The Accidental Entrepreneurs
Two different innovators that stumbled on ideas in the veterinary field, built a company, then sold for millions........ without having any idea what they were doing.
Each week, Ira and Stacee will spin the wheel of start-up questions and share the knowledge they wish they had back then.
The Accidental Entrepreneurs
Ep 18: What was your most challenging firing?
The episode takes a turn as we confront the reality of firing an employee—a challenge that tests the alignment of personal compassion with a company's core values. We discuss the broader impact these decisions have on the team and the delicate nature of delivering difficult news.
Well, welcome back. You've been at the Western Veterinary Conference in Las Vegas for a little bit. How did that all go, Stacee?
Stacee:It went good. It was super busy. I was there from Sunday to Thursday. So if you don't like it, that's a long time.
Ira:Twice as long as the limit.
Stacee:I do love it, so it wasn't that bad. But, man, I was way busier than I thought I would be. I met with a lot of emerging founders and want to be founders, and so that was really fun and you can start to kind of see I don't know like I'm starting to pick up on who's really passionate for real, for real, real, and who's kind of trying to, you know, make a dollar, which they don't have to be mutually exclusive, but I definitely like enjoy being around the people more that have like this passionate idea.
Ira:For sure. I think there's nothing wrong with being ambitious, about creating a successful and profitable business, but my sense and experience is that the people that do that the best are the ones that care a lot about a problem, that they think they have an idea that will solve it they have an idea that will solve it.
Stacee:Yeah, and like, not like a big, I asked. I would ask the people I met what's your main goal here, what are you really trying to do? And if it's make money, I can live with that. But they'll say something huge like make sure no animal is ever in pain. Again. I'm like, "oh god, come on, get real
Ira:It just comes off as inauthentic, even if they genuinely mean it. I have been doing some work to try to help spin up a company that would be focused on veterinary oncology therapy and, and I said, you know, I, I can't be the guy that's going to say that I'm starting this company because I don't want any pet to ever die of cancer, like, of course that's what I want, right, it's obvious just feels inauthentic and sets you up for for you could do something great and you're still a failure because you didn't achieve this. You know unrealistic set of goals I suppose there's, you know, some people that you look at that set these crazy unrealistic goals and achieve them, but that is, you know, the fraction of a fraction of a percent sort of sort of people. And I am not quite so arrogant to think that I'm in that fraction of a fraction of a percent. I might be close, but I'm not quite there.
Stacee:Well, I did want to tell you about one of my sessions.
Ira:Oh yes.
Stacee:I did this hour session called Stop Acting Like a Girl - Six Tips for Women to be Successful in Business, and it's based on this blog I wrote, you know, I don't know four or five years ago and it's just always something I've thought about when I look at my team both in my clinic and at Vet2Pet were women.
Stacee:But then when I had to work to you know, advance, my company and I'm doing things like PIMS, integration deals and raising money deals and selling it it's all men and I started to see like these differences in the way we behave and there are things that I think women do, that we're born with or we're trained to be, that roll over into this professional zone and kind of sabotage ourselves. So I wrote this blog and I decided to do a presentation on it and I'll just tell you the first thing that happened to me is like a day before I was presenting several people, I told the title to sort of cringed when I said it's, stop acting like a girl and one guy was like are we allowed to say the word girl? And I felt kind of bad for him because he's obviously been beat down. And then some of my girlfriends are like I don't know this could be dicey for you.
Ira:When I was growing up, right Like that would be something that a bad coach would say to like one of the guys on the team if they weren't acting tough enough right, and so I guess that phrase could be sort of triggering for some people and some audiences in a way that I'm sure you did not intend.
Stacee:But, Ira, there was like two or 300 women in the room and I went through my tips. I also shared my no-nonsense, foolproof methodology to get a raise. And then I opened the floor to comments because I had about 10 or 15 minutes still available for the audience and they just started sharing so much. It was crazy. Like one girl said, when she goes into her board meetings or her CEO room, she's not the CEO. She said she isn't very well liked because she goes against the grain a little and provides a different perspective and she feels like she isn't very popular. But yet afterwards people text her and thank her for saying what they didn't say and she's like here I am struggling, I want to be liked so much, but yet if I'm being authentic in my true self, I'm bucking the system and I don't know what to do and I'm like, oh, you keep doing it. And they just kept sharing stories like this. It was crazy. Like 80% of the workforce or more is women, but the top is men.
