There are just too many people out there complicating business success. They talk about secrets and complicated strategies and things I barely understand using buzzwords that make no sense. Success isn’t hard. A handful of short, common sense ideas can change your business. So let’s get right to it.
Not firing people is a cancer on your business. People don’t do their jobs. You see it every day just like I do. I go into businesses where I have to beg people to answer a question or pay attention to me. I have to break up conversations between workers to get them to take my order and my money. People take breaks twice as long as they are entitled to. They come in late. They call in sick when they aren’t. And they don’t get fired. Why? Why do we let people by with not doing their job? Fear. We are afraid. We spend so much time and money worrying about the rights of the employee that we forget about the rights of the business. If an employee isn’t doing his job – isn’t earning his money – isn’t doing what he is paid to do – he has no rights. Fire him.
Keeping a bad employee destroys your credibility with your other employees. Bad behavior then spreads like a cancer because there are no visible consequences. This is inexcusable because ultimately the person who suffers most is the person who should suffer least: the customer.
Do the right thing no matter what. Ethics is a matter of black and white – not grey. It’s either right or wrong, good or bad, hello or goodbye, you are either in the way or on the way. How will you know whether something is the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do? If you have to ask, it’s the wrong thing. You always know the right thing, you only question when it is the wrong thing. So do the right thing. Even when it is unpopular or might cost you money or be embarrassing. In the long run, consistently doing the right thing will pay off every time.
Larry’s all time best advice for business success:
Do what you said you were going to do, when you said you were going to do it, in exactly the way you said you were going to do it. You won’t ever get any better business advice than that.
Be there when you said you would be there. Deliver when you said you would deliver. Call when you said you would call. Be a person who can be counted on by keeping his word every time. That’s all you want from your coworkers, employee, or employer. That’s all that your customer wants. It is really all that any of us want.
“If I do all of this, Larry, will I be successful?”
Beats me. Success is a funny thing. Sometimes you can do everything right and it still all goes wrong. If you don’t understand that, then you are naïve. So I can’t guarantee your success. However, don’t do any of these things and I can guarantee your failure.
After reading Larry’s book ‘Its Called Work for a Reason”, I fired an employee of mine. That employee has had many ‘strikes’ before, but I always used to excuse them. I listened to Larry’s advice and let him go. Now the rest of the crew has picked up pace. They now know no one is irreplaceable. I have gained respect from my staff, customer service has improved, and remaining employees are performing better. Thanks again Larry
This is exactly how I’ve been feeling about my co-workers lately. Unfortunately I’m not in a position to fire anyone. I do have a bit of influence over my boss, so I think it’s time to use that to make some suggestions. I hope you don’t mind but I quoted you in my blog (and put in a link to this site) and I’m going to make a copy of this to put up on the belletin board at work and hope it inspires some changes. It sure as hell inspired me.
I like what Larry has to say: do what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’re going to do it , in exactly the way you say you’re going to do it. I strive to do that in my dealings with others, but I just realised I need to start doing for myself too! How many times have I promised myself to do something to expanding my business,or looking after my health etc and I never keep my word to the most important person to me – Myself! As always Larry – you keep on making me be a better person – a huge thanks to you once again.
Fiona Purdy
Scottsdale,
AZ
Larry,
At least here in Hawaii (and I get similar stories from teacher friends in California), from the point of view of an educator–I’ve taught in high schools and currently teach at a community college–part of the problem with lazy-butt workers is that they got away with that kind of non-production all through school. When I taught at a private high school, if I gave a student a bad grade for not doing his/her work, a lot of times I’d get hauled to the carpet by their whining parents who were afraid that a bad grade would sour their precious little baby’s chances at getting into a prestigious college. My reply was that it’s not my fault; it’s their fault for not doing the work. Several times I got yelled at for that attitude. So I quit.
Teaching at a community college, the situation is worse. You’d think the students are older so they would know better. Nope. Many of them come from public schools where they graduated by simply showing up and occupying space in the classroom. So they do that in my class, or don’t even show up, and they are surprised that they flunk my classes for not doing the work. Some of them even get indignant about it, like I owe it to them to pass them even if they don’t deserve it. It’s crazy. One woman showed up on the last day of class and asked if she could still pass the class. I didn’t know who she was and she admitted that she showed up only for the first day of class and bagged the rest of the semester. I told her she would need to complete all eight of the computer graphics projects in one day and there was no way that was possible.
Why are so many workers lazy? They got away with it in school.
–Wayne Muromoto
Honolulu, HI
Larry,
This message has 2 purposes:
1.) I’m pissed off and want to rant, and
2.) I want to encourage you to keep HAMMERING the following point home when speaking to business groups: “FIRE THE SLACKERS” and NOW.
Here’s one of my most recent job related misadventures. (By the way, I came to the conclusion a few years ago that my job experiences are much more “colorful” than the average person’s and this is just one of several “suck poop” stories / lessons.) I have worked at start-up companies for the past 8 years. Several months ago a “Friend” of mine contacted me and wanted me to apply to the small start-up company he was working at. He said they needed my help and the management was interested in interviewing me. “Small” means 9 people, several whom were contractors. This company was financed by several venture capital firms and was developing a new technology product. (With the use of the past tense, I’m assuming that you have already figured out that the company no longer exists.)
