Yesterday was Phil Gerbyshak’s last day writing Slacker Manager and the last day of Bizzia, the b5 business portal, (he’ll continue writing at The Management Expert), but his choice of topics is an important one.

The Secret to Firing Someone talks about being human and accepting that the response will also be human—and likely emotional.

But it shouldn’t be, not if you have really done your job as their manager.

Because if you’ve done that they would have been getting feedback all along; feedback that told them there were performance or attitude issues that needed to change; discussions of what needed to happen and how to do it.

This is your responsibility as a manager, leader, parent, whatever; it is up to you to give feedback constantly—not just on a certain date or because it’s convenient—never forgetting that good feedback should be public, whereas criticism is only given in private and always in a constructive manner, because no matter what is going on, no matter the problem, nothing positive will happen without honest feedback.

Yes, sometimes it is necessary to fire someone, but it should never come as a surprise to that person.

Image credit: daniel.julia on flickr

Check out my other WW: the road to forever