Latest / Beyond Leadership - Adopting a Coaching Mindset / #09 - The First Time I Fired Someone Senior

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#09 - The First Time I Fired Someone Senior · Beyond Leadership - Adopting a Coaching Mindset

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Are we ready to uh rock and roll? I think we are.  Do you have your whiskey ready? I have uh red  
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wine. Okay. Well, I have coffee. Sorry. It's It's  4:00, right? So, on a Friday, 4:00 on a Friday.  
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Um because you're in Denmark, you can say such a  thing. And And actually, I should be able to say  
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such a thing in Spain as well. You would think.  Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm sure there are plenty out  
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there that are doing that, but you know, I'm  running a podcast. You know, that's heavy.  
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That's heavy machinery. It is indeed, especially  with a new computer. Yeah, exactly. You've got  
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the easy part. Yeah. Let's see about that. Yeah.  Well, I hope I hope I make this trip easy for you.
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Welcome to Beyond Leadership, adopting  a coaching mindset. In this series,  
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our conversations aren't about biography  or polished advice. They're about how  
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decisions are made in the real world when the  pressure is on. We'll anchor on one situation  
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where the path wasn't obvious, and explore  what goes on in the mind of a leader when  
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confronted with real tradeoffs, imperfect  information, and the need to move anyway.
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This podcast is brought to you by Pier  Plaza, human help instantly. Martin Clausen  
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is a father of two and husband of one.  A surf skier, kayaker, a serious reader,  
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and a lawyer by training. He has served as general  counsel at Mascaline and MHIve Vestus offshore  
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wind and today he is co-CEO of the legal tech  startup Hyper Contracts. But I want to go back  
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to a much earlier moment. The first time he had  to fire someone. He was young, inexperienced,  
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and the person sitting across from him was a  seasoned professional. I'm interested in how  
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he thought through that decision when his  authority was real, but his confidence may  
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not have been so real. I don't know. Was it  real? Did you have plenty of confidence? um
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not as much as I would have had today  obviously but I felt at the time and  
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that's something we can get back to that it was  a well considered perhaps too wellconsidered  
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decision and so that gave me a certain  measure of confidence and I I stop right  
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there how could it be a too wellconsidered  decisions are you saying you it took too  
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long so that's that that's that that's I was  I was trying to be funny on my own behalf,  
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but it was too wellconsidered in the  sense that I should have probably and  
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that's a point in itself that I should have  gotten to that conclusion much quicker.
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If only we all had the foresight 20 years ago  that we have now. The thing is foresight is an  
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improvable skill. It grows from reflection,  curiosity, pattern recognition, and the  
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willingness to pause before life forces the  lesson on us. Sounds like the recipe for wisdom,  
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doesn't it? Yeah. And today it's higher slow,  fire fast. Right. Mhm. Right. And and it wasn't  
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like that, at least for me, and it wasn't also  not in the culture of the company I was working  
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for at that time at all that that way back  then. Tell me tell me more about that. Well,  
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it was it was a a company. In case you didn't  catch that, Martin says Marisk. 20 years ago,  
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that name carried a very particular weight  in Denmark and around the world. Not just  
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regarding its shipping and petroleum business  success, but discipline, loyalty, hierarchy,  
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and a way of leading where directness was not  considered rude. It was considered normal and  
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effective. It was extremely hard to get  into the company, but if you did get in,  
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it was a it was a a place you stayed for life.  Basically, there were it was not an uncommon thing  
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to see people celebrating their 30th anniversary  or 40th or 50th for that matter. And if you start  
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sailing at the age of 16, which was not uncommon  back then, you can easily get to 50 years. I still  
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have a lot of veneration for the company, but it's  it's much more like any other big international  
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company these days. There are pros and cons to  that, right? For sure. For sure. And it also  
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requires a company who is capable of utilizing  that type of resources correctly and and has the  
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has a certain uh respect for that level of uh  of experience but also maybe being prepared to  
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tolerate other sort of slight downsides by having  an an older workforce. But but it's also going to  
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be an absolutely essential skill going forward.  It cannot you cannot have a company where you  
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you you're not capable of utilizing employees  that are more than 50 years old. It's it's not  
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it's not going to work unless AI takes over  everything. Of course, but you know that's a  
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different ball game. You you say unless AI takes  over everything. Well, you you're saying when  
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Exactly. It's like people saying if I die No,  no, no, no, no, no, no. You will die. Exactly.
