Early on in my career, I found that I was sometimes too easy and forgiving with people who clearly weren’t a good fit for the role. They might have had the right attitude or fit well with the culture, but they just didn’t have the necessary skills to get the job done. Over time, I realized that a lot of this was on me. I didn’t have a good hiring process in place and wasn’t looking at the whole person – their behavioral style, personality, and what type of work or environment they would thrive in. Once I learned that it was about finding the right person and aligning them with the right role, it became easier to shift talented people within the organization or help them find a better fit elsewhere.

This realization wasn’t from one specific experience, but I had an early one with a salesperson. She had the ability to do really well and would often hit her numbers. But then she would completely fall off for a couple of months, failing to get the job done. Because I liked her, I kept her around longer than I should have. The opportunity cost of the leads we provided her, along with her lack of care for some of her clients, ended up costing the company much more than keeping her did. That was a wake-up call – I had to make faster decisions when I had the “right person” in the wrong role.

As for hiring, I began educating myself by looking at companies known for great hiring practices. One company that stood out was Keller Williams Realty, which was using a third-party consultant, Corporate Consulting, for their hiring process. I engaged them for coaching, and they taught me the process I still use today. It’s a minimum of four steps: a screening interview, a comprehensive interview, an AVA behavioral assessment validation, and a commitment interview. The screening interview is a chance to get to know the candidate and share our company culture. In a way, we try to scare the person away by being upfront about our high-performance expectations. We also highlight our love for people and our core values.

If that goes well, we move on to the comprehensive interview, where we ask detailed questions about the person and their role-specific knowledge. Afterward, we do a behavioral assessment and validate it on a third zoom call, ensuring that their behavior matches what we’ve seen in previous interviews. From there, we check references and conduct a commitment interview where we discuss how we’d work together and give feedback. In some cases, we also include a panel interview for leadership roles. This multi-step process ensures we make good hiring decisions and bring the right person into the right role.

Despite all this, hiring mistakes still happen. Sometimes it’s due to changes in the candidate’s life or the company’s needs. The hardest situations are when I genuinely like the person outside of the workplace. It’s challenging to part ways with someone you have compassion for, but the mission of the company has to come first. When someone is not contributing to the mission, we provide feedback quickly and, if necessary, remove them from the team. We do this with dignity and, where possible, help them transition to another role outside the company.

The key to deciding when to act is looking for movement. Is the person embracing feedback and seeking growth? Are they making an effort to change? Growth is uncomfortable, and if someone is unwilling to do the work to improve, it’s a clear sign they’re not a good fit.