Find the right people and then get them into the right position. That is a major point in the book Good to Great and I agree with it completely. Finding the right person is very important.

When you think you have found the right person to add to your organization it can be difficult to backtrack and admit you made a mistake.

Difficult, but sometimes very necessary.

Such was the case I was faced with recently. For obvious reasons I am not going into specifics but I had to let a special projects manager go yesterday.

I guess the tipping point came when I started working directly with an intern who reported to this person. I did that because I was not happy with the performance of this intern. They had been given a project for one of the members at the Field Guide and the silence in progress was deafening. There were no questions, no indication of problems and according their manager they were doing “fine” with the project.

Except a deliverable that should have been complete WEEKS ago was not even started.

In working with the intern, it became clear they were not given any instruction or details on this project and they were told to figure it out on their own.

Not good, not acceptable and it is not going to be tolerated.

If you employ people, sooner or later you are going to have to let someone go.

When that happens, keep it business, do not let it get personal. If it is due to performance, keep the focus on that and nothing else. Sure, they will try to list all the reasons they did or didn’t do this or that, but your job as the firing boss is to keep the focus where it belongs.

Oh, well, it just reinforces the “find the right people” point mentioned above.