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Martin is talking about the future skill of using  experience well not replacing it with whatever  
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tool happens to be newest. AI may change the work  maybe radically but leadership will still have to  
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answer the same human question. What do we do with  judgment, loyalty, maturity and people who have  
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seen a few storms before? If you had chosen not to  fire that individual, what do you think you would  
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have had to tolerate? Um, yeah, there's a little  of a bit of a backstory to to to that exact how  
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how we ended up in that situation and might might  be enlightening and it's not going to be like a  
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career tale at all, but it it I was a fairly new  manager at that point and I had come into this  
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position as part of a consolidation of uh legal  resources throughout the organization. So it's a  
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fairly newly formed uh unit and it wasn't my idea  to form it. It was a uh it was another employee  
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who became part of the department that had sort of  pushed management for this consolidation and this  
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person had seen herself as uh the future uh leader  of that the group we formed. To her great dismay,  
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I was chosen as the manager of that department  being the youngest and perhaps also the most  
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marginal part of the group because I came from the  IT side of the organization which as you know is  
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always on the outskirts of an organization and in  this case it was a separate company actually for  
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for for a while. So um so that was that was  the kind of environment I was operating in.
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That line is doing a lot of work. Martin  was young, technically qualified, and still  
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culturally on the edge of the room. Suddenly  managing people with more history, more status,  
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and more traditional authority than he had. He had  the title, but the room had not fully granted him  
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the authority yet. And this person came from a  different part of the organization and it was  
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um my senior by quite a few years both in  experience and age. Martin was not just younger,  
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he was younger in a culture that respected time  served, hierarchy and the quiet authority that  
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comes from having been around. So before  he could solve the performance problem,  
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he first had to survive the legitimacy problem.  So but one of the major reasons for for for for  
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this person's dismissal was um I wouldn't call it  direct ination but but it was an unwillingness to  
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accept my leadership of the department basically  in and it came that was expressed in many  
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different ways from sort of small subtle hints in  in the day-to-day to just outright going to going  
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around doing his own thing for a majority of his  time not prioritizing according according to the  
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guidelines that I gave him and so on and so forth.  So, so uh so was more or less obvious defiance of  
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my leadership which of course was completely  undermining for morale and and so on. Um  
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other factors but that was a main factor. I know  myself that there have been times when I wanted to  
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release somebody from my own company and chose to  coach them instead and also chose to listen harder  
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to what they were saying to me and ultimately  decided not to fire that person. And I'm just  
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wondering now you're longer in the tooth, you  have more experience, right? Do you do you think  
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that today you're a better coach and can save  people's jobs a little bit better in that respect?
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And there might be situations where based on  experience I would be able to do something in  
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that in in certain situations that I wouldn't be  capable of back then. That's perfectly perfectly  
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valid point. It wouldn't have made any difference  in this case. I'm absolutely servant. Even even  
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with the benefit of hindsight, even if I view  this very critically, this person was part of  
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part of the the problem was an unwillingness  and a complete unwillingness to change his ways  
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in any way, shape, or form. So I would probably  describe this person as uncoachable by anybody.
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That is a hard sentence for me as a coach to  hear. But most leaders and coaches eventually meet  
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someone like that. Someone where more patience,  more empathy and more clever questions do not  
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change the basic fact that they have already  decided not to move. uh and and and it also  
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that in my mind I can't couldn't say for sure but  in my mind it was also based in a fundamental lack  
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of respect for me because of me being his junior  me actually not being a lawyer as you said in your  
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intro because I'm not a lawyer. My bad though I  think most of us would hear general counsel and  
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probably assume that Martin was a lawyer. So now  the age issue has a second layer. He was younger,  
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newer, and carrying a title that some people in  the room may not have felt he had properly earned.
