When You Know but Still Don’t Act

I’ve been thinking a lot about cultural fit. Not skill fit. Cultural fit. I’m listening to the book Topgrading right now, and it’s hitting me hard. I’ve heard people in the Entrepreneurs' Organization (EO) talk about it for years. Now, it's my turn, and grabbing one new insight while I listen to it on each one of my long walks.

Topgrading categorizes your team members into A, B, and C players. Then it adds one more. Terrorists. These are people who do the job very well, but they poison the culture. They undermine the team and your values. The book says you need to fire terrorists fast. Every owner knows this. Few actually do it.

I’ve kept terrorists on the payroll on more than one occasion, and for longer than I care to admit. I’ve held on out of fear, doubt, or because someone talked me out of it. I recently had someone in a key role for four years who kept making the same mistakes and terrorized most every employee and client he came into contact with. The culture suffered. Badly. If he quit, I would have never have hired him back. But for years, I still didn’t make the move. When I finally did, I wondered why I waited so long.

Why didn't I take action sooner? The reality is that I didn’t trust myself. I didn't have the confidence to take action.

Why do we hesitate even when the answer is obvious?

Because we feel responsible for our people. Because we don’t always trust our judgement. Because we worry the next hire won’t be better than the last. So we live with the devil we know.

Topgrading acknowledges all of these fears that we have, and provides a process to reliably hire A players and coach B players. C players get coached out. Why manage C players out? Because they take up all of your A players' time when they have to fix problems caused by C players. Terrorists need to go right away. All of this is easy to say, hard to do.

I’ve broken this rule more times than I want to admit. But I’m on the other side of it now. Fifteen years of running agencies has taught me this. I’m done tolerating weak behavior or low passion. At work and at home.

Once I fired that long-time problem employee, one of my top employees told me she had secretly given me six months to act. If I didn’t, she was leaving. One of my best people was waiting for me to grow the balls to do what I already knew I would eventually do anyway. That’s the cost of hesitation. You think you’re helping the C player and the Terrorist by giving them yet another chance, but you’re actually hurting everyone else in the process.

This all comes down to believing in yourself. Every time I hesitated, it was because I didn’t have the confidence in myself. And when you don’t believe in yourself, you protect the wrong people and put your A players at risk. When you risk your best people, you're risking everything you've worked towards.

Stop compromising. Stop putting up with behavior you know is wrong. The company you’re building depends on your ability to take action.

Find your A players. Invest in them. Protect them. And go hire more of them. Every time.

No compromises.

I hope I've given you something to think about.

~ Erik