30 Jan Hire Fire Metrics
What Are The Different Elements Of Leadership?
Christopher Hart here from Transforming Lives Coaching and Consulting from sunny Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. So we’ve been going for the last couple weeks really just walking the path of understanding different elements of leadership. In our last couple of videos we’ve been talking about….we’ve been talking about some conversations and how our conversations tend to take shape in leadership, and then what gets people into purposeful consistent activities; we looked at some prioritization, we looked at what are the elements of consistency.
And so today what I want to talk to you about is a concept of what I call “hire-fire metrics.” And hire fire metrics when I learned this concept was really transformational for me as a leader and I’ll give you some examples first before we kind of dig into it. And what that looks like is I’ve talked with people who have experienced being fired, being fired from a boss and not even knowing. There’s been people that have been fired from a boss without even knowing why really they got fired, or they’ve been fired from a boss and they weren’t expecting it; maybe we’ve done that as leaders. I’ve consulted clients and various different people in business that have said “Hey tomorrow I just want to go in and fire my whole team and start over,” or “I want to fire this person.” So what tends to happen is we as leaders will tolerate some things from people that we lead and we tolerate it to the point that our emotions tend to get the best of us and we want to just pull the trigger and fire them. And you see situations like that where somebody comes into work, maybe they’re having a great day and now all the sudden you’re not and you’re ready to pull the trigger and shotgun blast them to the chest and send them home and back into free agency, and they’re like “What just happened?”
Then I also get people that will ask me, they’ll say “Chris how do I know when it’s time to fire someone?” And I think that’s a really great question. So for those that are viewing this morning, for those that are out of bed and actually joining us this morning, if you’re experiencing any of these I’d love to see if…I’d love to see what your experience is. Have you experienced the same? Are you feeling the same things? Feel free to you know give me some thumbs up or some responses in the comment box because what I’d like to start doing is I’d like to really start delivering the message directly to what you guys are experiencing that actually join us. So let’s kind of dig into this.
We have to understand leadership.
One of the things is we have to understand that leadership is a logical process driven through emotions and not an emotional process justifying logic. And I’m not going to jump into that too much because I think that’s a whole nother video and maybe we do that one tomorrow to start the week off right. But all that looks like is we want to make logical decisions, and how do we make logical decisions? We make logical decisions off of evidence, not emotion. See where many leaders are showing up today is they’re showing up in the emotional realm, they just get pissed off and they want to just pull the trigger and fire someone; or maybe subordinates are the same way, I don’t know. But I think what tends to happen in the business world is we’re allowing emotions to dictate our decisions as opposed to logic. I see it every day in the real estate industry where we have people that are driving value messages why people should hire them through emotions and lack of evidence, lack of logic. Not a good way to run your business.
So Catherine says I’ve always questioned first, what can I do differently before I let this person go?
The problem is we wait til the last minute Catherine, like where do we usually tend to show up in questioning first or having the conversation is at the last minute. And we remember what we said, leadership’s like a path right, we have to walk a path. Even when we’re firing people there’s a path to firing them as well; and there’s a path to hiring. So let’s dig into these hire-fire metrics.
Hire fire metrics are metrics by which we hire someone and metrics by which we fire someone. Hmm, interesting, you mean we just don’t get ticked off one morning and say “Enough is enough,” and can them? No.
You mean we just don’t have one or two interviews and go, “Oh I really like this person…oh Chris… this is the one Chris, I’m telling you this is the one.” And then a couple months later you’re going, “What happened? It was the one. Chris what can I do like why don’t people just show up and do what they’re doing?”