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I'm I'm a what is we have two different  law degrees if you will in Denmark and one  
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is commercial law which does not qualify you to  become a lawyer but qual qualifies you to be like  
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an in-house counsel and that's what I am. So that  was that was also al completely destructive for  
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his respect that I was in fact not a lawyer and  he was uh and it was also quite a unique setup.  
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It was the first time and I think it might be the  only time in in sort of Danish corporate history  
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that a a non lawyer has spent the general counsel  of a major organization managing actual lawyers.  
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So Martin had the general council role  but not the traditional credential people  
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expected to sit behind it. In Marisk's  hierarchy conscious culture that kind  
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of technicality can become a very big stick for  someone who already does not want to follow you.
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Besides the fact that I was much younger and  came from a marginal place in the organization,  
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all of that I think all of that I think  contributed to this this situation. Looking  
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at it from his side, do you have some  empathy, some understanding for him? I  
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have a lot of emp empathy. I because he had  a lot of history with the organization. He  
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had been on a long long journey with the  organization. He had done excellent work.  
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He had helped that business unit that he had  had been lawyer law lawyering for, if you will,  
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uh achieve quite amazing results. And he was  clear that he was to me that he was also sort  
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of primed from way earlier to not be able to  sort of respect this situation. I I don't think  
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he actually had a real choice. I I don't think he  had a fundamental choice at that point to change  
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his ways. I think he was too set and it was I I  don't I don't think any could really have been  
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been done and I'm not sure that I would consider  him, you know, responsible completely for that.
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That's a generous sentence. Martin is  saying the behavior had to be dealt with,  
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but he can still see the person  inside the behavior. By the time  
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someone becomes that fixed in a system,  it is rarely one person's failure alone.
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So, so I have I have I had a lot of sympathy  and I think that also was part of me delaying  
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the decision as long as I did which I  probably in hindsight shouldn't have  
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uh because it what happened was the thing that  happens almost always was that the rest of the  
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part the department said what do we leave I  mean that's this is what we needed we needed  
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to move on but it it this was not sustainable  so that in my experience is almost always what  
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happens. Not that people come running and say  that's horrible. You should have never have  
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dismissed this person. They always always say,  "Oh, thank God that this finally happened." So  
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even if he was a great contributor to the  organization, people around him were just  
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tired of his disobedience. They saw they saw  exactly because he wasn't shy about it. They  
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saw exactly what was going on and also saw that  was intolerable. So what happened to him? He moved  
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on. I think he was on a he was on a break for  a while and then he got another job and and and  
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and I think he was quite happy. We we didn't  speak afterwards at all but I think he for a  
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number of years he was uh he was quite happy very  unfortunately he actually passed away uh a few  
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years back much too young which was very sad but  he did get another job and moved on. Thankfully.  
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Yeah. What do you think was the most difficult  thing you had to say to him in letting him go?
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I think it's actually just, you know, what you say  when you sit down and say, you know, we've had,  
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you know, some back and forth for a while now  about your position here and we've talked about  
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what needed to change and and so on, but I I don't  see it happening. and and unfortunately therefore  
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we have to let you go. I think that just those  that those simple things that you you you practice  
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in your head for for days before something  like that happens and just getting those words  
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across for the first time was actually the most  difficult. Do do you think the person who's being  
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fired understands the emotional stress? Not that  they need to necessarily be empathetic to it, but  
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do you think they can can have that vision? Only  if they've tried it themselves. I I don't see how  
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I couldn't get into that space if I hadn't done  it myself. And I don't expect any kind of sympathy  
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from a person being dismissed in that situation.  I always expect them to get very angry and so on.  
