No, it is not too late to fix your team. Lia walks through three concrete moves: resetting expectations, building real accountability mechanisms, and giving feedback that actually lands. This episode is most useful for business owners and team leaders who feel like they have tried everything and are running out of ideas.
This episode is part of the Performance Management & Course Correcting series. Browse all episodes →
Mic drop moments
“…our business will rise to the level of whatever we’re going to tolerate…”
“…the real cost is losing that high performer, and you don’t want to do that, because you’re going to end up with a bunch of five out of 10…”
“The folks that are bought in, they can hear it. They actually aren’t bothered by the hard conversation. They’re like, okay, yeah, like, let me fix this.”
“…every day you let it go by is costing you money.”
“…if you just needed, like, Oh yeah, yeah, a wake up call. Good. Now run with it.”
Episode highlights
The client moment that started this conversation
Lia opens with a story from a same-day client session during a deep-dive for the Ops Playbook. The owner runs a brick-and-mortar business with multiple locations and described her approach to underperformance: she has the conversation right away. No waiting, no managing around it, no hoping the problem fixes itself. If someone says the role is not a fit, she offers a clean break. If they say they will fix it and then do not, that is when a performance improvement plan becomes the next step. That simple approach is what a thriving operation looks like in practice.
Your tolerance level sets the ceiling for your whole business
The core idea is blunt: whatever you allow to keep happening, you are communicating is acceptable. Lia hears the same scenario constantly, an owner who does not know what a team member does all day, does not trust the work is getting done, and hates the attitude, but keeps letting it go. That tolerance has a price tag. A team member being paid for 40 hours and working 15 to 20 is costing twice the expected hourly rate. A task list that rolls from week to week to week is money leaving the business every single time.
The real cost is not the low performer, it is the high performer who leaves
Lia is direct: the financial loss from someone working half hours is painful, but it is not the biggest cost. The biggest cost is losing your high performers. Those people look around, absorb the extra work, build resentment, and eventually walk out the door. Replacing someone who operates at a level where they care almost as much as you do about the business, and who brings real ownership to the work, is devastating. You do not lose your low performer first. You lose your best person first.
Lia makes this personal. In her corporate career she was the 10x contributor on team after team, covering for people who were not delivering while her managers avoided the hard conversation. Eventually she left, changed teams, and ultimately left the corporate world entirely. That is what happens when tolerance becomes the default.
The “are you in or are you out” conversation
The conversation itself does not have to be harsh or feel like an ultimatum. Lias framework has three steps. First, name what the expectation was and where the gap is. Second, ask directly whether the role still feels like a fit and whether they are committed to closing the gap. Third, put the decision back on them. You are not firing anyone on the spot. You are giving someone the information they need to decide whether they want to keep the role. That reframe matters because it shifts ownership to the team member.
One signal to watch: people who are genuinely bought in can hear hard feedback. They respond with “okay, let me fix this.” The people who get defensive, get angry, or rage quit were not going to move the business forward anyway. Their reaction tells you everything.
Clearing your conscience before the conversation
A lot of hesitation around hard conversations comes from a quiet sense that the feedback was never actually given clearly. Lia names this directly. If you skipped the clear expectation-setting and went straight to frustration, some part of you knows that is not entirely fair. The fix is to give the feedback now, make the expectation explicit, and then let the team member decide. Once you have done that, your conscience is clear and the outcome is on them, not on you.
How to start without going in guns blazing
Lia closes with a practical on-ramp. You do not need a dramatic reset conversation. Start with a forward-looking expectation-setting discussion tied to where the business is headed. Watch who rises to meet it and who does not. The people who do not meet it move into a feedback conversation where you name the gap. That is when you get your real answer about whether someone is bought in. At every step, the approach is empathetic, direct, and clear. The goal is that sweet spot Lia describes: the blend of compassion and candor that keeps you from being either a pushover or a harsh ultimatum-giver.