Ira:Yeah, it reminds me of. I have this friend who has this saying that I love and hate, which is she says you know, women can do anything as long as there's not a white male that also wants to do that thing and can do it half as well.
Stacee:Yeah, exactly, I don't know what I'm going to do with this. I feel like, oh no, I have to help other women, but I don't know how.
Ira:That's a great cause and I think a lot of people will appreciate it.
Stacee:Okay, well, let's get into it today.
Ira:The question is what was your most challenging firing? So I'll go first. So I think I might need to change some names just for people's anonymity. But when I came back into practicing veterinary medicine, started my practice, I had really only been a radiation oncologist for about a year before I stopped practicing and went to work in a research lab for about five years, and so when I came back I was I'm extremely fortunate to be working at a clinic that had a very, very experienced radiation oncology technician and she helped me so much.
Ira:All the little things that I would sort of forget, she would kind of remind me of, and all of the details that you kind of need to worry about related to just kind of running a day in the clinic and treating patients she would take care of and she would almost just kind of like walk me through.
Ira:Like you know here's the next thing you got to go off to and don't forget this and was just an exceptional friend, mentor, uh, co--worker, you know all of the things and we worked together for quite a few years and I was opening another clinic about 100 miles south and had hired a new radiation oncologist to go work there and needed a good radiation oncology technician to go run that clinic and I trusted this person knew they were great and thought I've got this great idea, like let's have her go down there.
Ira:Not that I don't need her anymore, but I don't need her as much anymore and she can hopefully be as great of a resource to. You know this newly minted radiation oncologist that's going to try to start up this new clinic, as she's been to me and be a great opportunity for her, great for this new practice, and so we got her to agree to this plan. She moved with her husband, you know, to another city and um and started up and for just a variety of reasons that in retrospect maybe I could have predicted, but at the time just never even dawned on me like just was not the right fit to work with that new doctor.
Stacee:And so the two people had a personality clash?
Ira:I would say, you know, personality and just professionally, like they just weren't a good fit to work together and and this was a big problem and you know, obviously we tried to work through it, it, but it became clear that like this just wasn't working and we ultimately had to make a decision to say this wasn't working, like somebody's not going to be able to continue here, and it was an impossible decision because it can take years to hire a veterinary radiation oncologist and there's nobody that has the amount of experience in sort of this radiation oncology technician role.
Ira:But you can train other technicians to do it and you know it's just this impossible thing. But made the decision to terminate that position and probably the hardest conversation I've ever had right was to sort of sit down and have to let this person become a very, very close personal friend as well as kind of this extraordinarily valued, you know colleague and mentor, and to say you know I'm really sorry, but we're going, and and to say you know I'm really sorry, but we're gonna have to let you go and, um, you know, sort of reflect on all of the really fun times and things that we, you know, did together.
Ira:Like she she literally gave me underwear as my secret santa for sort of the work holiday, like you know we were pretty close and and to sort of have to go through this and um and let her go, and you know she really hadn't done anything wrong per se, um, but you know she and we just weren't able to sort of navigate this conflict and you know always have had a bit of regret about that.
Ira:I think we're still, we're friendly, but we're not really in frequent contact anymore and I feel like I lost an important and close friend that's now more of, unfortunately, an acquaintance and ultimately I don't know if it was even really the best thing for the practice, I think for that reason and others, the the radiation oncologist that that was there ultimately ended up moving on to another opportunity not too long after that and and so we were still back in sort of we need to find somebody and that's going to take a long time. So, um, that was super tough. I still ask myself sometimes if we really made the right decision there and was, uh, you know that was the worst.
