How to Get Fired with Dignity

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

John Thain's resolute face popped off the front page of the Wall Street Journal recently. Fired from his post at the helm of Merrill Lynch by Bank of America, he now "fires back," the headline screamed. The Murdoch-era WSJ likes a good gun fight.

Fired, fire back, and fire again. I imagine that Thain, whom I met in Davos when he was still heading the New York Stock Exchange, has been seething ever since the short meeting a few months ago in which BofA CEO Ken Lewis asked him to resign. At first, WSJ reporter Susanne Craig writes, he was stoic, remaining silent. Now he is railing against being made a scapegoat, as he claims, for distributing billions of dollars in bonus money to Merrill executives, despite heavy losses, before the closing of BofA's takeover. Now he says that he was completely transparent about the losses and that paying the bonuses was part of the merger agreement.

But telling his side of the story many months later will not dampen the controversy surrounding him. To mix metaphors, he has moved out of the frying pan into the fire. The story is back in the public eye, and accusations of "he said/he said" are fanning the flames for another set of news cycles. Lewis or BofA executives won't leave the attacks unanswered, because their reputations are at stake, too. And Thain is back in the news without any new good news about a new accomplishment (except that he left Merrill in good shape, which is pretty good in this economy).

Who is right matters less than the fact that Thain has lost dignity and respect. A talented executive and, apparently, a good leader, Thain has been so tainted by a mess that gets messier that his prospects for further public leadership have diminished.

There's a lesson in this for anyone who is being fired for any reason in today's layoff-prone economy: Don't let this happen to you! Try to die with dignity (career-wise), because you will be resuscitated and rehabilitated faster if you do. Some principles:

Try to leave on good terms, even if it is means swallowing hard. If you can, leave doors open a crack. Make your public statements positive, to show that you always had the company's or organization's interests at heart. Reminisce about the good times rather than lashing out about feelings of unfair treatment.

If you are attacked for alleged misdeeds and there's another side to the story, get it out fast. Don't let it drag on. As John Kerry learned to his dismay (and loss of the 2004 presidential election), if you don't fight back when first attacked (e.g., the Swift Boat Veterans against Kerry), later defenses seem weak, and the controversy stays alive a lot longer. Having observed this, Barack Obama's campaign countered attacks at Internet speed, and negative publicity faded quickly.

Admit mistakes immediately and show that you have learned from them. Taking personal responsibility rather than blaming others can be disarming (back to those gun fight images again). You can always say that "if I knew then what I know now, I wouldn't have done it," whatever the "it" is.

Let your newest good accomplishments speak for themselves. To avoid bad stories about the past, create new stories. For example, if Thain had started a smart new anti-poverty program since leaving Merrill and Bank of America, he might be in the news for other reasons than executive bonuses.

Avoid burning bridges. I doubt that Thain will write a revenge book, the way Carly Fiorina did after being fired from Hewlett-Packard. But he made public accusations of mistreatment. The financial world is a small club, where people move from company to company, sit on the same Boards, and support the same charities. That's true in many sectors. The people you trashed when leaving in anger could pop up at the next company with job openings.

Of course, it's hard to get fired with dignity if those firing do it indiscriminately and painfully. And the fire-er can suffer along with the fire-ee, because other top people see the risks and flee the scene, draining talent and motivation. In the Thain/Lewis fight, Bank of America lost good Merrill people, and BofA took on a taint itself. Pulling out the big guns leaves casualties on all sides.