The Systems We Create: What a Bad Termination Can Teach You About Everything

I have witnessed a termination that did not have to go the way it went.

The decision itself may have been right. Sometimes separation is the correct outcome — for the organization, for the team, and yes, even for the person leaving. That is not the part I am talking about.

I am talking about how it happened. The absence of purpose. The absence of communication. The moment that could have been — even in its difficulty — handled with enough care that the person leaving walked out with their dignity intact and the team watching learned something worth learning.

Instead, what happened communicated something else entirely. And the people who witnessed it absorbed that communication whether anyone intended it or not.

That is systems thinking. And most organizations are not doing it.

Every Process Is a Message

Organizations communicate constantly. Not just through mission statements and all-staff emails — through every process, every decision, every moment of transition. A hiring process communicates what you value in people. An onboarding process communicates whether you expected them. A performance management process communicates whether you believe people can grow. A termination process communicates what this organization thinks of human beings.

That last one is the one nobody wants to examine. Terminations are uncomfortable. Leaders want them over quickly. HR wants them legally defensible. And in the rush to get through it, the system reveals itself — not the system as written in the handbook, but the system as practiced, as felt, as witnessed by everyone in the building.

People watch how organizations handle endings. They draw conclusions about what would happen to them. They make decisions — quietly, privately, without telling anyone — about whether this is a place that deserves their full investment.

A bad termination is never just about the person who left.

Purpose and Communication Are Not Soft Skills

The termination I witnessed could have been different with two things: purpose and communication.

Purpose means knowing — and being able to articulate — why this is happening. Not just the legal justification. The human reasoning. This is not working, here is specifically why, here is what we tried, here is the decision. Purpose does not require cruelty or excess. It requires honesty and enough respect for the person in front of you to give them a real explanation instead of the sanitized organizational version.

Communication means not letting people absorb what happened through rumor and inference. It means addressing the team — directly, thoughtfully, without violating anyone's privacy — so that the people who remain understand enough to process the change. It means treating your workforce as adults who can handle difficult information when it is delivered with care.

Neither of these things requires more time than organizations think they do not have. They require intention. They require a leader who has thought about what this moment is going to communicate before it happens — not after.

The System Behind the Moment

A bad termination is a symptom. The system behind it is the real subject.

What is the performance management process that preceded it? Was the person given clear feedback, real support, genuine opportunity to course correct — or were they managed out through a slow accumulation of undocumented frustration that finally reached a breaking point? Was there a corrective action process with purpose behind it, or a series of conversations that nobody followed through on until the decision had already been made?

What is the offboarding process? Is there one? Does it treat departing employees — regardless of the circumstances — as human beings who deserve a dignified exit? Or does it prioritize speed and legal protection at the expense of everything else?

What does the team debrief look like? Is there one? Or does leadership hope that if they do not address it, everyone will simply move on?

These are systems questions. They are not HR questions or legal questions or management questions — they are organizational culture questions. The answers to them reveal what your organization actually believes about people, regardless of what the values on the wall say.

Good Systems Produce Good Moments

The inverse is also true. Organizations that have built purposeful systems — that have thought carefully about what every transition communicates — produce different moments. Not perfect ones. But ones where even the hardest decisions are made in a way that people can respect, even when they disagree.

I have seen terminations handled with such care that the person leaving thanked the manager. Not because the outcome was what they wanted. Because the process communicated: you matter here, even in this ending. This was not done to you carelessly. We are accountable to you even in this.

That is what systems with purpose look like in practice.

The bad termination that could have been good with purpose and communication — that is not a story about one person or one decision. It is a story about the systems an organization has or has not built, and what those systems say about who they are when it counts.

Build better systems. Not for the auditors. Not for the lawyers.

For the people watching.