Is it tough to sack your friend? - wildthoughts

During a recent workshop I was running, a thorny issue arose. How do you deliver 'bad news' to someone who is not only a work colleague but a friend. People sometimes struggle with giving people a low performance rating on their appraisal, or even worse, like dropping them from an assigmment or even dismissing them from employment. Especially when there is a conflict of interest arising from the person being someone they have known a long time. They may be friends, their familes may be friends, they may play golf together. They may even have intimate knowledge of each other's financial affairs and know exactly what a poor appraisal mark will mean to plans for holidays or the kids school fees. This discussion reminded me of an interview I heard a few days earlier on the radio. The QPR chairman, Gianni Paladini, had recently sacked his manager (John Gregory). When asked by the interviewer how he got on with John, the chairman answered by saying, "they were good friends, their familes socialised together and they played golf together". The interviewer suggested that it must have been very hard to take the decision to sack John and to deliver the news. The answer from Paladini was, I think, extremely mature, well thought out, and a moment of fantastic 'clear-headedness' to me. He simply said, "What would you rather I did? Wait for things to get worse and reach the point where we are no longer friends". He clearly valued his friendship too much to jeopardise it by not sacking his friend. Think about it. It makes sense.