See here’s the problem guys, when we go through hiring processes, we don’t have metrics by which we evaluate people, you allow your emotions, you quote/unquote “fall in love.” Why? Because …there you to Catherine…here’s what happens, the person that you’re hiring their whole purpose is to impress you; their whole purpose in the hiring process is to cause you to fall in love with them, and what you don’t understand is what’s your purpose. And your purpose as a leader in the hiring process is to evaluate them based off of certain metrics that you’ve pre-designed so you can evaluate against in order to make logical judgmental decisions. So the people that I coach and consult when they show up and they go “Oh Chris this is the one, I really like this person,” right then and there I’m telling you right now there’s failure, yeah because they put their best foot forward… exactly Catherine. That’s what they’re designed to do.
Do you fall in love at first sight?
It’s like dating, you know how it is right, what a girl looks like on the first date isn’t what she typically looks like when she wakes up in the morning. And I’m saying just the girl, it’s the guy too. Why? Because they put on their best outfit, they put on their best makeup, they put on their best personality, their best behavior, and they only have the best conversations on Date One. Not so much six months later, 12 months later, get to know who the real person is. The problem is you guys just date and fall in love on the first date, you want to hire someone, AKA get married after one or two dates and then a year into the marriage, six months into the marriage, you’re going, “It’s not the same person I married.”
So we have to create some metrics by which we’re going to evaluate. What does that match look like? What does that perfect person look like? There’s behavior, there’s experience, there’s values, there’s beliefs, there’s morals, there’s ethics, so on and so forth. If you pre-design all those things and then you evaluate against them there’s no emotion, it’s all logic. One thing I love about KW, Keller Williams is their hiring process has a part of it towards the end where it’s called the defense phase, you actually have to present to a team of people that you trust, maybe your board of directors per se, and you have to defend the hire. If you can’t defend the hire based off of logic, if you can’t say “Look I created X, Y, and Z, that was the perfect person for this hire. This person showing up as X plus, Y plus, Z plus, this is open and closed. I don’t need a defense, here we go. This is the person I know is the right person for the job.” Not “I think.” See I listen to people’s words when they say “I think this is the right person;” you have no evidence, the second you have no evidence you’re operating in emotion, and second you operate in emotion you’re going to lose, I promise you. Business is a logical process driven through emotions, not an emotional process that we try and justify facts for. So that’s the hiring process.
Now in that hiring process there should be metrics that when we hire someone we say “Look this is what you’re going to be held accountable to.” Maybe you create an economic model for them and you understand the metrics of their daily activities, weekly, monthly, quarterly, whatever, and you’re evaluating against that; and in order to do that you actually have to measure their activities. You have to know how many dials they’re making on a daily basis, how many conversations did they have, how many appointments did they book, how many points did they have, how many agreements have they signed, how many homes did they put under contract. I’m speaking real estate right now so if you’re outside the business of real estate or the industry just equate it to whatever’s applicable to your industry. But understand there has to be clearly defined metrics, “This is what you’re going to be held accountable to.”
And from that we’ve talked about how you need to measure your people’s activities on a daily basis so that when you’re having your weekly accountability conversations you then start to understand the path, and what you’re looking for is are they doing the initial stages, the leading indicator activities and just not getting the results? If they’re not getting the results and they’re doing the leading indicator activities then we know that’s skill set and mindset stuff, and we can refine them if we know how. But if they’re not doing the leading indicator activities and we’re walking that path there is no “I think I need to fire this person.” How do you know when to fire this person? You know exactly you need to fire that person because they’re not showing up and doing what they said they needed to do in order to hit their goals. So we have to have very defined metrics.
How do we hold the new hire accountable?
So in a perfect world that’s really easy when we can hire someone start from the beginning, what happens with the people that are quote/unquote “on our team,: in our organizations that we’re leading, et cetera? How do we hold them accountable now?
Well we have to go back and sit down and create…yeah Andrew Hanley, lead strong brother, that’s my boy. How’s your son doing? Get him some green drink man. I love those videos by the way… So we have to go back and sit down with them and create some evaluation, some metrics of their activities, like “Hey you’re going to be held accountable for XY and Z.” And then we need to have a conversation with that like what’s it going to look like if XY and Z. show up. You continue to be hired.
