I once had to terminate someone who worked for me, who upon exiting told me, “I’d never be able to do your job.” I said, “You can, but at a place where the demands are different.” Three years later, he called me to share that he’d been promoted to chief human resources officer of a Fortune 500 company, and was thriving. He said the pace was a bit slower than Google, but it fit him perfectly. And he’d been able to become a trusted counselor to the CEO precisely because of his measured, thoughtful style.
