How to Keep High Performers Happy

I don't know how many people I've hired over the years, but 25 year career, probably there's got to be thousands of people I interviewed. And I went through a lot of employees I would hire slow fire, fast, get rid of people that weren't right for my culture and had a lot of people use my company as a stepping stone and embrace that. So I've definitely worked with a lot of people. And there is this concept of loss aversion. And loss aversion, it's a real thing. Leaders will know what I'm talking about when I explain it, because you can probably relate. But when you pour your heart and soul into something that you care about, that you want to work out, and then you have this feeling that you're going to lose it or that you got to cut it loose, there is this thing called loss aversion that kind of paralyzes you, stops you in your tracks and stops you from taking action because you're scared of losing what you've worked so hard to either invest in or that you poured yourself into. So if I have a new employee that starts and I pour myself in and I want this person to work out so bad, and 90 days in, I've spent thousands of dollars training the person, giving them tools, doing whatever, spending time with them, and then realize they're not the right person, it's hard to cut that person loose. There's a discipline in being able to fire people fast, and most leaders have to build that discipline. It's something they have to learn how to do. Unless they're just cutthroat. But I think most people aren't necessarily cutthroat. But it's hard if you, if you think about not wanting to lose something that you cared about and that you, that you wanted to work out so bad. And it, it shows up in our life in all different ways, with all different things. And depending on and how much you have either spent or poured the effort into something, the harder the loss is going to be if it's gone. And there is something about being an entrepreneur and being a leader that when someone quits, it's so hard, you know, it's so hard to know that you got to start over. It's even harder when you have to make the change, especially when things are going okay and you realize that you're going to put yourself in that acutely painful scenario where you either have to start over, you have to start the whole process of recruiting and training all over. But loss aversion is Something you just got to get used to and recognize it and understand that it's part of growth. And usually in a situation with employees especially, that a change is usually the best thing that could happen, most likely because you've waited too long to make the change because you've been scared. And everyone else around you is probably wondering what's taken so long, which then hurts your entire culture. And it could be a cancer within the organization without you even knowing about it. You most likely have people who are sabotaging you, and you're not even aware of it. You know, the Gallup poll does their study, the 55, 20, 28, 17 study, where, you know, 55 of the people that are in your organization are not engaged, and 28% of the people are engaged and 17% of your culture are actively disengaged and sabotaging. It's everywhere, in every culture, on every team. They're usually half out the door. And unfortunately, most leaders are focused on not wanting to lose people, and they want to bring the lowest performers up, and they're ignoring their high performers. And the worst part is when you lose a high performer because you've ignored them. When, ironically, the paradox here is that when you focus on your high performers and you turn them up, they turn other people up. Just give you an example. My company, we were a collection agency, and the average high performer would do around $10,000 a month for us. That meant something for what that meant for the revenue that they're generating. And that was always considered a really good month. And I used to always try to work with the low performers and try to get them up. And then I remember when I flipped the switch and started cheating with my time hitting the high performers, challenging them, not wasting so much time with the low performers, just holding them to the bar, my high performers started to increase their performance, and it had a huge impact on my entire organization. So now I'm not really scared of losing things. I was gaining, and I was losing the right people, the low performers. And the next thing I know, a couple years down the road, my team's hitting 40,000amonth. You know, they more than quadrupled it. I mean, it's unbelievable what people are capable of doing when you challenge them. But most leaders, they tend to let their high performers do their thing. They're on autopilot. They don't need to be managed. But it's just the opposite. That's the paradox. You're going to lose those people if you don't pay attention to them. If you don't build into them. If you don't help them get better, they're gonna go find someone who can. Don't be scared to lose people. Take some risks. And when you gotta make a cut, you gotta make a cut and you gotta move forward. And so it's again, it's better to have some acute pain than the chronic pain of having the wrong people hang around and hurt your culture. And the answer is always the right person. You know, my philosophy was always hire the right person and deal with it later. Figure out the right place, you'll find the right place for the right person. Just works out that way.