In your organizations people should be earning their jobs, not expecting their jobs. And that’s a problem with so many organizations people show up and say just because they’re hired they expect to keep their job; they expect to be paid on Friday or the 15th and the first of the month. They have to learn to earn their jobs, and if you’re going to do weekly accountability then they earn their job every week based off of the activities and the results that they showed you they’re capable and willing to do the week before. Those are your hire metrics. “Here are the metrics that are going to keep you hired in my organization. Now there’s …and you get to determine this as a leader, there’s also going to be metrics that if this shows up AKA “If you don’t meet these sort of activities, if you don’t meet these results then those are metrics that are going to cause you to be fired.”
So what happens is every single morning your people have clarity on what they need to do every day and what they choose to do, because remember our choices define our decisions and then our decisions define our destiny; so what they choose to do each and every day will dictate whether they stay hired in your organization or they get fired. And the interesting thing is I think one of the toughest things that leaders struggle with is having to fire someone. Well you struggle with it because it’s an emotional process, but if you allow it to be a logical process you don’t ever fire anyone, they fire themselves; the conversation is had before it ever even shows up. So if I establish “Hey you need to set X amount of appointments every week in a sales role and get hired by X amount of people,” and they show up minus X, they’re not getting their activity or they’re not getting the results, if they’re doing the activities, not getting the results then work on their skill sets and mindsets. If they’re not even doing the activities then guess what? What they’re saying is “I choose not to be in this organization,” and I’m going to have that conversation with them long before it ever shows up. What does that look like? When I sit down and establish “Hey here you’re hire metrics… here are your fire metrics. Here’s what the conversation is going to look like when I establish X is what you’re going to be evaluated off of and you do X or X plus, I’m going to say “Hey great job, keep up the great work, your future’s looking bright around here.” And you’re actually going to hit your goals and be able to experience the life that you really designed for yourself.
Now if you’re X minus or minus X, you’re showing up less than what I’m holding you accountable to, I’ll give you an initial warning and say “Hey understand something, you’re making some choices that are not leading you to the results that you defined for your life through this organization. If this continues to show up what’s going to happen? How long do you want I continue in business before either you or I need to make a change?” I allow them to define the longevity of that, and if they say “May be a year,” … nah, it doesn’t work for me. Maybe it might work for you, it doesn’t work for me; six months, no, let’s try another number.” And all we’re going to do is just wait till we get to the number that I agree with and they agree with, and let’s say it’s a month and let’s say a month from now we sit down and have an another accountability conversation and they’ve chose not to do the activities to lead to the results… actually let me rewind for a second, back at that accountability conversation I’m going to say “What happens a month from now if you don’t make the decisions to do the activities that get you the results? What’s that conversation going to sound like?” And here’s what they typically say, “Oh well I guess you got to fire me.”
“No I’m not firing you, you’re going to fire yourself. What is that conversation going to sound like?”
“I don’t know.”
“Let me help you out with knowing, “Hey Andrew we love you, we’re going to miss you around here but unfortunately you can’t stay.” Are you okay with that conversation?”
They’re going to say “Yes.” Okay, so we actually had the conversation where there’s no emotion involved. Now a month from now if Andrew doesn’t show up in the activities that leads him to the results, I say “Hey Andrew remember a month ago when we established the X factor that I’m going to hold you accountable to? Hey did you meet that, exceed that, or fall short of that?”
He’s going to go “Well I fell short of it Chris.”
“Yeah. Do you member a month ago like that conversation that we established what happens if you fall short?”
“Yes.”
“What did we say?”
“You’re going to miss me around here.”
“Sure are Andrew. We sure are going to miss you around here man. I still love you, I wish you the best but unfortunately your decision making process is not in alignment with what we’re looking for in this organization so.”
That’s how hire fire metrics show up in our organizations, in our lives like “Hey son you don’t drink your green drink you don’t get to play X-Box today.” Right Andrew? Right green is for life.
