The Team that Managed Itself: A Story of Leadership (Empowered Teams)

by Christina Wodtke

“Not firing is also a sign of organizational issues. If you keep a bad hire around, it causes a lot of issues. If they don’t work hard, everyone wonders why they should work hard. If they work hard, but are a jerk, people don’t want to work with them. If they are incompetent, it undermines trust in management . . . it goes on and on.”

“A bad employee will bring down two good ones. How much worse is it at the exec level? He doesn’t understand that the CTO is a people manager. People write code. People need to be inspired, to be coached, to be focused.”

“Fine.” The engineer’s words reverberated with her. Everyone looks just fine if you don’t have a hiring standard.

But if someone has been doing a crappy job and you have not been giving them warnings, you are also doing a crappy job. Letting bad behavior continue is sanctioning bad behavior.”

“First, you have to change your thinking. There are no bad employees. There are employees who don’t know things yet. And there are employees who resist change, but don’t know that they are losing power and influence because of their behavior. They conflate behavior with identity. And there are employees who are a bad fit. This last one is very difficult.”

“Teams have four elements—common commitment and purpose, performance goals, complementary skills, and mutual accountability.”