Last week in a client session, two team members rushed in frantically just as we were about to start the meeting. They dropped into their seats with disheveled hair and scowls on their faces. One of them said they didn’t get any sleep the night before because they were up all night with a sick child.

I took a deep breath and thought to myself, “Oh boy, this is going to be a tough day.”

The Elephant in the Room. The Sacred Cow. The skeleton in the closet. Every company has certain issues that they avoid bringing up at all costs. Sometimes the issues are too uncomfortable to confront. Or the same issue has been discussed many times in the past and still nothing is being done about it. Sometimes it’s because we’re afraid that someone will get personally offended just because we brought it up.

The issues that are most often avoided are people-related issues. Someone is underperforming, but because they’ve been with the company forever, their lack of performance becomes the norm or status quo.

As your company grows, everything gets more complex. Keeping everyone in the loop used to be simple, and as more and more people are added to your team, it can become very cumbersome to keep everyone in the loop. Processes, systems and communications that seemed to at one time happen automatically, don't occur so easily anymore.

Then it begins to snowball. Workarounds and additional steps get added. Bandages are put in place to cover up the loose ends. Longer hours and working harder become the norm “just to catch up.” At this point it becomes tough to even see what the real issue is.

Sound familiar?  

I was on a phone call earlier this week with a client who has 40 employees. He told me about the sudden resignation of one his long-time managers. Here’s the story he shared with me.

“Last week at our quarterly management meeting, one of my key operations managers turned in his resignation. As we discussed the issue, he said all the extra pressure was too much for him to handle. I was thinking to myself, we haven’t even given him any more work to do. All we did was clarify expectations and improve our communication...   

When we first met, one of my clients was struggling with significant turnover. They had been operating with the mentality of hiring fast and firing fast. Whenever they had an opening, they hired as fast as they could to fill the void. After all, they had customer orders to fulfill and they needed people in place to do it. The problem was that not everyone was the right person for their company—they really didn’t share the company core values or fit into the culture.