You know those songs which you know every single lyric to yet have never listened to? You know, you hear the songs, and know them quite well, but don’t take cognisance of what’s being said? I once sang “F*** The World” by 2Pac when I was 10… in class… yeah.
You have employees like that, too. Really, it’s in your best interest to fire (or ease out) those who hear you and keep those who listen. In a big company, one can ‘afford’ to keep the “hearers”, if you will, because we know that the workforce is probably bloated by about 10% (yeah, that percentage assertion isn’t empirical, but in this recession, watching companies downsize by equivalent sizes and still function as well as before has me raising an eyebrow). A startup or a small company doesn’t have that luxury - it neither has the finances, the time nor the competitive scale to deal with slackers.
In one of his more recognisable quotes - an oft spoken one recently - Warren Buffett says “only when the tide goes out do you discover who’s been swimming naked” and sadly the same is true for all companies, but less so for those who have a vice-grip on what’s deliverable and measurable.
In a previous life I worked for a company that had daily status meetings. Sure, the industry was deadline-based and high pressure but still, daily. On Mondays the status meetings were epic. Made sense, really - after the weekend people needed to get back into the zone, and how best to achieve that but to hammer home the enormity of the week ahead? During my tenure, we began keeping pretty strict time sheets, too. Detail was everything, how we answered the phone, when we answered the phone, how we responded when clients walked in the door, everything. We also had the good fortune of the hangers-abouts easing themselves out before the tide went out, some in highly spectacular fashion and others by their own volition. As a result, with the tide being out and all, that company has a better bank balance than its ever had and recently bagged its biggest pitches, too, recession be damned.
The trick is in distinguishing the mechanical from the inspired. The difference between those who hear the music and those who listen.