Related episodes in this cluster
- Ep 157: How to keep a promotion-hungry team member focused on the job they have right now. When a team member starts mentally checking out of their current role because they are chasing a promotion, the fix is not a performance conversation. It is a trust conversation. Lia walks through how to proactively name the tension, commit to advocating for your team member, and show them that doing today’s job well is actually the fastest path to the next level. This episode is especially useful for leaders managing early-career team members who are eager but starting to leave current responsibilities uncovered.
- Ep 120: Why your team member isn’t meeting their full potential (and what to do about it). When a team member isn’t living up to their potential, the problem is almost always a diagnosable barrier, not a lost cause. Lia walks through three questions to ask yourself before deciding someone isn’t a fit, including whether you might be the bottleneck. This episode is essential for any owner or leader who sees more in a team member than that person is currently delivering.
- Ep 113: How to course correct when a team member is not delivering results. When a team member is not delivering, the first move is not to replace them. Lia walks through a three-step framework: reset expectations, open a dialogue, and check back in before deciding next steps. This episode is especially useful for small business owners and team leads who feel stuck between loyalty to a team member and the need for real results.
- Ep 96: Is it too late to fix your team? Three strategies to get unstuck. No, it is not too late to fix your team. Lia walks through three concrete moves: resetting expectations, building real accountability mechanisms, and giving feedback that actually lands. This episode is most useful for business owners and team leaders who feel like they have tried everything and are running out of ideas.
Want to go deeper?
The Manager Essentials Program. Lia’s flagship program for new and rising managers.
Full transcript (click to expand)
Just yesterday, I was meeting with a new client, and she said something that completely blew my mind, and I had to bring it to you. So we were meeting in our two and a half hour deep dive for the ops playbook, where we cover every aspect of the business, so that I can then create the playbook customized to the business, really bringing that vision to life. And we were talking about, what is her process when she’s running into someone that’s just underperforming, and she said, Well, she has an initial conversation to give them feedback and saying, hey, you know these were the expectations and you’re not meeting it.
I want to know candidly, do you feel like this role is a fit? Is this something that you want to refine and get better at, or does it feel like you’re really not on board with that? And at that point, she will offer them a severance. If they say no, I just don’t know if it’s for me, she’ll say, Okay, let’s have a clean break. Now, if they say yes, I’m gonna fix this thing. And then they don’t, that’s when they might move into kind of that PIP performance improvement plan zone.
But she has this conversation right away, and that’s where I was like, Oh, I gotta bring this to my audience, because I know last week we talked about, what am I avoiding? What this kind of like? I shouldn’t have to thing. This client gets it, and that’s why she’s running a thriving business. She has a brick and mortar with multiple locations, and she has learned that if you do not deal with problems right away, especially employees that are doing the same thing over and over, you are going to hit the same issue again and again, and that’s we’re going to talk about today.
Welcome to leading small teams, a real talk podcast tackling the ins and outs of leading teams in the modern workplace. I’m Lia Garvin, your host, with a decade of experience driving team operations in companies like Google, Apple and Microsoft, bringing you insider strategies to make you a more confident and effective leader, from delegating to feedback to avoiding micromanaging and more. This podcast gives you the tools to empower your team, scale yourself as a leader and grow your business, whether you’re managing a team of one or 100 everyone is welcome to hang out with Real Talk leading small teams.
What I want to anchor this conversation around today is the simple truth that our business will rise to the level of whatever we’re going to tolerate, and when we when we think about we’re tolerating, this is like, what is the baseline stuff that you need to see in order to have someone be on your team? Because I have a lot of conversations day after day, week after week, where someone says, Hey, I have this team member.
I don’t know what they do all day. I don’t know if they’re finishing the work, and I don’t like the attitude, and it’s costing them so much freaking money because they have to accommodate with other people, or they have to do it themselves. And I’m thinking, why are you letting this go on and on and on. And it’s a really important question that I want all of us to ask ourselves, is, what am I willing to tolerate, and not just from like, a kind of emotional standpoint, like, how much money am I willing to lose on an underperforming employee?
Now, I’m all about giving folks chances. You know, I talk about the show. We’ve got to set expectations and give feedback. That’s step one. So I’m not saying, like, one time someone does something and it’s one strike you’re out No way, okay, because people can’t read your mind. But I’m saying, if you see the same behavior again and again and again, the question is, like, literally, what are we doing here? If you have a team member and they’re supposed to be working 20 hours a week, 40 hours a week, whatever it is, and you feel like they’re working five to 10.
