Why Would You Fire the Team’s Star?

It was interesting to read today that the University of Indianapolis dismissed their leading scorer. Why you may ask would you let go your leading scorer (who for the record was on target to become the top scorer in the university’s history)?

According to the reporter’s article Coach LeAnn Freeland dismissed her leading scorer because of inappropriate on-court behavior.  Finally, an individual is held accountable for how they act. How many people do you know that are real jerks at work but they are allowed to be jerks because of their expertise or ability to “score” for the organization? 

I know watching a basketball game may not seem similar to watching the actions of people in a work place but I would disagree. Work processes are a series of “passes” leading to a “score”. Some people believe that if they are good enough, the “star” of the unit, then they can act anyway they want. If I am a production manager I can be the biggest jerk around as long as I can make the impossible happen. The more miracles I can make happen the more bad behavior is accepted. 

Why do we let this happen? For a variety of reasons but the two that I see most often are:

• “We want the “scores".
• “I don’t know how to address the behavior.” It is difficult to write expectations of behavior in a form that is easily understand.

As a business owner I understand that it can be extremely frightening to eliminate your prime revenue source, however what is the inappropriate behavior doing to your entire organization? Are you losing other key staff people on a regular basis? Is it worth keeping the “star”?

Holding individuals to behavioral standards is very difficult. It is easy to try to justify their inappropriate  behavior. “Steve only yelled because of ………..” We make these justifications for a variety of reasons; the main one that I hear is that the supervisor can understand why the behavior may have occurred. “If my mother was in the hospital I would be on edge too, so I can understand why he was upset when ………”

Until we start holding people accountable for their actions (the how we do things) and not just their accomplishment (meeting the goals of the organization) we shouldn’t expect their behavior to change. But I find it interesting how the team blossoms when the negative force is removed for the picture. It may take a little while for the organization to totally adjust but the environment of the organization will change immediately. It’s almost like weeding a garden. The flowers will take a few days to get use to the space but then they multiply and become fuller.

Tell us about the inappropriate behaviors in your organization and what is it cost of the behaviors?