Many, many years ago we had a receptionist who didn’t work out. She started strongly enough – she was mature, helpful and friendly. She even brought in tasty baked goods from time to time – bonus! But, over time, things got weird. This became one of the formative experiences in my business career. It gave rise to one of my favorite and oft-repeated refrains – “You really don’t know someone until you either marry them or hire them.”
I recall the story as told to me by Eddie, one of our managers at the time, recounting a highly instructive lesson shared by his mother, Viv. Viv, you must understand, was one of those ladies who you knew within five minutes of meeting her that she had lived a lot of life, she was going to tell you exactly what she thought, and she was probably somebody you wanted on your side in a dark alley. According to Eddie and my best recollection (after having retold this story a couple dozen or so times), as he tried to describe the pros and cons of our receptionist’s performance the conversation went something like this:
“Eddie, STOP!”
“What, Mom?”
“Just tell me one thing – how does she walk?”
“Huh??”
(impatiently…)”How does she walk? Does she get on up along, or does she shuffle when she walks?”
“Hmmm…come to think of it, she kind of shuffles…”
“Fire her. You’ll never change that.”
And there it was – one of the more valuable pieces of business advice I ever got, wrapped up in two pithy sentences. Those 6 words helped me pull together some guidelines that have served me well.
The Takeaways
• Little things about how people act can tell you a lot about them. Pay attention.
• Hire slow, fire fast.
• You can put people in a position to show character, but you can’t teach it. It’s going to be there or it’s not.
• Don’t waste time and energy trying to change deeply rooted behaviors. If those behaviors are not in synch with the values of the organization, it’s over.
There is one last lesson related to this story. Viv finished her life course a few years ago, yet the message lives on. You never know where life’s lessons are going to come from. There is huge value in taking the time to listen carefully to others and connect the dots to your own life and experience. Then pass it on. You never know how or when it’s going to make a difference. Thanks Viv and Eddie!