During the interviews I was told that the design was ready to proceed into the development stage; meaning the proof of concept / R&D was done (design / technology works). The design now needed to move into the stages where manufacturing processes are developed, regulatory approvals are obtained, etc. There is a big difference between R&D and preparing a product for sale. The position I was interviewing for was to help manage the product development effort. The CEO said the company desperately needed the help and should have filled the position 9 months ago. He was a great salesman. At these small companies, job applicants get interviewed by almost everyone at the company and I asked lots of questions. I thought I had asked all the right questions and had the necessary information to help decide if I should change jobs. (Note to self: Next time ask the CEO if he/she has more than one job.) It sounded like a good opportunity; working with a great group of people on a product with excellent market potential that would help lots of people. I was offered and accepted the job. It was not a decision I made lightly because I already had a job and it is difficult to find work in my field.
When I started at the company I was put in an office with another employee who had been with the company for more than 1 year. Let’s call him Brad. It became immediately obvious that Brad wasn’t doing much work, hadn’t been doing much work for a long time, and what little work he did was messed up. Eight days after I started, the CEO and CTO met with Brad and Brad “decided” he would rather work somewhere else. We were all told that Brad wasn’t fired and that we shouldn’t say he was fired. They were worried that Brad might sue them if we said he was fired. The managers had known for months that there were problems with Brad and had been hoping he would change. That’s right; they TOLD me they “HOPED” he would change. They knew Brad spent hours writing personnel email and was doing work for other people on company time. After Brad left, we had a company meeting and I was given all of Brad’s assignments; i.e. I no longer had the job I was hired to do. Part of the assignments included working with outside vendors, test labs, and universities. Since no one seemed to know the status of Brad’s work, I had to dig into his computer and email to figure out what was going on. I should have received hazard pay for that. You would not believe the weird and disgusting emails he sent to company contacts. I felt embarrassed. When I mentioned the weird emails, everyone claimed ignorance; they had “no idea”. I don’t know whether they did or not know about the weird emails because depending upon the time of the day and the day of the week my coworkers either did or did not know that there were problems with Brad and they did or did not know that I was hired to replace him. (Several months later the CEO did tell me that I was, in fact, hired to replace Brad.)
About 2 weeks after starting work, my coworkers and the CTO started to complain to me about the CEO; lets call him Ray. Apparently, Ray was spending most of his time working for other companies and spending very little time performing the duties of CEO. Now this is the very same person that my Friend told me was a great CEO who really knew the business and was working so hard to help the company be successful. This is also the same Friend who was now complaining bitterly about how much Ray was gone and about how he didn’t care about the company. One of the reasons why I accepted the job was because of Friend’s glowing description of the company and the CEO. After all, Friend was my friend and he wouldn’t steer me in the wrong direction. No, Friend wasn’t MY friend, he’s the CTO’s friend. And no, I didn’t see the “kick me” sign on my backside.
Now, besides me, the company needed additional help and had collected the resumes of many potential job candidates. Note: If you’re going to hire more people it really helps to read the resumes and schedule some interviews. You need to do more than just post the position. I guess one of the reasons why I was hired was so I could say “we need to review these resumes, select some potential candidates, and bring them in for interviews.” So approximately 5 weeks after being hired, the company brought in a job prospect / potential consultant. In order for this potential consultant to help as much as possible, the company wanted to make sure he had all the relevant information about the product design and technology. They gave him a complete “data dump” and since it was a group interview I got to hear everything and a lot of it was new to me. I heard about all kinds of technical problems that hadn’t been revealed during my interviews or the first few weeks of my employment. I finally said, “I was never told any of this”. The CTO looked at me, smiled and said, “We didn’t tell you because we really wanted you to come work here”. Then he laughed in my face and my coworkers laughed with him. I was suppose to be flattered that someone would lie to me in order to hire me.
Being naïve, a bit of an optimist, and obviously stupid, I’m still somehow thinking that with some good decisions and hard work we can make this company successful. So, I work hard (long days and weekends) and am making good progress. Then, 2.5 months after being hired, the CEO tells us that the company is going to be sold. We finish some of the important assignments and everyone is laid off. Five months after being hired I am now out of a job. Before I left, one of the investors said to me, “If you had been hired sooner there is no doubt in my mind that this company would have been successful”.
Can ONE person really make that much of a difference? Obviously, the company had many problems in addition to Brad, but in spite of those problems this investor still thought one person could make a difference. I’m not very smart or very well spoken, but I know I can help companies achieve their goals. The REAL reason why I was hired was that I have a reputation of working hard, solving problems, and producing quality results. And what is worse is that I CARE.
Now for the ending:
The CTO is working full time at another company he owns. He hired several of the laid off people including Friend. He also helped several other people find new jobs. He’s not helping me because he said I don’t need any help.
Ray the CEO is still working at his other jobs and will be paid well when the company sells
Brad has my old job.
I am still looking for work. I’m also spending time doing a “self assessment” to try and prevent future “stupid career moves” and future “bad friends”.
P.S. If you ever need any additional ideas on how NOT to manage a company, let me know. I learned plenty from this one. Nevertheless, the primary lesson is still this: “Fire the Slackers”. Your company survival could depend upon it. Investors should pay attention to that advice too.