Chad Silverstein fired a high performer who refused to embrace a cultural shift, renaming "collectors" to "consultants." He argues leaders must enforce culture standards even when it costs talent, and that Covid damaged workplace culture in ways that require deliberate protection.
Chapters
Love talking about culture. Culture was my number one focus, building my companies. And obviously, when Covid hit, everything changed. It's amazing how much of a culture killer it was, but thank God I was able to be blessed for, you know, over 20 years with an amazing culture. And it was one that I built, that I wanted to work in. And I remember plenty of times that I had to make changes with high performers that were not aligned with my vision. My funniest story was I had someone who was very good, and she looked at me one day. Day, because I changed the word collectors to consultants. I didn't like the negative stereotype that people had of collectors, and I didn't like the label that it made people feel when they were working. So we were helping people. We were helping people get jobs. We were helping people with payment plans, keeping it off their credit. And so we looked at ourselves as consultants. We try to understand the person's situation and then try to help them. And I had a high performer one day look at me, and she goes, I don't want to be a consultant. I want to be a collector. I said, I'll see you later, because this isn't the place for you. And we terminated her. And I think, you know, there's something to be said about, you know, a leader who wants to build a culture but then doesn't. Doesn't protect it. And when you have high performers in your team that feel like they can be rogue and not be aligned, and that creates vision, collision, no good. And you got to have the core strength to just cut the cord and go find a replacement, because the replacement usually has such an upswing. Because if you can find another high performer that can bring a positive attitude versus the person who didn't, it changes everything. So it's not easy, and you don't always get it right. But if you are committed to build a culture that people will run through walls for, and you hold everyone accountable to a standard and to a bar, you know, over time, you got to be careful what you ask for, because you're probably going to get it if you're. If you're working towards always improving and closing gaps and willing to take the risk and take action when you know you should.
