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THE RIGHT WAY TO BE FIRED.
Stybel, Laurence J. Peabody, Maryanne
Harvard Business Review. Jul/Aug2001, Vol. 79 Issue 7, p8695. 10p. 2 Color Photographs.
Article
*EXECUTIVES *EXECUTIVES Attitudes *PROFESSIONAL ethics *OCCUPATIONAL mobility *OCCUPATIONAL prestige *PERSONNEL policies *PERSONNEL management *JOB security DISMISSAL of PROFESSIONALISM DIGNITY
923130 Administration of Human Resource Programs (except Education, Public Health, and Veterans’ Affairs Programs) 541612 Human Resources Consulting Services
Nearly all of us will lose our jobs sometime, but is there a right way to be terminated? What differentiates fired employees who make the best of their situations from those who do not? One answer is mindset. Many workers unconsciously hold a”tenure mindset” believing in the promise of employment security. By contrast, other workers hold an “assignment mentality,” seeing each job as one in a series of impermanent, career building steppingstones. Most corporate board members and CEOs have this latter mindset and consider their executives to be filling terminal assignments? people who possess this mentality usually rebound swiftly when fired. But when employees who hold a tenure mindset are suddenly fired or laid off, the authors say, they can fall into three common traps. Executives who have overidentified with their jobs and feel indispensable to their organizations get caught in the “lost identity” trap? they react to termination with anger and bitterness. In the “lost family” trap, employees possess tightknit, emotional bonds with coworkers. When terminated, they feel betrayed and rejected. And finally, some introverted executives fall into the “lost ego” trap? they quietly retreat without negotiating fair termination packages and may settle for less satisfying work the next time around. To
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prepare for the eventuality of termination, the authors suggest that executives adopt the assignment mindset at all times. T
