A short advisory video by Ryan Deiss offering a decision-flow approach for handling well-liked but underperforming employees (the “lovable slacker”). The presenter promotes using a flowchart and the question “Is someone directly responsible?” to replace blame, emphasizing that following a clear process makes firing fairer and less painful for both company and employee.
This video is about firing that person that you really, really like who's trying really, really hard. They're the lovable slacker, the puppy who just can't stop pooping on the carpet. Right? What do you do about these people? Cue the flowchart. This flowchart will remove all doubts around firing because if you follow it correctly, you'll know with absolute certainty that exiting an underperformer is the right thing, both for the company and for them. It's human nature to want to assign blame whenever something goes wrong. But instead of jumping straight to someone's gon have to pay for this, I want you to ask this question instead. Is someone directly responsible? I won't sugarcoat it. It sucks to fire people. But because you've gone through the hard work and you've stuck to the process, exiting that person should be as simple and pain free as it can possibly be. And if nothing else, you can walk away knowing that you truly did everything that could be done.
