Certainly over the course of a career for many, terminations come as a highly unwelcome part of the job. And because it is so integral a situation in the world of work, managers and HR people are left having to repeatedly conduct one of the worst and most dreaded conversations in workplace history, not because they want to, but because they have to. And while it's true that "practice makes perfect," letting someone go is hardly something that will be met with enthusiasm no matter how valuable the learning that practice affords.

However, pleasant or not, these are the difficult workplace conversations that reality dictates there is no getting around. So whether you have to fire 1 or 100 employees, the key is to first get the dynamics right in your own mind. That involves understanding, appreciating and seeing the situation from the other person's perspective, rather than your own. Depending on how you look at it, you may then come to regard that firing someone for performance related issues is actually easier than a no-fault layoff, because it is an opportunity to free someone from a position in which he or she is failing. If an employee is not succeeding, it is in no one's best interest to keep him or her confined to a job where he or she languishes. It's not good for the person and it's not good for the organization. And, presenting it in such a way can make all the difference between a positive or negative outcome for the company and experience for the individual.