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Who Do You Fire First?
Who Do You Fire First?
This blog was originally published by Forbes, whom we received permission from to republish.
By Ty Kiisel
It’s definitely counter-intuitive, but it could be one of your top performers.
I was introduced to this idea by Patrick Morin, a brilliant sales executive and two-time turnaround CEO. Although the context of our discussions have been primarily regarding building, motivating, and keeping the best sales professionals, I’m convinced the same concepts apply to every role within a company—small or large.
Although it’s sometimes the top performers that should find their necks on the chopping block first, it’s not their performance that puts them there.
Most people want to contribute to something meaningful, something that will outlast their particular contribution. Our job as leaders is to inspire our employees with that vision—something that has them excited to start the workday every day. Unfortunately, not all of our employees buy-in to that vision. Some are even detractors.
Morin looks at his employees on a four-grid scale with “Buy-In” on the vertical axis and “Performance” on the horizontal. When evaluating employees and potential employees he puts them into one of four categories:
Over the years I’ve been compelled to work with high-performing colleagues who didn’t like the company, had no respect for our customers, disliked their colleagues, and continuously shared their discontent with anyone who would listen. Like a cancer, their bad attitude spread throughout the organization—while they were otherwise regularly recognized for high performance. Morin suggested, “That would be the first person I fired.”
Buy-in is that important.
Following such a dismissal there may be times when you’ll need to explain it to the team, but most of the time it’s pretty obvious why a toxic employee is let go. You might even hear something like, “It’s about time.”
When the focus of your business is solving a market problem, employees that believe in what you’re doing are critical. You might be asking yourself, “Why wouldn’t the Low Buy-In/Low Performance people be the first to go?”
I don’t want to put words into Morin’s mouth, but if you want to make the statement to your employees that those who are engaged in the mission and vision of the company are more valuable than those who are the highest performers, getting rid of the prima donna who feels he or she is above “buy-in,” is the place to start. No question, those who find themselves with Low Buy-In/Low Performance will quickly find the door, but the hard decision (and your employees know it) to let a high performer with a bad attitude go is no easy decision.
What Happens to the Others?
High performing employees that buy-in to the culture should be those you promote and recognize. Their performance should be celebrated and shared with the rest of the organization. What’s more, they’re likely the employees who always step up when it’s crunch time and extra work needs to be done. Whether they’re in an official leadership position or not, they likely have a leadership roll on the team. I once worked with a colleague who was described as the heart and soul of the team. She wasn’t a senior member of the team, but her incredible attitude and abilities allowed her to take the lead in many situations. Her willingness to pitch in and fill whatever assignment she was given made her an incredibly valuable part of the team. She was a keeper I’d welcome on my team any day.
Sometimes those who have high buy-in but are under-performers are simply in the wrong role or are being managed incorrectly. Of course, how long you work with such an employee is up to you, but buy-in is a valuable commodity and shouldn’t be squandered. I once joined a small company and was told one of my employees was an underperformer that they would let go before I even started if I wanted. I decided to let things ride and see for myself. With a little bit of guidance and a different leadership approach, he soon became a top performer and was promoted off of my team and became a peer. Of all the things I accomplished there, I’m most proud of that.
I’ve also seen other motivated, but low performing employees, flourish in a different role. One of the biggest challenges we face as leaders is matching an employee’s talents with a role that exploits and maximizes them. When we allow people to do what they’re best at, what they’re passionate about, we usually get their best work.
Finding and keeping the right people is a lot more complicated than simply not firing anyone. Sometimes you need to act with surgical precision to excise a cancerous employee, but there are other times that an underperforming employee can rehab into a more meaningful role and higher performance.
What do you do to find and reward your best employees—those with high buy-in and high performance?
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