the administrator who had made that decision. The two argued, but the administrator held firm to the rules. The employee stood up and said, “Let me see if I can put this another way.” He then placed two .38 caliber bullets on the administrator’s desk and left.

  Our office was asked to assess the situation. We learned that this employee had shown a handgun to his therapist and commented on the principle of the financial dispute: “Right is right, and right always wins.” In our report, we suggested that the city pay the $400, since winning that point had become a matter of pride and identity to the former employee. Acceding to people’s demands isn’t always possible or practical, but in this case the entire consequence was the $400.

  By the city’s reaction to our suggestion, you would think we had asked them to give up their first-born sons. The administrator told me, “We have rules, and if we buckle under to everybody who makes a demand, those rules will be meaningless.” He could have benefited from the wisdom of Oliver Wendell Holmes: “The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.”

  Like the threatener, this administrator was committed to the principle of the matter. In such cases, we say both parties are “in the ring,” meaning they are willing or even anxious to stay in the fight. I said, “We aren’t suggesting that you give four hundred dollars to everyone who asks for it, but rather that you give four hundred dollars just to the desperate, emotionally disturbed ex-employees who, after showing a gun to their therapists, plop bullets down on your desk to make a point. I don’t expect the city will be paying out on that policy too often.” But the administrator was clinging to some higher ideal than just the money—in fact, he was spending more than $400 just arguing his opinion with me. After he finished his second, more spirited lecture on the sanctity of rules, I wanted to bring us back to the high-stakes cont
ext: “I have a suggestion: Since rules are so powerful, let’s make a new rule that says employees cannot shoot administrators. Won’t that solve the problem?”

  He actually appeared to be thinking over my rhetorical suggestion when I asked, “Which rule would you rather see broken?” Wars have been fought over easier issues, but the administrator finally agreed to the $400 payment, the ex-employee moved to Arizona, and the city survived its brief affair with flexibility. Such resolutions may seem obvious, but when participants are in the ring, it’s hard for them to see past their fists.

  ▪ ▪ ▪

  Not a week passes without an organization’s seeking my corporations and agencies that have dedicated the time and resources to addressing these hazards before they occur have, in effect, elected to learn lessons second-hand rather than have their employees learn them first hand.

  No matter how well managers manage, however, there may still be some violence in the workplace that doesn’t reveal itself early. That’s because it starts closer to home.

  ▪ CHAPTER TEN ▪

  INTIMATE ENEMIES

  “You never do anything about him.