You Are Confident They Are A Fit For Your Team. It Turns Out They Are Not.
4 Red Flags To Consider And The Excuses You Make To Keep Them
It only takes one bad apple to spoil the bunch. A person with a bad attitude or actions that erode morale can ruin your entire team. There are the obvious reasons people get fired; e.g., not showing up to work on time, lying about something, or stealing from the company. There are also some not-so-obvious reasons (at first glance anyway) that may be red flags and may necessitate firing down the road. Things can get complicated when you or most of your team genuinely like a person, but they just aren’t carrying their weight. Believe it or not, teams hurt just as much, if not more, from delayed fires. Over the past month, I’ve been consulted by multiple colleagues and friends who have asked my advice on retaining someone on their team. In my 15+ years of leadership experience, including leading soldiers in combat as an officer in the U.S. Army, I have compiled a list of four red flags that someone may not be a good fit for your team. This is the advice I gave my friends, and I hope it is helpful to you as well.
Red Flag #1: Appears to Be A Team Player, But Isn’t A Team Player
Some people are really good at disguising this trait. One of my former teammates was admired for his experience and accomplishments. He always preached the importance of leading by example and would publicly shame members of our team who were late to submit weekly reports. Yet, he was consistently late in submitting his own reports! He feigned concern and care for his teammates when in reality, he was just covering up for his own shortcomings or compensating for things he wanted to change in himself. We slowly started to realize that certain rules this former teammate would request were orchestrated to benefit him in some way, shape, or form — not for the greater good of the team.
Red Flag #2: Can Dish It, But Cannot Take It
Some people tell you what’s wrong with everything other than themselves. They refuse to take any sort of accountability or concede that they may not have all the answers. At Tenavox, we strive to foster a work environment where individuals can admit to their mistakes with the understanding that we work together as a team to solve it and avoid it in the future. I had a former teammate who always talked about the importance of personal accountability, especially as leaders. However, whenever a mistake was made, he could never raise his hand to own it. He tended to overcompensate for mistakes by being vocal about his accomplishments and experience, never admitting that he might not know something. Insecurity to admit fault or lack of knowledge is a big red flag that can turn into (1) shit not getting done or (2) a costly disaster because he/she had no clue what they were doing. Despite assertions of talent and brilliance, people who exhibit these traits should not be tolerated. It causes double standards for you and the rest of your team.
Red Flag #3: Say They Are [Insert Skill or Experience], But Are More Interested In Opining Than Executing
There are a lot of bullshitters out there. After falling victim to a few of these types, I am now extremely sensitive to it and find myself more guarded with people who want to work on my team. I do not care if you developed the world’s best algorithm — show me what you promised to do for my algorithm. Previous success in your career doesn’t necessarily translate to bringing success to my company. Great that you’ve raised billions of dollars, are associated with a ton of high net worth individuals, and assure that fundraising will be easy — prove that you can compel them to give you money!
The tell-tale signs of this are:
(1) Displaying too much confidence to the point of arrogance promising things will happen with their involvement
(2) Using every excuse in the book and pointing fingers at others when something doesn’t happen
(3) Being overly complimentary of you and what you are doing (hint: they are sucking up to you)
To this last point, I appreciate compliments like everyone else, but am also mindful when someone is using niceties in an attempt to dissuade me from firing them.
Red Flag #4: Appropriate to Be Inappropriate
“I love that you are cool (and not like other women) and give me the freedom to crack the jokes I want,” said one of my former teammates after telling an inappropriate joke to the rest of the team. I wish I could go back in time and exert my voice in those moments where I excused inappropriate behavior to maintain the status quo. “No this is not appropriate, and you are making people/me feel uncomfortable.” Some of these people assume they are in the right because other people are laughing. What I wish I could say to them (and what usually is happening) is, “They are not laughing with you, they are awkward laughing because you just made the whole room feel incredibly uncomfortable.” I have seen many decent well-respected people, to include many men, go about their lives successfully without having to succumb to locker room talk, telling inappropriate jokes, or being disrespectful to [name a minority]. As a business owner, especially in a small business or startup, it only takes ONE person in the room to raise their hand and claim they felt uncomfortable about something that was said to cause turmoil in your business.
The Excuses You Tell Yourself To Keep Them:
A lot of my excuses revolved around feeling this person was invincible (even to normal standards). “We thought we needed his/her experience and reputation to carry our weight on paper on with the leadership team” or, “This person was just brilliant and your business needed this skill set so you just leave them alone because that is just how they are.” The bottom line: Nobody is invincible or “too good” or “too valuable” to compromise your team and culture. Although the current political climate or what we see on TV may show folks like this triumph, I assure you those teams are not as good as they can be and it is safe to assume most of the people around them are probably miserable.
Today, I’d like to say that we are pretty strict at hiring in Tenavox, but as I mentioned, some people are really good at disguising some of these signs in the beginning. A tipping point for me in starting to question whether a hire is the right fit is when I find myself having to meticulously monitor execution or chasing down updates on progress. You are always going to make hiring mistakes — the important thing is to fire them fast. Hire slow — fire fast. I cannot tell you how many people (including myself) tell me they regret not firing someone when they first noticed any of the signs mentioned above. I’ve had to make some tough decisions about people I genuinely like. Some of these were good people, just not good for business. At the end of the day, the success of the business is most important and anyone on your team that gets in the way of that is just not worth it.
Marissa Limsiaco is President and Co-Founder of Tenavox. Featured in “The Top 20 Female Leaders and Influencers in Commercial Real Estate Tech.” West Point graduate, Division I Athlete, and Army Captain turned 4 X Entrepreneur.