You like half the amount of time they are, or someone says every week, yeah, I’ll get to that. And it never gets done. What are you willing to tolerate? Because that task list that goes from one week to the next to the next. That is money that you’re hemorrhaging. And it sure is money you’re hemorrhaging. If you have someone that you’re paying 40 hours and they’re working 15 to 20, right, you’re getting that job like, you know it’s it’s costing you twice the hourly you were expecting.
And I know it can feel small at first, like, I don’t want to deal with that. I don’t have time. But these problems compound. And I’ve talked about a lot on the show, but I really want to reiterate, not only does it compound to that money and time wasted, it affects your Higher Performers, and your Higher Performers on the team look around and say, like, this is what they’re willing to tolerate. I don’t want to be a part of that.
So first the performers, high performers, they take on the extra work, and they’re like, Okay, like, you know, hey, I can do a little extra here and there. And then they start to get disgruntled. They start to build resentment, and then they walk out the door. Now, the low performers, the one you can afford to have, walk out the door, but that high performer, that 10x er, that is going to be devastating, because to get someone to operate at that 10x that cares almost as much as you do at running your business right, that really brings that sense of ownership, losing them in spite of that low performer.
What are we doing here? And that is why I get so nervous for you, for my clients, for anybody, in any situation, leading folks when. They are losing the good person at the expense of the person who’s not pulling their weight. Now, I have a special place in my heart for this, like sarcastically, a special frustration around this, because that was my experience in the corporate world, on team after team after team, and on the in the corporate world, all sorts of stuff is tolerated that it probably shouldn’t be right because it can be difficult to manage folks out managers are trained on how to give feedback like this.
Is why a lot of the work that I do is helping folks get that training in general, so that we don’t have the situation. But I was the 10x er on team after team after team where I was making up for folks that were not delivering. I was carrying all this weight, shouldering that burden, looking at my manager like, really, this is going to be okay, because they didn’t want to have a hard conversation, and they didn’t want to give the hard feedback or give someone like the Hey, are you on board or not?
They avoided it over and over and over. And what happened to me as a 10 XR, I left. I changed teams. I went to something better where I could really contribute or was not being held back by folks that weren’t pulling their weight. Hey, I left the corporate world in general because I was so freaking sick of it. This is what happens, and it breaks my heart for business owners listening when you have invested a lot of money in a great hire, a lot of time in training them.
You have, you’re you’re seeing someone with fantastic output, and they look over at the low performer like, I just can’t be a part of this in that situation that you’re tolerating. That’s the cost, the ultimate biggest cost to you, not the person that’s, you know, working 20 hours for the price of 40, which sucks, and that’s expensive, but the real cost is losing that high performer, and you don’t want to do that, because you’re going to end up with a bunch of five out of 10, and you’re gonna have to hire a lot more of those to get that output.
Okay, now, again, this doesn’t mean we don’t give feedback, we don’t expectations, we don’t do the due diligence of being a good leader. But there is a point when we’ve got to say, Hey, what is this costing me? And when we see the same issues over and over and over, we’re actually demonstrating we’re not doing anything about it. We are demonstrating that we are willing to tolerate a really low level of performance. And I think that’s where it’s it is a moment to reflect and think about.
Is this uncomfortable conversation avoiding it worth it for all of the other impacts that I’m letting slide it’s a question is potentially having friction or losing this team member who I feel like, well, it’s better than nobody. Is that? Is that really true when you could actually free up that spot for someone that’s pulling their weight? Is it worth potentially compromising the relationship with someone that I knew personally before, and now they’re my employee, and they’re really under delivering?
I know that’s going to be an awkward conversation, and I know we may not be able to recover from that. I don’t know you. It’s up to you, right? You’re you’re running this business, you’re making that call. But these are the things that start to degrade at your ability to scale. And when I go into a business, and I look at how each of the team members are performing, and I start meeting with folks, and I identify, you know, there’s a flag here, I can tell within one or two conversations with team members where someone is bought in and where someone is not, and when I surface that usually, you know that’s the case, right?
