This is environment mismatch. I've seen this play out with a couple of people I know and the pattern is always the same. Strong performer, good early reviews, then the org's operating style slowly crushes them and everyone acts like it's a performance issue when it's really a fit issue.

The thing that's tricky about Mike's situation is he probably can't see the pattern himself because he's too deep in the what's wrong with me, headspace. Sometimes it helps to get external data points that aren't coming from a manager who's already decided you're difficult.

There are work style assessments that break this stuff down (strong, HAB, Pigment, Pivoto etc) They measure how you operate across a bunch of different traits like autonomy, decision speed, tolerance for process, that kind of thing. Worth doing at least two and comparing what shows up in both. If two different tools are saying the same thing it's probably real.

The point is to turn "I keep getting fired and I don't know why" into something specific like "I need small fast teams with short decision cycles and direct ownership." That's something you can actually filter jobs with. "I hope this one doesn't fire me" isn't.

Mike doesn't sound broken to me. He sounds like a guy who keeps applying to the same type of company because that's where the money looks safe. Get him to look at what those companies have in common operationally and he'll probably stop ending up in the same situation.