Hiring and Firing (The Brian Tracy Success Library)

by Brian Tracy

The sooner you train them, the sooner your time will be free for more valuable tasks.

THERE IS A rule that you can never expect people to do a good job at a task if they have not been trained thoroughly on how to do the task in an excellent fashion.

Paul Hersey, in his book The Situational Leader,

If the new person has limited knowledge or skill, or none at all, in a new job, this person requires a directing style of management.

The leader stays involved to monitor progress, but assigns the job and allows other people to do it.

when a new person with previous experience comes into the company, the manager makes the mistake that the previous level of experience is completely transferable to the new job.

She was easily the best and most competent person at that job that any of us had ever seen. But she wasn’t on the first day because she had not been trained in how to do the job properly.

Experiment with the leadership styles of “telling, selling, participating, and delegating” with different people. Remember, “Different strokes for different folks.”

IT IS ESTIMATED that, especially in a growing company, one-third of new hires will do an excellent job. One-third will be average performers, and one-third will turn out to be the wrong people for the job, either in the short term or later on, as the company and the job changes.

One of your chief responsibilities as a manager is to address performance problems and to ensure that each person on the payroll is making a maximum contribution to the company.

Firing an employee is a last resort.

“I always felt that the boss cared about me as a person,” and “I always knew what was expected of me.”

Perhaps the best way to ensure the best performance is to offer clear, confident, positive expectations. Employees should know exactly what you want them to do, and to what standard, by what date, and how excellent performance is to be measured.

“Feedback is the breakfast of champions!”

One of your main jobs is to give regular feedback to employees and tell them how well they are doing. Give them ideas and suggestions to do their jobs better.

Inspect Things Regularly

“inspect what you ex...

If their work is important, then by extension, they are important people as well.

Never Assume

Continually talk about the work with your employees and invite them to ask questions and give you feedback, too. You will often be surprised at the difference between their perception of the work you want them to do and your perception.

“Have you told these people exactly what you are thinking and feeling about their work?”

You can improve most performance problems by giving clear direction and regular feedback, by inspecting what you expect, and by not assuming anything.

Hold weekly meetings, even daily huddles, to ensure that everyone knows what everyone else is doing. This practice dramatically increases morale and team spirits.

The starting point of dealing with performance problems is to address them immediately.

Tell the employee that you

are not happy with his performance or behavior in a particular area and then ask him, “What seems to be the problem?”

Be specific and give concret...

Say something like, “You have been late three times this week—fifteen, twenty-five, and forty-five minutes late. I’d ...

If someone tells you, “So and so did this and that,” find out for sure beforehand. Get the facts.

Listen carefully, without commenting or interrupting, to the employee’s side of the problem or situation.

You can say, “Okay, you have been late several times this week. What are you going to do about this?” Or, “You are having problems with the people down in shipping. What can we do to resolve this situation?”

After this discussion, you monitor and follow up.

You make sure that the employee does what he agreed to do in your meeting. Check and make sure. Never assume.

Keep accurate notes and records on this type of discussion. Make notes about what was discussed and agreed to. You may even share these notes with the employee. Then put your notes into the individual’s file. This is an important step because it pro...

Role Confusion. The employee does not know what she is expected to do; this is often the major issue behind poor performance.

The rule is that every job must be assigned clearly and specifically to a single person.

Clarity is your best friend.

Whatever the situation, begin by assuming that you are responsible for the problem, and instead of blaming or criticizing the employee, look into yourself, your management style, the employee’s job description, and other things to see if there is something that you are doing (or not doing) that’s causing the problem.

Remember, it is always easier to save a problem employee who is having difficulties than it is to lose them and to have to start over again with someone else.

Reason number one is that the person is not motivated, for whatever reason.

According to the research, fully 64 percent of employees are “disengaged.” They have low levels of commitment or loyalty to their companies. They are constantly on the lookout for other jobs.

If people are not prepared to put their whole hearts into doing the very best jobs they possibly can, the best thing for you to do is to encourage them to go somewhere else where they can be more committed.

Peter Drucker said that “a manager who hires an incompetent person, and who keeps that person in place, is himself incompetent and unfit for leadership.”

Unfortunately, it is the person who makes the hiring decision who is the incompetent person.

The longer you keep an incompetent person in a position where it is obvious to all that he cannot do the job, the more you demoralize the people around you.

When you keep an incompetent person in place, you are in effect rewarding incompetence.

There is a simple test: Ask the question, “If his life depended on it, could he do this job well?”

Continually ask yourself, “Is there anything that I am doing that, knowing what I now know, I would not start up again today if I had to do it over?”

“Is there anyone working for me who, knowing what I now know, I would not hire back or assign to that job?” If the answer is “yes,” then your next question is, “How do I get rid of this person, and how fast?”

Look at each person who reports to you and ask that question. “Knowing what I now know, would I hire this person back again?”