by Dave Anderson

It’s amazing to me how companies defend their policies when it comes to hiring and firing the people they recruit to make their business thrive in today’s marketplace.

Regardless of whether I speak in Manhattan, Edmonton or London I hear the same loser’s limp: “Dave, you need to understand why our area is different. We’ve got a unique set of challenges in this marketplace.”

The following scenarios are four losers’ limps. When embraced, they become self-fulfilling prophecies guaranteed to victimize your company. Renounce these excuses and you have the potential to change your business culture and accelerate growth overnight.

“We’ve got a unique situation here. There’s a shortage of talented people in our area.” This loser’s limp justifies why some managers keep weaklings on their staff, rather than find better people. This doesn’t wash. With few exceptions, the most talented people already have jobs; they’re getting results for someone else either within, or outside, of your industry.

To get out of this rut, your strategy must change from being hunted, to becoming the hunter. Crossing your fingers in hopes of finding that rare, talented superstar from amongst the ranks of the unemployed is a miserable plan.

“It’s hard to fire poor performers these days.” This is true only if you are sloppy or lazy. Minimum performance and behavioral standards must be defined and communicated in writing. Performance shortfalls need to be documented.

These actions must be taken to make a fair and effective termination, otherwise you can expect trouble if you fire someone to whom you never clearly defined expectations, held accountable or delivered honest feedback. Employment laws favor leaders who get their act together; who care enough to confront failing employees and turn them around, while documenting the entire process.

“Our business set-up is unique. We can’t find time for training.” If you believe this, you are absolutely right. You will never find time for training, instead you must make time for training. As long as managers see training as an option they’ll do it only when it’s convenient, or as a knee-jerk reaction to a lousy month.

Training must be a non-negotiable discipline in your business: “X” number of times per week, without fail. If your managers can’t execute that simple directive, then get yourself some real help. Take the human capital you’ve been entrusted with, and make it more valuable tomorrow than it is today. Either you get this, or you don’t.

“In the real world, we’re going to have our share of average and below-average performers.”  If you believe this, you sold out to an enemy called average. Miserable projections like this one are bound to become true, because when expectations are too low, people tend to live down to them.

While it’s unrealistic to believe everyone on a team can be a superstar, it’s perfectly reasonable to expect the mangers on your team to elevate their worst performers, to a better-than-industry-average performance. Think about it: What would happen to your results if your worst performers in every department were just a little bit better than average? It could just blow the roof off the place.

Frankly, I believe the most significant difference between business people is the way they think. Unsuccessful managers focus on survival. Average managers focus on maintenance. Meanwhile the most successful managers play to win; they make consistent progress and when things are doing well, they run up the score. 

If asked, most business people say their location, reputation, product and management team are better than average. But in reality they accept, rationalize and learn to live with mediocre performances. Go figure. Many average, or unsuccessful people conveniently fail to connect their lack of growth with poor thinking or decision making. The result? They continue to make decisions on personnel, training, standards and expectations that are easy, cheap and popular, rather than right.

Don’t worry, as long as you resign yourself to the four losers’ limps you’ll still make money and get to keep the watch. However, for the rest of your life you’ll wonder what might have been.

Make your business unique and eliminate these losers’ limps. You can and must do better. As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can’t, you’re probably right.” 

Dave Anderson is the author of: Up Your Business. He’s a speaker and trainer with expertise in leadership and management who earned his business reputation by leading top national car dealerships to sales of $300 million. For more information, go to: www.LearnToLead.com.

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