They quit the day we handed them the performance improvement plan. Not after a few weeks of trying. Not after we'd worked through the documented concerns. The same day. They walked out of that meeting, resigned, and I never saw them again. I drove a good person out of the company. Not because they couldn't do the work. Because I overwhelmed them with so much feedback that improvement became impossible. Let me show you two versions of this story. What actually happened, and what I should have done instead. Timeline 1: What Actually Happened We promoted one of our junior managers to senior manager when the original leader retired. They were great at execution. A solid doer. They knew the work inside and out. On paper, it made sense. But a senior manager role isn't about doing the work anymore. It's about leading through others, setting direction, measuring success across the whole team. They'd never built those skills. The problem showed up immediately. We'd...