Member-only story
Surrounding Yourself with Great People Starts with One Hard Thing
Cutting out the wrong ones
My executive assistant, Holly, came running into my office and blurted, “Sanjay, there’s a crazy woman in the lobby, screaming she’s going to sue us!”
Moments later Holly and I were in the lobby and approaching a woman yelling at the receptionist, demanding to be let in to the building. I interrupted, asking the woman, “What’s going on? How can I help?”
She responded, “Who the fuck are you?” and before I could answer, shrieked, “My husband is having an affair with some whore in your company and I’m going to sue you!”
I was then told through a cascade of swearing and tears that our head of IT, her husband, had been having an affair with another employee at the office, and we had facilitated the affair by providing a venue for them to meet and ‘carry on’, making us liable for some imaginary legal damages.
We eventually tracked down the wayward husband and sent him and his wife home, but here’s the thing. That IT manager had been a thorn in our sides for months. He was unreliable and a negative influence, but I had resisted firing him because his skill set was important.
Worse, when I did fire him in the aftermath of his wife’s revelation, an ‘anonymous’ hacker took…
