Mike Andes (speaker) argues that the primary way a founder/CEO shapes business culture is through hiring and firing decisions. He frames the CEO as a coach who must make difficult personnel choices (who to draft, who sits on the bench, who plays) to build a strong team; he acknowledges the emotional difficulty but emphasizes the necessity of decisive action.
If you're a small business owner, you know what it's like to hire and fire and have to find a great team. It's very important as you begin to grow and scale your business that you've realized one thing. There's one way to determine the culture within your business, and that's firing. There's nothing that speaks louder to your people and the people are on your team than firing individuals. And that sounds hard. And some people think that makes me sound like I'm somebody crass, like don't care about people or their emotions or their life, livelihood. And that's just not the case. But by far and large, the best way for you to dictate culture and you as the CEO, you as the founder, you as the owner, as you build out a team, you are the coach. And the coach has to make the hard decisions when it comes to draft. The coach has to make the hard decisions in terms of who's on the bench, who's out on the court. And if you are going to be a great CEO and you're going to build a great team, you have to make some hard decisions when it comes to hiring and firing.