Stacee:That sounds so traumatic. Did you offer her to go back to the original practice? But I mean, it was already another she couldn't.
Ira:I knew she couldn't like she bought out, she bought a house, but I mean, it was already another.
Stacee:Oh no
Ira:That's, and you know I worried about things that maybe shouldn't have been my problem but there weren't other radiation oncology clinics that were nearby and sort of worried about her ability to do the things that she loved to do and was great at doing.
Stacee:Wow. And what happened to her? Did she move on to bigger and better things, or do you even know?
Ira:Yeah, no, she did. She did end up moving on to being a internal medicine technician, which I think she liked, although she wasn't't if she was sort of elite right, there aren't many people like her in my field, and that's gained from many, many years of doing it, and so in some ways I imagine that she had to start over a little bit, although certainly some of those skills are very translatable.
Stacee:It's so hard because my first firing like you I was in this predicament of I really liked the person a lot personally. I enjoyed working with them, they did a pretty good job at their job. But I ultimately had to choose what was best for the business. And I remember grappling with this dilemma like is my purpose to be, you know, for the people, only individual people, or is my role to grow and scale this business for the greater good, which is really what I had set out to do? And so sometimes they don't go together, and that was actually the struggle I had with my first firing.
Ira:You still in touch with that person, or did you no?
Stacee:No, it burned bad. You know, we're starting to grow the team. We hired a few more people and we're starting to really grow. And I felt a need one day to write down our core values in such a way that we're like, really, this is how it works around here. These are the things I really care about, Because I felt like if there'd been a couple little issues where I'd had to sit people down and say, hey, we don't really do it like that here. So I pushed it, pushed me to think about how do I want this place to look and what is important, Because the reason I left my other job one of the reasons was because it got really catty and it got really. You know, vet clinics can be this way, um front of the house versus the back of the house and you're overworked and you're tired and cranky and it's a bunch of, honestly, women.
Ira:I have no idea what you're talking about.
Stacee:It can be a tough world to be in. So I wrote down what I call. I didn't call it core values, I called it " manifesto of And one day I sat down and I wrote down these are the things I care about. These are the lines not to cross that will get you fired around.
Stacee:Here was how I presented it, and number one was honesty. Like I just have zero tolerance for lying and being respectful of others, not talking about people behind their back. These were some of the things that I said. These are non-negotiable lines. If you cross them, you're out, and I presented it to every new hire and at that point, all the people that are on my team and I'm like I get it if you can't agree to this. So if you can't, you should leave now.
Stacee:Then one day what happens is we catch my sweet 20 something year old in a very blatant lie. So I fired her and I told her you crossed the line and that's that. And it sucks so bad because none of us knew how to do our job and we really valued her and she was 99% an amazing person to be around. That one little percent really was the only issue, but I felt so terrible Ira just sick at my stomach for a long time that I changed the trajectory of this person's life. Or perhaps she did it to herself, but I had to hold the line. This is my pet peeve, like if you're going to have core values and you don't hold the line.
Ira:You know that any decisions that sort of have consequences from. There is, you know that's not you causing, you know some dramatic change of course of somebody's life. In all likelihood those are, um are highly complex outcomes that you're only one small piece of.
Stacee:The person I ended up putting in the role, another 20 something young, up and coming woman is flourishing so much and she is really climbed the ladder at the company that I sold that to pet to. And I actually met with her boss's boss now in Vegas and she specifically called out this person Kylee McCoy is her name and said how amazing this person is and where did I find her. So you know, these little decisions, they make a big difference in ways you might not think about.
Ira:Sure, Let me ask you something a little bit different about firing, since it's such a fun topic. So, yeah, I've talked to lots of people that have been fired and one of the things I often hear from them is you know, it's not so bad that I got fired, but it's the way that I got fired that I'm upset about, Right? And yeah, I've really tried to think through like is there you know a better way or key learnings, pieces of advice related to how to handle those things, Because I feel like more often than not, people walk away with this perception that, you know, I feel like I understand that maybe this had to happen, but I just feel like it should have been handled better.
