PicoBusiness

I’m reading an interesting thread over at the ScrumDevelopment Yahoo group, about dealing with poor performers. One theme I’ve seen is (paraphrased)

We keep coaching them and working with them and training them and managing them until they either get it, or get fed up and leave.

This is a noble goal, in general, except that all the time you spend with that one person is short-changing the other members of your team!  It’s not “free”.  I’ve only fired a few people for cause - one because he was unacceptably rude to his internal customers, one for stealing, and one for not bothering to show up for work on time, or some days, at all.

In the non-stealing case, I worked with them, and coached them (or had others coach them) to fix the problem.  When that didn’t happen, they were out, once I had a replacement prepared.

Hard on those people - sure.  But what about the other 12 - 30 people in the organization.  Don’t they deserve time and effort from me?  Doesn’t my family deserve time and effort from me?