I went to a golf school one time where we spent five days working on our skill and, of course, playing LOTS of golf. For a golfer these schools are very cool. It has been several years since I went to the school, but I still remember a few things the instructor taught us. My golf game is not so great these days, but I still love to play.
In addition to learning the mechanics of the golf swing, we also learned a lot about strategy. For example, what should you do when you hit a bad shot. We all hit bad shots- even Tiger and Phil- so there's nothing to be ashamed of there. The most important thing is what is our next shot going to be? Let's say you slice one off into the woods and when you find it, you're still 200 yards out, and you've got lots of trees between you and the green. You might think, hmmmm....if I could hit a low punch shot to the left of that big oak and below the branches of the those trees over there, maybe I could make it to the green. So, you line up with the best of intentions and take a whack at it. The next sound you hear is your ball hitting that big oak and bouncing back behind you about 10 yards. Now you get to do it all over again. This is what is known as a stupid shot. The lesson I learned is NEVER FOLLOW A BAD SHOT WITH A STUPID SHOT. Bad shots are excusable. Stupid ones are just stupid.
The same thing applies in business. We all make mistakes- maybe a bad hire in spite of our best efforts to select the right person, we find out pretty quickly we've made a mistake. (bad shot) So what do we do? Too often we try to fix the person and mold him into what we thought we were getting when we hired him. It seldom works- we usually end up like the stupid golf shot- farther away from success than when we started.
Instead, it's often best to recognize the mistake early on, and deal with terminating the employee as soon as possible. This is never fun, but in the long run you AND the bad fitting employee are better off.
How about you? Any bad shots lately? What's next?
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