Let me paint you a picture. It's Monday morning. You walk into the office — or open your laptop, because apparently "the office" is now wherever your pyjamas are — and there they are. The person who's been coasting for six months. The one who turns every deadline into a suggestion. The one whose "best work" wouldn't pass muster at a lemonade stand run by a nine-year-old. You know exactly who I'm talking about. And you've done absolutely nothing about it.
I'm Simon Haines, and I'm going to tell you something that your HR department, your executive coach, and your therapist won't: that person is robbing you blind. Not with a balaclava and a crowbar. With mediocrity. With "good enough." With the slow, quiet erosion of every standard you ever set. And every day you let it continue, you're not being compassionate — you're being complicit.
The Cost of Carrying Dead Weight
Here's what nobody tells you in those leadership seminars you paid four grand to attend: every underperformer in your business is a tax on your best people. Not a metaphorical tax. An actual, measurable, soul-destroying tax. Your A-players are watching. They see the person who rolls in late, delivers garbage, and still collects the same pay cheque. And every single day you tolerate it, a little piece of their loyalty dies.
Michael Jordan once said he'd rather play with four players who give everything than five where one gives nothing. He wasn't being dramatic. He was being mathematical. One passenger doesn't just fail to contribute — they actively subtract from everyone around them. They lower the bar. They normalise mediocrity. They turn your high-performance culture into a participation trophy ceremony.
"Every day you tolerate mediocrity, you're taxing your best people for the privilege of carrying your worst."
— Simon HainesThe Excuse Factory
I know what you're thinking. "But Simon, they've been with us for years." So has the damp in your ceiling, and you'd fix that. "They're going through a tough time." Everyone's going through a tough time. It's called being alive. "They have potential." Potential is just a polite word for "hasn't actually done anything yet."
Let me be brutally clear: I'm not talking about someone who had a bad quarter. I'm not talking about someone who's struggling with a new role and needs support. I'm talking about the person who has been consistently, demonstrably, unapologetically average — and you've let them get away with it because having a difficult conversation makes your stomach hurt.
You know what else should make your stomach hurt? Watching your best people leave because they're tired of picking up the slack. Watching your revenue flatline because your team operates at the speed of its slowest member. Watching your competitors — who did have the guts to make the hard call — eat your lunch, your dinner, and your breakfast for the next three years.
The Jordan Protocol
When Jordan played with the Bulls, he didn't just set the standard — he enforced it with the subtlety of a freight train. He'd destroy teammates in practice. Not because he was cruel. Because he understood something that most managers are too soft to accept: kindness without standards is just weakness wearing a nice shirt.
Jordan made Horace Grant cry. He called out Scottie Pippen in front of the entire team. He punched Steve Kerr in the face during practice. And those men — every single one of them — will tell you that Jordan made them better. Not comfortable. Not happy. Better. There's a difference, and if you can't see it, you shouldn't be managing people.
I'm not suggesting you assault your staff. I'm suggesting you hold them to a standard that makes them uncomfortable. Because comfort is where performance goes to die, and your job as a leader isn't to make people feel good — it's to make them be good. There's a chasm between those two things, and most managers fall into it face-first.
"Kindness without standards is just weakness wearing a nice shirt."
— Simon Haines, Founder of SeriousHow To Actually Do It
Right. Enough philosophy. Here's the Bish Bosh Boom framework for removing dead weight, because unlike every other management article you've read this year, I'm going to tell you exactly what to do.
BISH — Name The Problem Out Loud
Stop dancing around it. Stop using phrases like "room for improvement" and "development opportunity." Sit them down and say: "Your performance is not meeting the standard. Here are the specific ways. Here is the specific timeline to fix it. This is not a discussion." Clear. Direct. Documented. If your HR team faints, revive them and carry on.
BOSH — Set The Deadline. Mean It.
Give them 30 days. Not 90. Not "let's revisit next quarter." Thirty days. With weekly check-ins. With measurable targets. With consequences that are spelled out in words even a golden retriever could understand. And when I say consequences, I mean the door. Not another "coaching conversation." The actual door. The one with the exit sign above it.
BOOM — Execute Without Sentiment
If they hit the targets — brilliant. You've just turned a liability into an asset. Crack on. If they don't — and statistically, they won't, because people who've been coasting for months rarely discover a work ethic in four weeks — you let them go. Professionally. Fairly. But firmly. And then you watch what happens to the rest of your team. Watch the energy shift. Watch the standards rise. Watch the people who've been carrying the load finally exhale.
The Morning After
I've done this dozens of times across multiple businesses. And I'll tell you what happens the morning after you finally make the call you should have made six months ago: nothing bad. The building doesn't collapse. Clients don't flee. The remaining team doesn't stage a mutiny. What actually happens is this: people start performing. Because they now know — viscerally, not theoretically — that standards mean something in this organisation.
That's what Serious looks like. Not a logo on a business card. Not a mission statement on a wall. It's the willingness to make the decisions that hurt in the short term because they're right in the long term. It's choosing the health of the organisation over the comfort of one conversation. It's being the leader your team needs, not the leader your anxiety wants you to be.
The Bottom Line
You already know who needs to go. You've known for weeks. Maybe months. The only thing standing between you and a higher-performing team is a conversation you're too comfortable to have. So have it. This week. Not next month. Not "when the time is right." The time was right six months ago. You're already late.
Bish bosh boom. That's not a catchphrase. It's a management philosophy. Identify the problem. Attack it head-on. Obliterate it. Then move on to the next one. That's how Simon Haines builds businesses. That's how Serious operates. And if that makes you uncomfortable — good. Discomfort is where growth lives. Now stop reading and go make the call.
