If you've thought about firing someone three or more times, do it. Founders keep underperformers out of fear, but one bad hire poisons culture and causes good people to leave. The same goes for bad clients.
Here's when you know when to fire somebody without being emotional. If you have thoughts about firing this person at least three times before but you haven't pulled the trigger, it's a probably a good sign that you should probably just pull the trigger now. When we have doubt in our team and we have doubt in the leaders inside of our business, we have like a another sense for knowing if somebody is actually devoted to the mission and the core values and where the business is going. And somebody who we know we always have to look over our shoulder for or look over their shoulder and see what they're doing constantly. And most of the time, as founders, we keep this person in the business business because we're just scared to go out and rehire again and maybe find somebody who's going to cost us more, or we're scared to go out in the marketplace and find somebody who maybe you're not as tight with. Because one bad hire, one bad person inside of your ecosystem can infect all the culture in your business and cause other people to quit. The same way you bring on bad clients can also cause your team members to be like, dude, these clients that I'm getting and I'm working with this company with are fucking annoying. I quit. And that can cause people to do so. So if you're attracting the wrong clients and you're having second thoughts, team members, those two things are a bad formula for a highly performing culture.