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And I'm just happy when it doesn't happen. Uh,  and I'm prepared to take a a a bucketload of  
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abuse in that situation and and unfortunately I've  never had it happen to some sort of a real extent,  
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but but I understand it happens and I would I I  think I would sympathize with it and uh I prepare  
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to tolerate it if it does happen. Now, you're a  co-CEO. Uhhuh. Are you always in agreement with  
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your co-CEO? uh when it comes to firing people, we  haven't had to face that situation in our startup.  
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So it's it's not a issue. No. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So  we are actually just the two of us at the moment.  
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So but but we are not always in agreement uh in  general. We also have different approaches to what  
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we do. I have a commercial legal background and he  has a deeply technical and commercial background.  
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So we we represent different skill sets. H what  do you think you'll do if if that challenge  
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arises? That's a good question. It's actually an  interesting challenge to be to be cos and in that  
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setup. uh we haven't actually discussed what would  happen and because it's theoretical at this point  
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in time but I actually think you would be well  served the moment you have employees to actually  
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discuss that because it's such a fundamental  thing and especially for smaller companies it's  
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a make or break thing right having or retaining  or dismissing the right or the wrong employee  
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is something that could kill the company so it's  it's fundamental I would hope that we could make a  
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consensus based approach work, but it's also kind  of dangerous not to have like a formal tiebreaker  
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rule if it happens. But it's a good question and I  would hope that we would put it into our uh owners  
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agreement prior to ever being faced with that  challenge. As a good as a as a good corporate  
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counselor, I would probably advise that you do so.  Well, you know, sorry to say this, but lawyers are  
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the worst at their their own contracts with their  in in their own companies. I I have a situation  
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right now where um these two um partners, they  they're both co-owners, they still don't have an  
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agreement between them for the company and they're  both lawyers. It's absolutely part of the cost it  
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to have that situation. It's it's it's the worst.  It's we have a saying in in uh in Denmark. I think  
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there's a parallel one in most languages about  the shoe makers children always do not have any  
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shoes. Right. Right. It's a It's a Say that in  Danish for us. Sper. It's a school. Normally,  
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it's just abbreviated as burn and then everybody  knows what comes after it. Right. Exactly.
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Martin only has to say the shoemaker's children  and every Dne knows where the sentence is going,  
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which is precisely the point. Lawyers are  excellent at telling other people to get  
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their agreements in order. And somehow their  own partnership agreement is still sitting in  
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the drawer marked later. By the way, this  saying of course is not just Danish. The  
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shoemaker's children are apparently barefoot  in English, German, French, Dutch, and Italian,  
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while Spanish and Portuguese moved the  problem over to the blacksmith's house.  
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So when you said that you waited too long. Mhm.  How long was that? Depends on when you sort of see  
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the process starting but I think it must have been  8 or 9 months. I was actually thinking about that  
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when before it's because I I didn't want to prep  too hard because of your sort of very sensible  
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instructions and about not prepared answers  but I think I think it was on on that scale.  
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Yeah, that's a while. It is, especially when  it's that blatant and that obvious and and and  
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and being in a new department and and having to  make that gel and so on. Other people left the  
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department, but on on much quieter terms, the the  the lady that I mentioned that saw herself as the  
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head of the department left on her own accord  within a couple of months. Uh and that was a  
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amicable thing. She had her ambitions and her way  of viewing things and and left it and another's  
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founding employee if you will left a little bit  later also on good terms but you know and today  
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how is your hiring process different or hiring  and firing I it's not that different because one  
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of the things that I actually learned from that  from the company from Mærsk was that you have  
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to be extremely careful about who you hire.  I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm very deliberate about it  
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and have been all the way since I we haven't  hired for our present company yet, but if I  
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look back to the the other positions, being very  deliberate about it. uh really making an effort  
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to understand who's sitting across from you. I'm a  believer in in testing not as a religion but as a  
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an invaluable tool that you can question and that  you can can use not as to dictate anything but to  
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inform your decision. I'm a believer in in cases  in using case cases to to present to pro prospects  
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and and ask them what they think about not to  get to a specific answer but to get an insight  
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into their process how they think not what they  think so to speak. So that I took away with me  
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as a as an invaluable lesson that you have to be  extremely careful uh even even if you're quicker  
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to dismiss people because it's such an expensive  decision to get wrong for everybody concerned.
