Question: Should Siddhant fire Uday?
Unfortunately, leaders must sometimes fire employees who cheat. In my 24 years of leading sales teams, I’ve seen plenty of people cheat to meet their targets. And I’ve had to fire people — even top performers like Uday — who were behaving dishonestly.
In this case, Siddhant and Shraddha appear to have fallen into a common trap: When someone is performing well, you don’t always look under the hood. I tell my sales managers that they need to “trust but verify.” This means double-checking reports and looking into any outliers. In a previous company I worked at, I had a sales rep who was knocking it out of the park. He was compensated on “meaningful interactions” with customers, which meant long calls. His phone log showed steady activity, but I noticed that he’d been taking a lot of breaks. I went by his desk to check in with him. He wasn’t there, but his phone was off the hook, and when I picked it up, I realized he had called roadside assistance and been on hold for close to two hours to boost his talk time. I let him go immediately even though it was hard to lose a high performer. That kind of blatant dishonesty can’t be tolerated.
Siddhant’s dilemma is complicated by Uday’s family situation, but it shouldn’t be a consideration in his decision. I’m a mom, and my heart goes out to Uday, but a CEO’S job is to protect the company. Siddhant can’t let his emotions prevent him from doing his duty. That said, I would urge him to take a tempered approach and issue a formal written warning — not because it’s best for Uday but because it’s best for Novacib. There are two key factors he should take into account.
First, Uday’s lie didn’t affect his compensation. Had he earned a commission or bonus based on the false report, that would warrant termination. That is not the case here. Second, if Siddhant were to fire Uday, he might put the company at risk. Uday could pursue legal action, claiming that the company invaded his privacy by checking his social media accounts. A wrongful-termination lawsuit would damage the company’s brand more than Uday’s infraction could.
In my current role at RingCentral, I focus on building trust with our people. They know we have their backs, and we trust that they’ll do what’s in the best interest of the company. But I also do my homework. Even at my level, I block out an hour a week to look at the numbers, and if something stands out, I dig deeper.
Siddhant and Shraddha need to take a lesson from this as much as Uday does. You want to trust people and hope they’ll do the right thing, but hope is not a management strategy.