So we have to establish when we hold people accountable that’s going to dictate whether they stay or go in our organizations; we have to precede that with conversations of understanding because when we have conversations of understanding then accountability… where it’s mutual understanding like “Are you clear what I’m holding you accountable to? Because I am.” And when they say yes, say “Great, do you know what you need to do moving forward?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have the skills, the tools, and the resources to be able to make that happen?”
“Yes.”
“Are you committed to making it happen?”
“Yes.”
“Do you believe you can make it happen?”
“Yes.”
Once you get a yes on all those questions then what’s left? They just need to show up; and if they fail to show up, failing to show up is based off of their poor decision making process, has nothing to do with you, has nothing to do with emotions, has everything to do with what they chose to do day in and day out. So that’s how we evaluate hire-fire metrics; that’s how we can better hire, we can hire better people for our organizations. It’s not that they’re better people, it’s just people more in line with what we’re actually looking for, the ideal candidate. We create some metrics that we evaluate through the hiring process and when those things show up we know we have a better chance of that person succeeding.
See if you evaluate… if you say XYZ is exactly the right candidate for this role or position that I’m hiring for and you get YZA, well guess what? No wonder why the person isn’t performing in your organization. Or maybe you get ABC and you’re looking for XYZ and it’s like, “I don’t understand why they’re not showing up.” Because you hired ABC and you’re looking for XYZ; or better yet you were looking for XYZ, you didn’t even know you were looking for XYZ. ABC showed up, wink winked, smelled pretty, looked pretty and your bow tie started spinning and you just hired them. That’s not my fault, it’s poor decision making okay.
So there’s evaluations that we go through in the hiring process, there’s evaluations that we go through in the day to day process and we allow those evaluations to dictate whether people stay or go in our organization. Now here’s what I can tell you leaders, now that you know that you have a great responsibility to apply it in your organization. If you don’t, your choice, hey don’t call me, I can’t help you out, honestly. Because the only thing I’m going to tell you to do is “Hey we’ve got to establish an evaluation process to dictate whether or not this person can stay in your organization.” I’m not going to operate on emotions, and hopefully you are not. But here’s what I can tell you, if you do you’ll have a better chance of growing a more successful organization where you actually have success through people, less stress, more success.
Now with that here’s the big kicker guys, you have to show up in the same manner; you have to evaluate your own decision making process, because just because you call yourself a leader, just because you’re a self-appointed leader does not mean you don’t get to show up. I’ll tell you something right now, there are organizations where you have the right people and it’s the wrong leader, and sometimes you’re the wrong leader, speed of the leader, speed of the pack. People do what their leaders do; people don’t do what their leaders don’t do. This is not do as I say, this is a world that we live in that people do what they see. It’s a monkey-see monkey-do, so if the monkey ain’t doing and that’s what the other monkey see, that’s what the other monkeys are going to do. So you have a job to show up as a leader, you have a job to show up to lead by self before you can ever lead other people.
So hopefully this brought some value to your business and somehow you can figure out how it applies to your life. No, do not try and go and put some hire-fire metrics on your relationship with your spouses, partners, boyfriends, girlfriends, et cetera, it’s probably the one area of leadership that hire-fire metrics don’t work, but there are some elements of how we evaluate whether or not the relationship’s right for each other. So that’s a completely different video for a completely different concept.
So thanks for joining me this morning. Hey before I go remember one thing, you’re a child of God, God loves you, so do I. Be blessed, lead strong. Take care.
About the author:
Over the course of 8 years, Christopher Hart went from an enlisted Private First Class to a Commissioned Officer-Captain. In 2005, Christopher chose to move on from his military career to focus on starting a family and embarking in the world of entrepreneurship. Christopher’s passion is now working to help others be the BEST version of themselves and helping them Lead others to the same!
To learn more about Christopher Hart or to get in touch with him regarding a coaching program you can email him at Chris@TransformingLivesCoaching.com
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