It’s usually not a surprise to you when I’m like, I think this person’s a little bit on the outs, and you say, Yeah, I know. But like, but this that the other, that response, that’s what you’re willing to tolerate. It’s up to you, but if you want to reach you know whatever goals that you have, if you want to bring that vision to life, you’ve got to do what that new client of mine did, and have that conversation right away.
And if you don’t know what to say in that conversation, that’s where people bring me in to really work out. Okay, what do we want to say? What expectations can we set? What’s realistic here. How do we give that person support? That’s what I map out through systems. But there is a piece that you’ve got to own, which is, Hey, you’re the boss. You’ve got to communicate that. And the The truth is, we really, really honest.
The folks that are bought in, they can hear it. They actually aren’t bothered by the hard conversation. They’re like, okay, yeah, like, let me fix this. It’s the people that really aren’t going to get your business to the next level anyway. Those are the people that get mad, those are the people that get defensive. Those are the people that might rage quit. And in that sense, does it really matter? Because if you are, if you’re wrestling with well, you know, their livelihoods at stake, and this, I don’t want to this, that’s the responsibility that they need to have to taking the feedback.
You’re not firing someone on the spot. You’re giving someone feedback that something they’re not doing is not working. You’re setting expectations on, hey, this is what I expect. Feedback. Can we? Are we? Willing to meet that. That’s where they decide if they’re going to keep this livelihood or not. You see what I mean? So it’s not mean, it’s not it’s not authoritarian. It’s not like ultimatums. It’s saying, Hey, you’re here. You know, we want to have a strong team.
These are the expectations. What do you think? And if they say, No, I can’t meet that, then it’s okay to part ways. It’s okay. And I know this is scary, I know it may sound easier said than done, so again, that’s what I’m here for. Send me an email [email protected] we can plan this whole thing out for you, but you’ve got to realize that the every day you let it go by is costing you money. Every day that person’s not working a full day, they’re not getting their work done.
They’re the deliverables are moving one week to the next. Things are late. They had a weird conversation with clients. Someone complained about them. All of that is more expensive than whatever you want to invest to fixing this problem right? Because that starts to compound, and that starts to chip away at your reputation, as well as a business, and that stuff is really hard to recover. So I want to be clear, like these, it feels hard. It feels like running these are not it’s emotionally complex, but there’s actually simple fixes to it, and that’s what I can support you in.
And what we’ve talked on the show, this is going to get you a really far away there if you are comfortable having that conversation. Because if you just needed, like, Oh yeah, yeah, a wake up call. Good. Now run with it. But what I want you to think about is that client that has those conversation right away. She always has people on her team that want to be there and know what they’ve got to do to deliver wouldn’t that be a better place to be?
Yeah, right. And so how do we bring the spirit of that to whatever you are doing to the team that you have right now. This again, it’s not coming in guns blazing, All right, everybody. We’re going to fix this. No, it’s saying, hey, we want to have a high performing team. We’re in q2 we’re heading towards the next part of the year. Let’s all talk about how to be our best. That’s an expectation setting conversation. You see people meeting that they’re good to go see people not really.
It’s a feedback conversation, saying, Okay, we established the goals. Here’s some of the gaps. Let’s talk about it. Now you have that moment where you’re going to see, are they bought in or not? That’s that moment when you decide, am I going to tolerate the lack of that buy in or not? You see what I’m saying. It doesn’t it’s it can be done with so much empathy and compassion, and that is the way that we relate to people, right?
We we don’t get we don’t have, like, no boundaries. Emotionally, energetically, we’re like, someone could just dump on us, but we’re not cold and we’re not harsh, and we’re not like, you know, you’re in or out. We we can have a balance of that, and I strongly believe that. And it’s those people right. Any leader you study in history anywhere, it was finding that blend and that balance of empathy and compassion and directness and candor that is the golden sweet spot.
