Kim Scott, a coach to top tech CEOs in Silicon Valley and a best-selling author hired an employee who she described as kind, funny, supportive and caring. She brought him into her team because he had a great resume and amazing references.
However, almost a full year after she hired him, she took him out to coffee and fired him. As she described the painful incident that created an inflection point in her career, she also shed a lot of light on one of the things that people leading teams struggle with - how to give feedback effectively.