May 19 2009
When to Cut Someone Loose
We should have known better.
We hired a friend to do some administrative tasks at Wealth and Wisdom (and a couple of our other businesses). On the surface it seemed like a great idea. Ed was more than qualified to do the work. While I’m pretty good at spreadsheets and databases he made me look like a rank amateur. To do what we wanted would have taken me a couple months because of the learning curve.
On the surface it was win – win. He needed a bit of extra cash and loved playing with databases and spreadsheets. I was too busy between my day job, Wealth and Wisdom, writing our book, etc…
Then the problems started
The biggest challenge was that it was a bigger priority to me than for Ed. It was important to our business and our book launch. We had deadlines we were trying to meet. It was money out of my pocket and revenue lost every week the schedule slipped.
Ed had different priorities. First was his day job. He was the go to guy at work and his boss always tossed him the critical projects. This took up a ton of his time. Then there was his social life. What little time he had left was spent on Call of Duty.
Unfortunately, our project was at the bottom of his list. The end result was that progress was non-existent.
Let’s be clear. This is my fault.
I view this as my responsibility. I chose to give his the project even though I knew how busy he was. He assured me that he would take it seriously but I knew him well enough I should have questioned this. Also, any time you have a project (or an employee) their performance is your responsibility. It doesn’t mean that they don’t share the responsibility but in the end it rests on your shoulders.
What did I learn from this experience?
- I need to set up better reporting when I outsource. I did a good job defining the project. I even did a good job setting a deadline. Where I failed was that I never set up regular updates. Several weeks would go by before we would ask “what is the status.”
- Don’t just hire based on a skill set. You also need to look at the person and hire someone that will get the job done on time and on budget. Ed’s was without question skilled. He was a good person. The problem was that he wasn’t mature enough to take on the project and he wasn’t willing to make it a priority.
- Projects need to be a priority to all parties. Ed had too many priorities. They were all more important than the project.
- Be careful hiring friends and family. People will tell you that the best business relationships are based on friendships. What usually gets left out is that these friendships are almost always of a business nature. In fact, they often grow out of business interactions, not the other way around.
Hiring Friends and family can be a big mistake. They often take liberties that they wouldn’t with strangers. It can also be messy if you need to sever the business side of the relationship. It’s also hard for you to be firm and demanding to friends and family.
In our case it was hard to push for results. Not only were we friends with him, we knew his whole family. If we weren’t careful it could have done irreparable damage to a whole chain of friendships. That being said, several months had gone by without much progress. What should have taken a couple weeks was pushing several months with no end in site.
In the end we found a simpler solution and canceled the project. It help resolve the situation and made it easier to preserve our friendship. We paid him out for his time and we all moved on.
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I can’t tell you how many “friends” and “a friend’s son” are building websites in my community, but I do know that all are either off schedule or over-budget, none have been completed, and what portions have been completed don’t work well at all. You must have serious players on both sides of the equation if you expect success.
It helps to walk through the entire project so customer expectations and employee abilities are out in the open. Only then can you match up needs with skills, interest, availability and so forth.
When I was in Chicago, an acquaintance of mine called a man to inquire about a simple odd job that required him to haul a special part to a shipyard using his personal truck. The job paid $150. There was a verbal agreement made and a date set to have the part loaded and delivered.
The day before, my fine young acquaintance had his truck inspected and it didn’t pass, so it wasn’t available to use. He called the man and explained that he couldn’t do the job and therefore had made other plans for the day of delivery.
The man was upset and said that he needed the part there so badly that if he had known of this potential glitch, he would have rented a truck for my acquaintance to drive, and still paid him the $150 to run the errand.
If they had only focused on what was needed up front, and walked through the entire scenario, looking for potential pitfalls, the deal might have been arranged differently to begin with and my acquaintance would have made $150.
No matter how well you try to plan things, there are many things that can go wrong. Unfortunately it’s always the boss who is to blame because it’s the boss who needs to get the work performed. The employees can always find another job out there, but the boss can’t always simply start up another business.
And, you’re right on target. Friends don’t usually make good business partners, but good friendships can result from business interactions. It all starts with respect, and those close to you may not respect you as well as someone who views you as a customer first and foremost.
Clair
@Clair Schwan-Thanks for the thoughtful comment. It mirrors and complements my post well. I think we are on the same page.
I have seen it too many times where friends (and especially family) take liberties and feel like they deserve special treatment. This even happens when expectations are clearly defined up front.