Is Your Team Holding You Back?

Do you know in your heart you have people that are not a good fit on your team?

Do you have customer complaints?

Low Morale?

Disputes?

People obviously not pulling their weight?

My question for you this week is, “Is your team holding you back?”

We hear this all the time, “I know I need to make a change, I know Sally doesn’t really … She’s not as effective as she once was. I know I need to make a change, but I just can’t bring myself to, blah, blah, blah.” Every time you let somebody go, haven’t your other employees come up to you and said something like, “What took you so long? You should have done that six months ago, or a year ago.” 

It’s miserable to have to let somebody go. You won’t sleep the night before. Your heart will be racing, you’ll be sweating. It’s horrible. It’s the worst thing you have to do as a boss in a business. But your success is directly tied to the quality of the people that you have around you. A players attract A players. So if you have a bunch of C’s, you will attract C players. That’s one of the reasons that you as the leader have to work so hard. You need to be sure to surround yourself with the caliber of people that are as caring and committed as you are, about the success of your business.

In general business owners hire too fast, and without enough consideration, testing, and deliberation. And they fire way too slowly. It’s just a fact. So, here’s the exercise for this week’s blog. Evaluate your people, especially your key people. They have the most impact on your day to day, and the most impact ultimately on your business. Assign them a number on a 1 to 10 scale. 10 is a better, wonderful, delightful, productive employee. And a 1 is miserable, needs constant hand holding, causes problems, busts up morale, etc.

Rate all of your employees on this scale, and anybody you have on your list that scores a 7 or lower, you really need to evaluate. It really does make a difference to go from a 6 or a 7, to an 8 or a 9. Don’t let your poor performers hang around, and drag down you and the other peak performers that you have. It’s your business and your life – take charge of it. Surround yourself with quality people, turn loose those poor performing people, and you’ll find that you’re much happier when you don’t have them sucking the life out of you and your business.