Are you hanging on to a team member you already know is wrong for your company? In this episode, Shannon Waller talks about the real cost of waiting. You’ll hear practical examples of wrong-fit scenarios, why your best people and clients feel it first, and how to make clear, respectful decisions that strengthen your whole team.

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Show Notes:

• Once you know someone is a wrong-fit team member, your only strategic option is to take action, not wait.
• Delaying a tough people decision implicitly tells your best team members that you’re willing to tolerate mediocrity.
• Keeping a wrong-fit person costs you twice: your best team members lose morale, and your clients feel the drag in service and results.
• Your A-Players will eventually ask themselves why they should keep going above and beyond if you allow B and C performance to stand.
• The right team culture feels like an all-star team where everyone is growing, contributing, and pulling in the same direction.
• There are different levels of wrong-fit—from the new hire who can’t do the job to the long-term “legacy” team member your company has outgrown.
• High producers with bad habits, poor teamwork, or misaligned values are often the most expensive wrong fits in your organization.
• If someone’s values clash with your culture, they’ll build their own agenda inside your company.
• People who stop growing eventually slow down your entire company’s growth, no matter how long they’ve been with you or how nice they are.
• Legacy team members can hold the business emotionally and operationally hostage if you don’t intentionally capture their knowledge and evolve the role.
• Clients can usually see wrong-fit behavior before you act, and they’ll quietly question your standards when you don’t address it.
• When you uphold your standards and let a wrong-fit person go, your best team members often feel relieved and more loyal.
• Taking decisive, thoughtful action—legally, ethically, and gracefully—protects your culture and signals to everyone that you mean what you say.
• Moving a bright person into a better-fit role is a powerful way to protect your culture, keep great talent, and honor their Unique Ability®.
• Thinking about a people issue doesn’t create progress; taking clear action is how you learn what works and what doesn’t.
• Your job as the entrepreneur is to build and protect a high-standard Unique Ability® Team that can deliver the top-quality experience your clients are paying for.

Resources:

Multiplication By Subtraction by Shannon Waller

Kolbe A™ Index

Unique Ability

Process Suite

Do your A-Players know how much you value them? In this episode, Shannon Waller explains why top talent is often the easiest to overlook and the high cost of taking them for granted. She also shares a practical five-part formula to ensure your best people feel utilized, appreciated, and rewarded so they never want to leave.

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Show Notes:

• Your A-Players are the top 10 percent of available talent for a role, consistently performing at a high level while fully living your company’s core values.
• A-Players make your life easier by consistently delivering easier, faster, better, and cheaper results, which is exactly why they’re so easy to unintentionally take for granted.
• When you overlook your best people, they often take on more and more responsibility, leading to burnout, resentment, and eventually disengagement or departure.
• Top talent will leave if they don’t feel seen, appreciated, rewarded, or fairly compensated for the extraordinary value they’re creating.
• The real financial cost in most companies isn’t A-Players’ compensation, but the time and energy spent managing misaligned team members who don’t live your values.
• Retaining A-Players starts with treating them as an opportunity, not a given, and being intentional about how you invest in their growth, rewards, and future with your company.
• Appreciation is a performance strategy, so make a habit of specifically acknowledging the results and effort your A-Players make in language that really lands for them.
• Reward your A-Players with meaningful financial recognition tied to their results, remembering that their excellence is already saving you money and complexity elsewhere in the business.
• Maximize your A-Players by giving them real opportunities to grow, learn, and expand their capabilities so they can see a bigger future for themselves inside your organization.
• Refer your A-Players internally by championing their reputation, talking them up to others, and making sure the rest of the organization knows how great they are and what they contribute.
• It’s also important to protect your A-Players from being dragged down by B- and C-Players because top talent wants to work with other top talent and will leave if you tolerate drama and low standards.
• Treat retaining A-Players as a core entrepreneurial strategy because when you take great care of them, they take great care of your company, your clients, and your freedom.

Resources:

Topgrading by Brad Smart and Geoff Smart

Multiplication By Subtraction by Shannon Waller

Unique Ability®