How to fire people with grace, work through fear, and nurture innovation

Matt Mochary is a full-time executive coach who has advised founders and leaders at many well-known tech companies and investment firms. The conversation covers how to handle fear and anger in leadership, how to fire people humanely and run layoffs well, how to make people feel heard, how to innovate inside larger companies, and how to use energy audits to focus on work you enjoy.

01Key learnings

• When you sense fear clouding judgment, make a low-stakes bet with a peer on the opposite prediction; Mochary says fear has consistently given bad advice in his coaching.
• Deliver layoff news one-on-one, never via email or group chat, since impersonal delivery is what turns layoffs into anger and public backlash.
• Separate the decision from its implementation: decide based on what serves the customer, then address the hurt of each affected party.
• After letting someone go, act as their agent by actively introducing them to roles that fit their strengths, not just offering a passive reference.
• To make someone feel heard, reflect back the thoughts you imagine behind their words and check whether you got them right.
• Use an accountability partner, like a gym trainer, to protect a daily top-goal block of focused work you would otherwise skip.
• Run an energy audit on two weeks of calendar time, marking each hour green or red, then eliminate or delegate the drains and make the remaining necessary meetings more effective.
• To innovate inside a large company, consider a small founder-minded team reporting directly to the CEO, decoupled from core code and approval processes, and possibly a separate C corp.

02Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.