The Trap

You’ve worked hard to build something special: a team with real energy, high standards, and a culture people actually believe in.

Then you hire someone who just… doesn’t match that level of commitment. You sit down with them. Again, and again. You listen to the explanations—the reasons, the obstacles, the external forces always conspiring against them. You care, so you try to help. You remove one roadblock after another. They promise this time will be different. It never is.

Here's The Trap—and it’s subtle because it feels virtuous: You’re wired to do good work. Deep down, you assume (or hope) everyone else is too. So, you think: One more honest conversation, one more chance to reach them, and they’ll finally have their light-bulb moment. You're a caring person. You picture their family, their bills, their stress. Firing someone feels cold. Keeping them on feels compassionate.

So, you keep investing time, energy, and emotional bandwidth into someone who—week after week, month after month—shows they aren’t investing nearly as much in their own success. That’s The Trap: You end up more committed to their career than they are. Ask yourself two hard questions:

1. When did you start taking on more ownership for their career than they do?

2. What are you really teaching the rest of the team—and your customers—when you let someone keep playing the victim card?

The uncomfortable truth: Some people are comfortable collecting a paycheck while dodging accountability. They will always have a fresh excuse ready. No amount of coaching, patience, or removed obstacles will change that if they have already decided they don’t want to step up. Once you’ve been crystal clear about expectations, given fair support, and still see zero meaningful progress, the decision has already been made—just not by you.

They’ve decided they’re not a fit here. Letting them go isn’t failure. It’s clarity. And the upside is powerful: Your A-players notice. They see you walk-the-talk. Culture isn’t just words on a wall—it’s who you keep and who you don’t.

High performers hate carrying teammates who mail it in. They quietly start looking for the exit when they realize standards are negotiable. The minimum-effort people resent high achievers because they make the low bar look embarrassing—so they work (subtly or not) to drag everyone down to their level.

You get to choose which group you build around. Is it worth it to protect the culture you’ve worked so hard to create?

The fastest way to lose your best people is to let the wrong ones stay. Which side are you building for—the ones who show up all-in, or the ones who always have a reason not to?