Chad Silverstein describes building a discipline of leadership accountability at his office: setting clear expectations, using 90-day performance improvement plans (PIPs), and removing team members who fail to meet minimum standards. He contrasts this transparent process with surprise firings, emphasizes soliciting feedback and inspecting what you expect, and argues that timely action improves team performance and attracts higher-caliber hires.
Chapters
This was a discipline that I had to build at my office. And with Chet coaching me, I had to. I had to do it fast because he wasn't going to let me off the hook when I would complain about someone who didn't deserve to be on our team anymore. Of course it starts with the leader, and it starts with people at the top setting expectations and then having ways to hold people accountable. We put our PIP performance improvement plans in place and boy, within the first, like, six months, I got rid of probably 10, 15 people, and it was because I wasn't holding people accountable and they were bringing down the whole system. So once we set our expectations and we knew what the low bar was, if you weren't hitting that bar, you went on a performance improvement plan and you had 90 days to fix that, to improve it, to kind of meet the standards, the minimum standards that we'd set. And if you didn't, it was very clear that you weren't going to be able to stay. And it was a much better plan than what I used to do, which is show up at people's desks on Fridays with a box telling them I'm going to make a change. And when they ask why, you know, not be able to tell them because I was afraid I was going to get sued. So my attorney said, you don't give people a reason. You just tell them you're making a change and cut the cord. And I think that's a terrible way to, to let people go from a team that you've invested them being part of. And people don't like bad surprises, so don't, don't give someone a bad surprise. If you're a leader and you got to hold people accountable, set the bar, make sure the expectations are clear and don't have a failure of nerve to actually take action and then do something about it. And the good thing about a plan like that is that there's no surprises and you're giving them time, which should make you feel good that you're not just cutting people out. And sometimes you do have to cut people out. And sometimes people do things and they are so bad for the system that you have to make a change. And I think recognizing as a leader, you know where that is going on, you may not have a clue. So that's why asking for feedback, inspecting what you expect with your team, going to the trainers, talking to the new people and getting feedback is critical. If you're normal, you're probably having people wait and hang around too long in the country club. Used to call my office the country club. And it's your responsibility to make those changes because there's more damage being done by letting people stay too long. And you gotta just set the tone and don't let people hang around too long. And you know, if you let someone go and make a change and people around you are saying what took so long, that's a sign of your lack of leadership. And so don't let that happen. And if that's happening now, go take action. And the way to take action again is not to surprise someone with I'm cutting you. It's to give people an opportunity to be very clear, concise, direct with them, put it in writing, have them give you a plan of how they're going to improve, whether it's to be a culture fit or whether it's a performance and a skill fit. And, and people have to have both of those. To work on a healthy, high performing team. You gotta be able to be a culture fit and you gotta be able to have the skills and be the right person and have the capabilities that role needs. And if you have people that are hanging around too long, that's on you. And if you're an employee and you're a teammate and you're hearing this and you have people on your team that are waiting and they've just been around and you don't even think the leader even knows, then you have an obligation. You have, you care about the company, you should go say something. My team got to a point where they were running people out of my company I loved. Was tough to be on my team. You were going to get called out and it attracted better people. High, higher caliber and performance went up and made my job a lot easier. But I still had to make the hard decisions and I still had to be very clear about them. And I didn't shy away from that once I learned how to hold people accountable using a pep. So we'll include the recipe for how to hold people accountable and let people go by way of reminders. So take a look at it.
