Hire Fast, Fire Faster, Promote Fastest

Top performing companies have recruiting and performance management systems that might be agile. Low performing companies do not. Let me explain.

Gary Vaynerchuk, possibly the outstanding digital marketer of our time and certain to be a billionaire if he operates for another decade, says, “Hire fast, fire faster, promote fastest.” He notes that when he hires he is guessing but when he fires and promotes he knows.

I see two problems with low performing companies when it comes to performance management:

• They do not know. They cannot tell the difference between great performers and average performers. So the great performers do not get promoted and leave.
• They cannot hire. A top performing company thinks, “Why should I suffer an average performer when I can hire a top performer?” A low performing company thinks (on the rare occasions when it thinks), “Better the devil I know than the devil I do not know.”

The end result is that top performing companies have a chance to change their “casting” — the people in their company — in response to change. While low performing companies do not.