And that’s what we figure out for you, is, how do you find that for yourself, so that you don’t feel like, Oh, my God, I’m just railroaded by whatever you know, my team member is saying, and I I can’t really say this and that, and then I get to this point where I’m like, okay, they’re out of here, but they never heard the feedback. Because that’s where it feels unfair. I would guess that part of the reason you’re hesitating is because, you know, it’s not that fair, because you didn’t really give them the feedback.
Now what if you gave them the feedback? Now you can kind of clear your conscience of that, and the decision is on them. That’s what we want it to be, because that’s where you are, being an empathetic and a compassionate and really like highly, highly effective leader, right? When you’re saying, Hey, we’ve made all of it clear. Now you choose. I’m not deciding I don’t like this person, right? Where that feels like, well, I don’t want to be that way.
Or I just decided one day this doesn’t work for me, where you might get some wrongful termination conversation coming up, but you’re saying, This is what we’ve got to rise to. This is what I’m willing to tolerate. Up here. Are you going to meet me there? Yes, good. We’re great. If we’re not, it’s on them that reframe, I think, is going to help you feel a little more confident about going to that conversation because you didn’t just like pull the rug out.
Okay, what are you willing to tolerate? This is going to this is a question I want you to ask yourself every day, every week, at least when you start to feel frustrated, frustrated, what am I tolerating? Is this? What I decided to do last week was, like, I didn’t sign up for this. We said, like, Yeah, you did, okay. So now that you’re like, Okay, I did sign up for this, what am I willing to tolerate?
And then you have the conversation about that. And if you need support, you know where to go see you next time. Thanks for tuning in, and I hope this podcast makes leading your team feel just a little bit easier. If you liked this episode, check out my most popular tool for staying in the know of what your team is working on without having to micromanage. At Lia garvin.com/snippets, and if you’re looking for more support for yourself as a leader or for the team you’re managing, don’t hesitate to reach out at Lia Garvin, calm.
See you next time you.
Questions this episode answers
How do I know when to stop giving an underperforming employee more chances?
One mistake is not a pattern, and people cannot read your mind, so setting clear expectations and giving feedback first is always step one. But when you see the same behavior again and again, that is your signal. If a task keeps rolling from one week to the next, or someone is working half the hours you are paying for, the pattern is the problem. At that point the question is not whether to have the conversation. The question is what that repeated tolerance is costing you in money, time, and team morale.
What does tolerating a low performer actually cost my business?
The obvious cost is financial. If you are paying for 40 hours and getting 15 to 20, you are effectively paying twice the hourly rate for the same output. But the deeper cost is your high performers. They notice who is not pulling their weight, they absorb the extra work, they build resentment, and then they leave. Losing a high performer who brings real ownership and output is far more damaging than the low performer you were afraid to address in the first place. You can end up with a team of fives when you needed tens.
How do I have a hard performance conversation without feeling like I'm being harsh or unfair?
The key is to frame it as an expectations conversation, not a gotcha moment. You are not pulling the rug out. You are saying: here is what the role requires, here is where I am seeing a gap, and here is what I need to see going forward. Then you let the team member decide if they can meet that bar. When you give clear feedback and set clear expectations, the decision to stay and improve or to part ways is on them, not on you. That is what makes it fair, and it protects you legally and emotionally.
What should I do right away when I notice an employee is underperforming?
Have the conversation immediately instead of letting it compound. One effective approach is to open with the performance gap directly, ask the team member candidly whether the role feels like a fit and whether they want to work on improving, and then listen to their answer. If they say yes and then do not follow through, that is when a formal improvement plan makes sense. If they say no, a clean and respectful separation is better for both sides than weeks or months of continued underperformance. Acting fast keeps the problem small and shows your whole team you hold the bar.
What if I'm scared to give hard feedback because I don't want to lose the employee or damage the relationship?
It helps to remember that the people who are truly bought in can hear hard feedback. They respond with something like, okay, let me fix this. The ones who get defensive, get angry, or rage quit were likely not going to get your business to the next level anyway. And if you are hesitating because it feels unfair, ask yourself whether you have actually given them the feedback clearly. If you have not, do that first. Once you have made expectations clear, the choice is theirs, and you can move forward knowing you gave them a real opportunity.