Stacee:Oh yeah, the first few firings I did at the vet clinic were horrible and I think the big difference I came to discover there's two parts. One is it's like kind of the way you actually break bad news to a client when their pet is dying or going to die. There's like this warm up part of the brain where you can't just blurt it out. You have to say something like I have some bad news to share, I have something that's going to be difficult for you to hear. Like just that one phrase helps them get a jolt of endorphins to help them receive the news, them get a jolt of endorphins to help them receive the news. But prior to that, it's the lead up to the firing. That I think is the problem.
Stacee:And many leaders or managers, they have all these irritations or issues with the employee in their head that they haven't effectively communicated with the employee. Because it's hard, it's difficult, you don't know how to say it and oftentimes it's very gray instead of super direct. Like hey, you're not doing this part right and if you don't start doing it right, like we're going to have a tough challenge in front of us because I've got to have you do it this one way. You've got to not cause drama. You've got to, you know, tell the truth, whatever it is. So I think sometimes we put people in situations where we think they should just know what the rules of the game are and then when they cross the line, they don't know they crossed the line and maybe you aren't effective at telling them that they crossed the line. So I think if you fire someone, well, they see it coming, and I think when it hurts the most is when they didn't see it coming. What do you think?
Ira:I think that is frequently the case. I think there are, of course there's a lot of different reasons why people get let go. I think your point is well taken when there are performance or behavior issues that sort of lead people down that road. I think another reason why people are frequently terminated is when a business has a little bit of a shift in direction or focus or needs to shift resources from one area to another or is running into financial crunches where, in order to do something that's really important for the business, they need to make that somewhere and for a variety of reasons. It's very hard for leaders in those circumstances to kind of give people a lot of warning that their job or their department may be at risk, and then they are in the position of having to essentially lay people off without really having them have a lot of warning that something like that was coming.
Stacee:It's not the fault of the employee, it's the fault of the business.
Ira:I think that, from a kind of dispassionate person that thinks about how businesses grow and evolve, I think there's something that's potentially very healthy about businesses at certain stages needing to sort of hire a lot of people to build something fast and, you know, figure things out and try to grow, but you know, eventually needs to identify, like, how it can do that, you know, efficiently, scalably, profitably.
Ira:And that requires efficiently, scalably, profitably, and that requires aspects of kind of trimming down on that. And so that makes sense to me from sort of dispassionate, organizational kind of development perspective. But from a personal perspective it takes real people, people, lives, and you know, essentially casualties of circumstances that are not their fault or outside of their control. And yeah, I, the way I sort of think about it is, you know, there are times when everybody maybe in the business might care a lot about the people in the business but the business itself doesn't end or can't actually care about people Right and um, and that's, I think, a harsh reality that maybe some people never have to learn, but many people learn at some point in time and and it's pretty painful.
Stacee:Oh, it's so crushing. So I know that Vetsource, where I sold my company, they had a big layoff like a year ago. And from watching that from the outside, what I think is twofold the things that could be done better at this level of the game. One is when you hire someone, maybe it's worth saying we are in growth mode and we have to tell you no job is safe. There could be pivots on this company. We could make strategic changes and it wouldn't be out of the norm if we lay people off here and there as we grow. So the message know, the message you're trying to convey is make yourself as valuable as possible to this team.
Stacee:But the other is I think a lot of high level executives and HR people think that the kindest way is to just a sharp cut and get you like just sharp and less bleeding with this. But I think they need a warmup. I think they need to. The team needs to know like, even if it's one day, hey, we are in a board meeting, we are having some difficult conversations because the financials aren't where we need them and we're going to be coming out with some hard news in the next few days or we lost a major account and this is going to change the way we operate around here.
Stacee:We can't make the numbers work. We're trying, but everyone needs to brace for impact and I know they hate doing that because it causes undue or anticipatory anxiety for a lot of people. But isn't that better than just a swift cut and instantly all the people that were cut are gone. Their emails are shut off. You can't slack them anymore. You don't even know exactly who got cut because they don't publish that list. Don't even know exactly who got cut because they don't publish that list. That can be more stressful for the people.
