As difficult as Brian might find it to reach a decision, he has the benefit of knowing that his partner has already thought about moving on. Most of us aren't so lucky. Often when you set your emotions aside and analyze a situation objectively, you come to realize that the right decision for the business will cause hardship for people who are not at all prepared to accept it. I remember a problem we once had with a guy whose job was to do pricing for my messenger company. I'll call him Arthur. He was a wonderful person. Everybody liked him. He'd been at the company from the beginning. He'd wound up in his position through the Peter Principle. I needed someone to handle pricing, and he was available. It's a common mistake.
As it happened, Arthur had very few qualifications to be our pricing person, but -- because we all liked him -- we covered for him. Eventually, however, I had to face the fact that he had become an obstacle to the company's growth. We needed a new computer-based system for pricing, and Arthur didn't feel comfortable around computers.
I agonized over what to do. I felt guilty, because I knew it was my fault that Arthur had wound up in this situation. I was the one who had decided to overpay him and give him more responsibility than he could handle. Now I couldn't reduce his salary or demote him without creating even more problems. I'd tried that with other people to avoid having to fire them, and it never worked. Ultimately, I decided that the best I could do was to turn the problem into a money issue. I told Arthur that we had to replace him, but -- because he was a longtime, valued employee -- we'd help him out by, among other things, continuing to pay his salary until he landed a new job. It wound up taking him eight months to do that, and he kept receiving a weekly paycheck from us until then. I considered it money well spent.
As we go to press, I still don't know what Brian will decide. But at least he will come away from this episode with a better understanding of a critical skill he needs to acquire. The sooner he acquires it, the better the decisions he'll make.
Norm Brodsky is a veteran entrepreneur. His co-author is editor-at-large Bo Burlingham. Their book, The Knack, was published by Portfolio in October.
So here was Brian making important business decisions based on what he thought was best for everyone but himself and his business. He was allowing his compassion and sense of responsibility to dictate his actions. It turned out, however, that his compassion was misplaced. His friend was saying, in effect, that continuing as a shop manager and a partner in the business was not what he wanted. As for the morning manager, I happened to know she could work elsewhere while her residency application was being considered. Brian had not bothered to research the question, because he felt obligated to keep her on until her application was approved.
Don't get me wrong. Compassion is a wonderful thing, and so is a sense of responsibility toward employees. But those emotions shouldn't have entered Brian's decision-making process until he had first taken a clear-eyed look at the needs of his business. You simply can't make good business decisions unless you are able to put emotions aside and analyze a situation objectively. I believe there is no more important — or difficult — skill for an entrepreneur to learn. I'm not saying you should ignore your emotions. In the end, you may decide to go with them anyway, but at least it will be a choice you make with your eyes open, knowing what the tradeoffs are.
And that's what I told Brian. "Why don't you go home and think about this," I said. "Make believe these two people aren't around anymore, and you're running the business without them. Think about what you would do to improve the stores' performance and how much more money you'd be able to make as a result. Figure out whether it would be enough to let you pay off your debt. Ask yourself, 'Would I still want to sell one of the shops if they were doing as well they could be doing?' Then come back and tell me what you've decided."
As difficult as Brian might find it to reach a decision, he has the benefit of knowing that his partner has already thought about moving on. Most of us aren't so lucky. Often when you set your emotions aside and analyze a situation objectively, you come to realize that the right decision for the business will cause hardship for people who are not at all prepared to accept it. I remember a problem we once had with a guy whose job was to do pricing for my messenger company. I'll call him Arthur. He was a wonderful person. Everybody liked him. He'd been at the company from the beginning. He'd wound up in his position through the Peter Principle. I needed someone to handle pricing, and he was available. It's a common mistake.
As it happened, Arthur had very few qualifications to be our pricing person, but — because we all liked him — we covered for him. Eventually, however, I had to face the fact that he had become an obstacle to the company's growth. We needed a new computer-based system for pricing, and Arthur didn't feel comfortable around computers.
I agonized over what to do. I felt guilty, because I knew it was my fault that Arthur had wound up in this situation. I was the one who had decided to overpay him and give him more responsibility than he could handle. Now I couldn't reduce his salary or demote him without creating even more problems. I'd tried that with other people to avoid having to fire them, and it never worked. Ultimately, I decided that the best I could do was to turn the problem into a money issue. I told Arthur that we had to replace him, but — because he was a longtime, valued employee — we'd help him out by, among other things, continuing to pay his salary until he landed a new job. It wound up taking him eight months to do that, and he kept receiving a weekly paycheck from us until then. I considered it money well spent.
As we go to press, I still don't know what Brian will decide. But at least he will come away from this episode with a better understanding of a critical skill he needs to acquire. The sooner he acquires it, the better the decisions he'll make.
Norm Brodsky is a veteran entrepreneur. His co-author is editor-at-large Bo Burlingham. Their book, The Knack, was published by Portfolio in October.
