Armstrong breathing fire

“Able, you’re fired. Out!”

Take a minute to ponder the harsh choice of words.
Now take a second to guess the setting in which those words were said.

On Friday August 16^th, AOL Chief Executive Tim Armstrong led a rather disheartening company meeting, to which roughly 1,000 employees had dialed in. This meeting was for Patch members and was held shortly

Tim Armstrong

after Armstrong disclosed, the organization would shrink Patch websites from 900 to 600. While everyone knew bad news was around the corner for many employees, no one was aware that they would be witness to one of the most poorly handled firing incidents in history.

Mid-sentence, Armstrong abruptly discontinued addressing the attendees to turn his attention to the Creative Director of AOL’s Patch unit, Abel Lenz. He proceeded to say “"Abel, put that camera down, now. Abel, you're fired. Out," as can be heard on Forbes. Meanwhile the air stood still and silence followed as 1,000 already disheartened employees listened in. About five seconds later, Armstrong continued with his meeting as Able exited.

What all went wrong?

1. Susan Adams of Forbes makes a good point. She distinguishes, that even before the incident, Armstrong’s voice was cold. Susan mentioned that although he accepted responsibility for the status of Patch’s struggles, he also opened the meeting with statements which threatened staff to leave Patch if they didn’t believe him or thought the discussion was a joke. Everyone knew the meeting wasn’t a joke, especially because it followed the previous announcement about reducing Patch’s web presence by 300 websites. His approach was condescending and hurtful from the start.

2. At the beginning of the meeting, Armstrong announced “I don’t care what the press says, I don’t care if people leak information.” However, he then fired an employee for recording the meeting. Where is the logic in this scenario?

3. Possibly the most blatant and scrutinized action in those dreaded two minutes was his harsh firing of Abel. His choice of words were cold, his tone inappropriate and worst of all he did it publically. Not only did he belittle Able by firing him publically, but he did it I front of 1,000 of their co-workers, without a blink.

4. After coming under media fire, Armstrong later attempted to justify the incident, announcing that Abel had been warned previously not to record those meetings. Not only was that a poor reason to fire someone on the spot, because he could have easily just asked the employee to stop filming (or possibly even signaled for him to put the camera down), but that reasoning contradicts his previous statement at the meeting:“I don’t care what the press says, I don’t care if people leak information.” From the outside, it is easy to see where Abel would have assumed the previous warnings not to film meetings were negated by that opening statement. However, Armstrong was lacking the emotional intelligence to detect where Able may have become confused. He then acted emotionally and disrespectfully.

5. To date, Abel has not been asked to return to AOL. 

What went right?

1. It should be noted that Armstrong has personally apologized to Abel.

2. He also issued an apology to the AOL community.

What are the repercussions?

1. Tim Armstrong has come under fire across the board from the New York Times to Forbes. He has fatally damaged his own reputation.

2. Having ignited a chain of disapproval and backlash, Armstrong, who clearly was already struggling emotionally will likely have trouble determining how to dig out of this hole if he does not seek counseling.

3. Abel has lost his job in an unreasonable way and will likely also struggle to emotionally recover.

4. Armstrong’s actions are drawing an angry and dissatisfied response from consumers toward AOL as an organization.

5. Employee morale has been possibly irreparably damaged. 

Fortunately, this situation has sparked an executive development discussion.  Susan Adams of Forbes says in AOL’s Chief Demonstrates the Worst Way to Fire Someone, “If he feels ‘emotional,’ as he said in his statement yesterday, then he should work through those emotions with a friend, counselor or coach before dumping on his workforce.“  This situation presents itself as a key argument for the importance of executive development and leadership training. She is exactly right; executives, Armstrong included, are under extreme pressure. They want to succeed and take their job to heart. As Armstrong said himself “It was an emotional response at the start of a difficult discussion dealing with many people’s careers and livelihoods. I am the CEO and leader of the organization, and I take that responsibility seriously."

The power to make or break employee morale, improve or destroy the bottom line and change the future rests in the hands of executives everywhere. What most of those leaders and their employers don’t realize is that responsibility can be tackled much more successfully, with a little help along the way.