The Conversation Most Founders Avoid

See Original Forbes Business Council Article

The hardest conversation I have ever had as a founder was the one where I told someone good they could not stay.

Not because they were bad at their job. Because the fit between them and where the business was going no longer worked.

There is no easy version of that conversation. But there is a right version.

For years, I waited too long to have those conversations. I told myself I was being patient. The truth was I was being avoidant. The cost showed up in team morale and in the slow erosion of the standard I claimed to hold the team to.

A business cannot rise above its softest standard. The decisions you avoid become the ceiling you cannot get past.

Eventually, I built something I now teach in the Sherpa Method. I call it Unrecruiting with Compassion. The process of ending a working relationship honestly and with care for the person's dignity.

Forbes published the full piece today in the Forbes Business Council series, under the title The Hardest Part of Building a Great Team Is Letting the Wrong People Go.

Clarity is kinder than ambiguity, every time.