Post date: Dec 02, 2010 6:34:32 PM
When I came back he was sleeping on a pile of old carpet inthe middle of the room. That was the scene I saw as Iopened the door to one of my Job sites during college. Ihave always owned my own companies. I don't know if its theinnate hate I have for being told what to do, or that Itruly love to create, invent, and implement; I really hopeits the latter. Either way I put myself through collegerunning a flooring company. Anything that went on a floor Iwould sell and install. And business was good, maybe toogood. I quickly got to the point that I had to have help.I lived in a college town at the time and help was plentifuland cheap, but not exactly effective. I would hire oneperson only to fire them within a week. They would eithernot show up to work, show up late or-like the individual Imentioned in the beginning of the story-decide the job wastoo hard and take a nap instead of working. I learnedquickly that if they could not handle the work, they shouldhit the road. They were all sub-contractors. I was a one
man show and could not afford full-time employees, and I
could not afford to lose money. If you did not perform you
got fired.
Over the years I have started and run several different
business, but somewhere along the line the firing of
non-performers got complicated. Suddenly it was no longer
single college students looking for extra cash, but
families trying to keep food on the table. I started to
relax the rules and it cost me money. Eventually, every
non-performer would have to be let go but not before they
had cost me thousands of dollars. I often wonder where the
line for compassion lays in a business environment. Do you
let them go the day you find out they are not performing or
after the second or third offense or even the fifth?
And things can get even more complicated! I had an
experience that was even harder for me with one employee.
The problem was not that he did not perform; the problem
was his attitude. With one of my partners he was courteous
and polite but with me he often made snide remarks, rolled
his eyes at comments I made, publicly criticized content I
created, laughed at my expense, and one time even told me
that my idea was dumb. Now, I have never claimed to be the
most brilliant person but I learned early on in business
that I didn't need to be. I just had to hire brilliant
people.
The problem had several facets: the employee was good, not
brilliant in my opinion but good. My partner liked him,
the managers liked him, I just didn't. He was rude but
only to me and worst of all he made me waste time even
thinking about it. The situation had become a cancer but,
every time I wanted to cut it out my partners stopped me.
That experience opened my eyes to the fact that there are
multiple intricacies to business that you can't find the
answer to in a book. Its not as easy as finding the PE
ratio, or defining a target market. There are human
emotions involved. However, even as important as dealing
with an employee, is dealing with your clients. How many
clients do you have who are good clients, well, good for the
bottom line that is, but not necessarily for morale? Do you
have clients who drag you down? Are you keeping them even
though you hate talking to them? Do you cringe every time
they walk into your office? Do you have an ulcer from the
problems they cause you? Is it really worth it? You can
fire your employees but can you fire a client? Maybe it's
time to evaluate what is most important to you; peace or
the bottom line?
About the Author:
For this and other articles by Tyrell Gray is Chief
Evangelist and Founder of MyMark, please go to
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