Mike Melton argues that keeping mediocre employees destroys company culture more than any stated value ever could. A leader's real test is who they allow to stay, not what they say about standards. Each time you protect low performance, you tell everyone else that mediocrity is acceptable.
You're rewarding mediocrity. You can't build a high-standard company while sitting there protecting mediocre people. Because you know what? Your best employees are sitting there watching exactly not what you tolerate, it's who you tolerate. And every time you let somebody slide, you're teaching everybody else what the damn real standard is. So what I want you to do is quit asking why your damn culture sucks. Look at exactly who you're letting stay on the damn team. And you don't build a culture by what you say. You build it by what you tolerate.
