If there is someone on the team who stirs the pot, doesn’t follow the rules, is rude, causes a stink, or otherwise hurts your culture, get rid of them.
That’s not novel advice or hard to do, right?
But what if they are a top performer in some area of your business? What if they are a family member? What then?
Ahhh. Now it’s a more difficult decision, right?
Sit them down. Talk. Be clear. Be firm. If they don’t adjust their behavior (and they probably won’t), then let them go.
It’s not worth hurting your culture for one person no matter who it is.
The marginal performance you lose from the one person will be more than made up for by the buoyed performance of everyone else who is relieved they are gone.
“Ships don’t sink because of the water around them, they sink because of the water that gets inside”
100% Always protect the culture
Excellent reminder, Larry.
I have seen this problem and solution many times. On sports and business teams. In fact, I watched a college sports team go from a losing record last year to nearly winning the league championship this year after the poisonous elements of the team left. The team could have made this turnaround more quickly if the leader had cut out the toxic elements sooner.
One of my first hand experience, an employee of 19 years, a family member, over time was taking advantage. Grew and grew. Finally…I waited to long…finally I had the difficult conversation with him as to what the future needed to look like.
He heard me. Hugged me. Thanked me for how I delivered the information. That was a Thursday. The next Monday he met a trade contractor at 8am to discuss a project. From there he parked the company truck at the bank. Took an Uber home. Got in his personal vehicle, with his shot gun. Drove to a beloved area of National Forest and took his own life. Took 6 days for him to be found. Man, what a time. Little did I know the level of depression he was suffering. But I did know we’d flourish differently once I had the conversation. I never imagined that would be the outcome. That was 3 years ago this past August 1. I vowed to not let time pass when needing to have a difficult conversation.
One thing to add to this. We aren’t just doing this for ourselves, our people or our business. We are also doing it for the one who need to be let go. The Bible says “Whom the Lord loves He chastens”. It is not a loving thing to do to allow someone to continue down the wrong path and not encourage them in their personal growth and improvement. Sometimes letting them go is the nudge they need to help themselves do better. If we keep them and they don’t get better then we are hurting all parties involved, including the person we should let go.