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A bad hire is expensive for the company, of  course, but also for the person hired into  
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the wrong role, the team carrying the mismatch,  and the manager pretending the problem is smaller  
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than it is. And I have a deep skepticism towards  companies who outsource large parts of their  
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hiring process to outsiders. I don't understand  what kind of company you are if you cannot figure  
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out how to hire your own employees to be frank. I  think it's a it's a application of responsibility  
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and it's a it's a core skill that a company needs  to possess. Uh Martin calls hiring a core skill  
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and I think he's right. You can get help, you  can get input, you can even get a nicel looking  
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short list from the outside, but deciding who  belongs inside the company is too important to  
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outsource completely, especially now. I mean,  it's it's life-threatening to get it wrong. I I  
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wouldn't have I wouldn't I wouldn't have anybody  else involved in that decision. I might take  
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some uh input from somebody. That's a different  that's a but you could imagine having some agency  
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uh picking maybe if you're looking for expert  expertise in a new field you don't have experience  
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you could you could get some candidates in but  I would not outsource the hiring interviewing  
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process uh to anybody irrespective of size. I  I consider it like a core skill of a company to  
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to be able to do that yourself. Looking looking  back at the situation that you were in, Mhm. is  
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there something that you can put your finger on  that you might have done differently? I'll think  
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about whether or not I early on communicated what  the essentials of the problem was clearly enough  
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or maybe if I pushooted a little bit around if  I was maybe a little bit too softspoken in the  
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beginning of the process where I could have gone  directly to clarity because what was happening was  
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so clear. I'm not sure it would made a difference,  but it could have been maybe more I wouldn't call  
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it more honest, but more clear. Sure. H how would  you have communicated that to a senior leader and  
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still have gotten that clarity across? Yeah,  that's a good question. Right. calling it out  
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for exactly what it is and backing it up with some  very specific examples like when you walk into a  
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meeting like that and say like that and that and  that that is a clear defiance of what what I've  
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told the organization to prioritize or I asked  you to do this this and this you did that that  
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and that in that order that that doesn't follow  what your instructions were and it's not because  
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I have absolely absolute need to dictate what  you do. But this alliance disal alliance with  
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the company's priorities. What you did does not  making it clear that this is not about me wanting  
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to be a dictator but about our organization doing  the right thing. H just thinking when when we're  
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coaching employees, most of the time we're asking  questions rather than telling them what to do.  
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And I'm wondering, can you come up with the same  idea but in question form? Sure. I I mean it's  
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and I I'm not saying that I wouldn't do it in  that form. Uh but but it's a fair question. The  
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question might be uh what was your understanding  of our agreement regarding this uh particular  
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thing these priorities? What did you understand to  be the the agreement that we struck? So what's the  
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difference between asking a question like that and  telling him? Uh of course it it is you're you're  
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being you're forcing uh some kind of reflection  on behalf of the person you're talking to, right?  
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uh and it becomes very hard to talk around that  question and and you are perhaps also inviting  
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some kind of ownership of the situation that that  you wouldn't when you were just talking to people.  
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I I believe in that kind of uh communication  too. In some instances I do think the more  
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direct approach is correct if you if you want to  have absolute clarity around what is what is going  
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on. But of course in an initial phase of things  when you also have certain belief that things  
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might change the more asking approach that you  are advocating or asking me to reflect on is is  
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is the right thing to do. M I I've just noticed um  a trend actually opposing trends of companies that  
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want to be more direct and and uh say they that  people should be very direct and then there's the  
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uh more coaching perspective of asking questions.  And there's a feeling of when you're you're being  
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direct that you're getting things done quicker.  this is this is totally unacceptable and you're  
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going to have to figure out another method of  communicating. You know, that's the direct method.  
