Before You Fire Someone…
Summary
- Firing someone should aim to reduce future errors, not just punish the past.
- Even if someone makes a costly mistake, training someone new can lead to the same mistakes, costing more in the long run.
- As an entrepreneur, recognize that you've made big mistakes too; it's part of being human.
- More responsibility for employees means potential for bigger mistakes, but that's part of growing a big business.
- Doing everything yourself is not a solution; accept that mistakes are part of the process.
Video
How To Take Action
I would suggest implementing the following strategies to benefit from the lessons:
For Small Businesses
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Embrace Mistakes: When an employee makes a costly error, instead of immediately firing them, use it as a learning opportunity. Review what went wrong and how to prevent it in the future. This reduces the chances of repeating mistakes and saves time and money on hiring and training new staff.
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Employee Development: Invest time in training current employees. If they made a mistake, it means there's a learning gap. Address that gap by offering more training or resources.
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Share Responsibilities: Spread critical tasks across multiple employees. This can lessen the impact of any one mistake and allows for collective problem-solving, which can be a learning experience for the team as a whole.
For Entrepreneurs
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Self-Reflection: Recognize that as an entrepreneur, you've made big mistakes too. Understand that these errors are part of the growth process. Use your experiences to guide your approach to handling mistakes by your team.
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Delegate: Accept that you can't do everything yourself. Empower your employees to take on more responsibility. This will distribute the risk of mistakes but also contribute to their professional growth and the overall growth of the business.
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Continuous Improvement: Implement systems that allow for feedback and continuous improvement. Encourage employees to offer solutions when something goes wrong.
For Personal Growth
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Forgive Yourself: Accept that mistakes are part of being human. Use your errors as learning moments. Think about what you can do differently next time to avoid repeating the same mistake.
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Seek Feedback: Regularly ask for feedback from peers and mentors. This can help you identify areas for growth and avoid pitfalls you might not see.
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Build Resilience: Develop a mindset where mistakes are invaluable lessons. Each mistake is an opportunity to grow. Learn from it, adjust, and move forward.
These steps are low-cost and high-value, focusing on internal development rather than seeking external replacements. This approach saves resources and builds a stronger, more resilient team or personal skill set.
Full Transcript
I'm not saying you shouldn't fire people who mess up but the only point of firing is to decrease the likelihood of an error occurring in the future I'll still have to recruit hire and train and bring them to someone else on that might still make the same mistake and if I already paid a million bucks to have one person make the mistake the only Dumber thing is to pay a million bucks twice to have another person learn it and let's be real if you're the entrepreneur in the situation how many times have you made massive fuckups all the time we're human and we can't expect our employees to not make mess ups either and sometimes the more responsibility you give someone the bigger the fuckups they can have and the bigger the business the more costly the mistakes will be so this just comes down with the territory of doing big business cuz what's the alternative right you go do everything yourself it doesn't work so mistakes are going to happen