Ira:They don't trust you anymore. It can be extremely awkward, um, like you don't know what to do. You know, my, my instinct is always like, oh, I really want to call so-and-so, and you know, see how they're doing and express my you know remorse for their circumstance, right, um, but all of the HR people will tell you like, oh, that you absolutely can't do, that, that's the worst possible thing you can do, and I don't really understand it. Uh, I sort of understand it, but I I feel like it is a bit misplaced in terms of being kind of a foundational principle of how people are supposed to handle these things.
Stacee:Yeah, it's cold hearted and maybe that's to your point the organization has no feelings. Hey, listeners, we'd love to hear what you think about this. So please go over to LinkedIn, if you're on there, and go to the Accidental Entrepreneurs and share your thoughts. First off, how do you think you should fire someone or do layoffs, and also tell us about the first time you had to fire someone. We'd love to hear your story too.
Ira:Well, I think we are reaching that moment where we are to share a resource, words of wisdom, maybe a influential mentor or person that's helped you along the way, so why don't you go first, Stacee?
Stacee:Okay, my tip of the day is a payroll software called Gusto. I have a question.
Ira:Sorry to interrupt you. I've struggled with this a lot. Is it gusto, or is it gusto Like English or Spanish? I don't really know, maybe it should be gusto because you know that's a better meaning.
Stacee:I didn't really know how to do payroll taxes or payroll. The whole thing is very complicated for me to understand and I was thrilled when I discovered this software and they do everything for you and each employee has their own portal and they can see their W-2 and all their history of raises, and it's a delightful company.
Ira:Great. I've had good experiences there as well, and at my startup we switched at some point to using what I think was called a PPO, a professional payroll operator. I probably got that wrong, but essentially they kind of take over everything related to employment. So, technically, your employees they're sort of co-employed, they're paid by. So, technically, your employees are, you know, they're sort of co-employed, they're, they're paid by. Their paychecks come from a company with a different name than yours, but they work for you and kind of at at your terms and service and they take over all the benefits as a result and you pay for it. Like it's a much more significant expense than using a great resource like Gusto was.
Stacee:I want to tell you real quick about this podcast you have to listen to, called Queen of the Con. Okay she is this evil bookkeeper that proclaims to be a CPA, that targets small startups, small businesses, and does their payroll for them, and she has the people write their um taxes to their well there's payroll taxes and an income tax. And she has the people write their taxes to their well there's payroll taxes and an income tax. And she has them write all their checks to income tax payments. And she had a bank account called Income Tax Payments that was the name of her company DBA'd with the Bank of America and swindled millions of dollars from like a dozen different.
Ira:And it's just like a horror story. Or is this like nonfiction?
Stacee:It is a nonfiction horror story. It's called Queen of the Con. It's season two.
Ira:I'm not going to get into this is. Even just hearing about it is scaring me.
Stacee:Yeah. So I always think, oh, these poor souls, if they knew about gusto, they wouldn't have been. What's your tip of the week?
Ira:All right, so I'm going to mention a book. It was good hearing you talk about your blog and your lecture about Stop Acting Like a Girl, and it reminded me of this book that I like, called Made to Stick. It is written by a pair of brothers, Chip Heath and Dan Heath, and is all about why, sort of, in a world of so many ideas and concepts and things, that certain ideas just stick in people's minds and you never forget them. And I think that, yeah, that phrase of stop acting like a girl is one of those phrases that sticks in people's minds forever, and that's probably why it was triggering to some people when I heard that was the name of your talk.
Stacee:Oh, great, yeah, and I do have the last book you recommended, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Yeah, I bought it, so it's sitting on my end table. I plan to read it soon. So now you've given me another one. All right, well, let's hop over to the wheel and spin it, and we'll see what our topic is for next.
Ira:What was your first big disappointment?
Stacee:Oh, we're going to have some more sad and get real conversations.
Ira:We had like a nice run of uplifting stuff at the beginning.
Stacee:All right, Get your Kleenex out and we'll see you next week.