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Uh and asking them a question requires more work.  But I mean, you have to really think about the  
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kind of question you want to ask without boxing  them in. Right. But I think you know there could  
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be there are certain there are certain questions  that are just a masquerade right where it's not  
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actually inviting any kind of reflection or any  regal room and where it could go and so on but and  
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those are just fake and people see right through  that kind of question and and that's even worse  
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than talking directly to people. It is. I agree  with you. If it does, if it can't come from the  
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heart, right? If you can't muster it from the  heart, then it comes off as complete. You know,  
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if you're not on the side of the person that  you're trying to help, right? Um then yeah,  
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it's it's undermining the whole communication.  So, that doesn't work either. But where we can  
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find a space and where it does feel right to us,  Yeah. you know, it's probably a actually a quicker  
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way to deal with problems even if it feels like  that it requires a lot more time and and skill.  
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And I think also there's a general if you have  if you're in a situation where you can you can  
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do that there's a greater likelihood that that  it that the solution to the problem sticks than  
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uh something that's is resolved just by fired like  like by saying this is how it's going to be like.  
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Yeah. It's an interesting question and it is a  uh it's it's worth reflecting over. I think also  
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maybe my approach back then was also dictated by  the direct approach being completely integral to  
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mask as a company. I mean anything like this more  questioning approach, more coaching approach was  
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frowned upon and and and we we we looked upon  more more companies that would be considered  
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sort of more progressive with a certain level of  disdain and it has to do also with the industry  
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that Mærsk is in the shipping industry. You  don't have a debating culture on board a vessel,  
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right? For for very obvious reasons and because  it's it's it's dangerous to have a debating  
31:04
culture on on on board a vessel. And that kind of  leadership style permeated the company. Uh and it  
31:12
it it and it it attracted the company attracted  people who uh not only could tolerate that way  
31:18
of communicating but also thrived in it who  actually preferred not having like debates in  
31:25
that sense around these things and the questioning  approach. But being I'm perfectly fine by be  
31:31
giving a direct order also in a very commanding  tone. it doesn't bother me because I know where  
31:36
it's coming from. And I'm not saying that's the  be all and end all of everything, but it but it's  
31:42
it's there's a reason why uh I perhaps also to  this day tend towards that way of communicating.
31:54
Martin is not just talking about personal  style but about a company where directness  
31:59
was part of the operating system. If you grew up  professionally in that environment, a clear order  
32:05
does not feel harsh. It feels efficient, familiar,  even respectful. I think there is a generational  
32:13
piece here, too. Many young employees have grown  up in workplaces that prize psychological safety,  
32:19
inclusion, and careful language, all of which  matter. But the side effect is that directness  
32:26
can sometimes feel like aggression. Just today  I was speaking with a couple of new people on  
32:31
my team and I noticed they kept adding my name to  the end of every message. Thanks Michael. I'll try  
32:38
that Michael. I'll ask a stare about that later  Michael. Very polite of course but after a while  
32:44
the name starts to feel like an extra appendage  hanging off each sentence. In Spanish there's  
32:50
the word confa which roughly means confidence or  trust. Ironically, it is often used to excuse an  
32:57
insult. Confanta? No. But in this case, I mean  it sincerely. I want people on my team to have  
33:04
enough confine even when we drop a few nicities.  5 years ago, I would have just said, "We can kill  
33:11
the Michaels at the end of your messages, but  thanks for being polite." Today, more explanation  
33:17
is needed, or I'll be called in by HR. So what's  interesting is that we don't have to choose um  
33:27
we can just have all these different tools in our  tool box but and that's what I've learned I think  
33:33
to but with time right tell me tell me more about  that because I've been in other companies right  
33:40
after that I worked for Vestas offshore MHI Versus  offshores the MHI is Mitchi heavy industries which  
33:46
is a Japanese company and and that that culture  is completely different uh And I think I I saw a  
33:52
different way of communicating there and and a way  of getting decisions made that was not as direct,  
34:00
not as uh as uh as as commanding uh as as as I  was used to. Uh so that was a very interesting  
34:09
experience. I enjoyed being part of that company a  lot uh because it it was different. It was a great  
34:14
experience in many ways but but also because  of seeing a different leadership style being  
34:19
practiced. It re it requires a completely  different sensitivity, doesn't it? Well,  
34:24
it does. And then in that case, we were also part  of a a culture clash, you could say, with a Danish  
34:31
machine manufacturing company meeting a Japanese  keiretsu. The odd thing is that I actually at times  
34:38
felt more akin to the Japanese colleagues  that I had that came from this very large  
34:44
company like Mærsk is than the the the Danish  people who came out of the Vestas organization.  
