The bright side of getting fired
When you are fired, you’re rejected — it’s as simple as that. It’s the end of the road for that job. But it might put you on the superhighway to the Super Bowl!
Look no further than Gary Kubiak, who is the newest poster child for rebounding from adversity. He was fired as head coach of the NFL’s Houston Texans in the middle of the 2013 season, when the team won only two of 16 games. If you had predicted that less than two years later, he would coach the Denver Broncos to a Super Bowl championship, people would think you were delusional. But good things happen to people with experience who continue to work on improvement.
Professional sports, entertainment and the business world are filled with stories of people who got second, third, fourth and more chances. That’s because there is no substitute for experience.
Kubiak also exhibited a strong leadership trait in loyalty. He brought seven assistant coaches from his previous head-coaching job in Houston with him to Denver, and he also signed a few players who were cut from his previous team after he left.
It’s interesting that the two competing coaches in last year’s Super Bowl — Bill Belichick of New England and Pete Carroll of Seattle — were both fired from previous jobs as well.
I interviewed Bill Belichick for my 2004 book “We Got Fired! ... and It’s the Best Thing That Ever Happened To Us.” Belichick was axed by the Cleveland Browns after the 1995 season and became head coach of the New England Patriots in 2000, after Pete Carroll had the job for three seasons and was fired.
Belichick said: “I think every game, every week, every year is a great experience. I’d say I’ve learned every year I’ve been in the league no matter what capacity it’s been in. Hopefully I’ll keep learning. I’ve got a lot to learn.” And this from one of only two NFL coaches with four Super Bowl championships.
One thing Belichick mentioned, which I also heard Gary Kubiak talk about, was about delegating. Belichick said that he learned to delegate more with the Patriots, focusing more time and energy into some bigger-picture things and less on the details.
After a small stroke during a game in 2013, Kubiak also said he has learned to delegate more and not be a control freak, as he was in his previous job. He empowered veteran players to make decisions and impose team policy. It helps that he inherited a veteran team, including his quarterback, Peyton Manning.
Yes, the same Peyton Manning who won a Super Bowl in 2007 with the Indianapolis Colts and was also later “fired” when the Colts were able to draft Stanford quarterback Andrew Luck.
For the rest of us, getting fired may not be as public an affair. So it’s important to figure out why you were fired. Most people are mistaken in their beliefs about why they lost their jobs. Some will say that they’re failures, others that their boss had it in for them, and others that they were sure their career ended because of a faux pas they made at the company picnic.
Often, firing is a straightforward cost-cutting measure. When you’re fired, it’s easy to weave fantasies and imagine villains. But if you are going to spend even an hour feeling miserable, make sure that you are miserable for the right reason.
Tony Dungy, whom I was instrumental in recruiting to the University of Minnesota and who was recently elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame, is another Super-Bowl-winning coach who was fired. For the record, he coached the Indianapolis Colts to the 2007 championship after being fired by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Dungy said: “When I got my first head coaching job at 40 years old, I thought I was ready. I was shocked at how much better I was at 47.”
“Because you get fired doesn’t mean you were a bad coach,” Tony added. “It doesn’t mean you weren’t smart. It means it just wasn’t the right situation.”
Mackay’s Moral: The way to douse a firing is to use what you have learned for an even better hiring.
Harvey Mackay is the author of the New York Times best-seller “Swim With the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive.” He can be reached through his website, www.harveymackay.com, by emailing harvey@mackay.com or by writing him at MackayMitchell Envelope Co., 2100 Elm St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55414.