The mercy kill

The fastest way to transform a team for high performance is to kick out the underperformers.

Is it possible to nurture underperformers into A-players? Absolutely.

Is it worth it? Probably not on your dime.

The thing is, when you want to move fast, you don’t have the capacity for dead weight, and even less so for people who would actively pull you back.

A very successful project I’ve worked on started with a group of mixed skills and motivation. After a week, we got rid of the worst performer. We then gave two B-players non-critical tasks like documentation and testing.

We were left with a highly motivated and talented core that made massive progress in just a month while the rest played support roles.

We did more because fewer people were working on it.

It sounds counter-intuitive, but that’s what you get when you remove dead weight and establish good support for the A-team.

Yours,

Taj