34:51
What drew you to the Japanese? many many things  but the level of technical expertise was just  
35:00
completely astounding and the the calm but still  firm approach to things was just so interesting.  
35:09
I didn't have a lot of experience with Japanese  colleagues from Mærsk. Mærsk was present in Japan,  
35:14
but but I didn't have a lot of experience. I had  a lot of experience with other Asian cultures,  
35:18
but not the Japanese so much. So, I actually  didn't really know what I was getting into.  
35:24
being so utterly serious about what you do and  and and just relentlessly trying to improve on  
35:32
on everything that they that they dealt with was  just amazing to for me to see up front. I knew  
35:39
about it from from from the outside and so on,  but seeing the results of what you can achieve  
35:44
if you just improve a little bit every day and  you're very deliberate and serious about it,  
35:50
that's just crazy. And Martin is very deliberate  about it. I like that word because hiring is one  
35:57
of those places where speed can make you look  decisive right up until it makes you expensive.  
36:03
He is not saying make it complicated. He is saying  slow down enough to understand who is actually  
36:10
sitting across from you. And also actually what  was interesting was that the reason that joint  
36:17
venture ever happened was that that MHI M heavy  industries didn't have they didn't find success  
36:24
in offshore wind on their own and for Japanese  people organizations to sort of fail in that  
36:30
kind of enterprise and then not just abandon  it but looking around asking themselves who is  
36:36
actually very good at this. we need to find the  people who who can do this and learn from them.  
36:41
And that's exactly what they did, which was also  kind of okay, you're used to whatever you touch,  
36:48
at least over time, you become the world's best  at it at it, right? And and then you find an  
36:54
area here where you don't find success and what is  your reaction is to go out and find the people who  
36:59
actually have had success and learn from them and  cooperate with them. that I thought was utterly  
37:05
amazing. And they're just hilarious people to be  around. I mean, drinking with Japanese people in  
37:10
Tokyo, it's it's it's some of the funniest  experience I've ever had. So, there's that,  
37:15
too. Great colleagues and Yeah. So, on on the  one hand, you're talking about how serious they  
37:22
are and how uh motivated and how kaizen is such an  important part of their lives. Indeed. And then on  
37:31
the other hand, they can relax. But that's that's  the funny thing, right? That's so great. I mean,  
37:37
you if you want to see what alcohol intolerance  looks like in their real life, you just go drink  
37:42
with some Japanese colleagues. It's so much so  much fun. And because we dance, we come from a  
37:49
completely different culture, right? Where we have  pretty solid alcohol tolerance the most of us. and  
37:55
and it's uh but have being able to have fun with  colleagues like that is just priceless to me.  
38:03
Well, Martin, being that it is Friday, it is 4:30,  I think this is an opportune time to say thank you  
38:12
very much for sharing your story with us today,  which is fascinating and I really appreciate  
38:19
you coming on the show. You're very welcome. I  think it's a great project you have going here  
38:23
and I can't wait to to hear what comes out of it.  I want to thank Martin for being so honest about a  
38:29
situation that most leaders remember very clearly  but rarely describe in much detail. The first  
38:36
time you fire someone stays with you, especially  when the decision is right and still difficult.  
38:42
Martin gives us a useful reminder that leadership  is sometimes empathy, sometimes patience,  
38:49
and sometimes the willingness to stop waiting  for a situation to become less obvious.
38:58
Thanks to my guest and to all of our loyal  listeners. Subscribe today so you don't  
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39:11
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39:16
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