The day I fired half my team

I can’t stand to-do lists. They’re sneaky.

Productivity gurus will tell you that you have to have one. That you should fill every waking minute being productive, and ripping through your list.

But I don’t buy it. What if the wrong things are on that list?

When you default to focusing there, you can quickly find yourself in the weeds. And while you’re there you miss the real stuff.

Let me take you back a few years. I was staring at a to-do list the size of a small novel, thinking, “Why does this never end? And why is it always my problem?”

The business wasn’t exactly broken, but it wasn’t working the way it should.

Every day felt like a battle to keep things afloat. Problems piling up, but too few people willing to take ownership, or step up to help me fix them.

I learnt this the hard way: You get the team you deserve.

“You get the team you deserve.”

It wasn’t an easy realisation, but it was the truth. If my team was underperforming, that was on me.

I’d hired them. I’d managed them (or hadn’t, if I’m being honest). And I was choosing to keep them. That realisation hit me hard, but it was good. Once I saw it, I could own it. And when you own it, you can fix it.

At the time, I had 57 driving instructors and 9 office staff. What was the real problem? I had the wrong people in the wrong seats.

So, over the next 24 months, I made some of the toughest decisions of my life: I replaced 45 of them.

Brutal? Yes. Worth it? Absolutely.

What does it have to do with you?

“Cool story, Stephen…” I hear you say. “How is this relevant to me?”

Well, through that process, I learned three things every business owner needs to get right:

• Recruiting the right people.

• Developing their potential.

• Firing when it’s clear things aren’t working.

Most people shy away from this. It’s uncomfortable—sometimes painful. But if you want a high-performing team, there’s no way around it.

Sometimes, letting someone go is the best thing you can do for them—and for the rest of your team.

It’s your last move once you’ve tried to help develop them. But if it ain’t working, hoping it will fix itself is a recipe for disappointment.

Once I had the right people in the right seats, everything changed. The systems we’d built together actually worked, and the team delivered results I couldn’t have dreamed of.

Here’s what I’ve come to realise: most business problems are people problems. And they don’t fix themselves.

So, let me ask you this: Is your team helping you grow—or holding you back?

It’s not an easy question, but it’s one worth asking.

Andrew made a great video on this recently which you can watch here (It goes for about 5 minutes).

A bit of effort at the front end of building your ideal team pays off big-time later on.

It is one of the most leveraged moves you can make as an owner, because you reap the benefits for years to come.

To building great teams, — Stephen

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