Recently I have across a number of business owners who have unfortunately had to let some of their key leadership team go. On enquiring why, it turns out it is never because they couldn’t do the job. The reason given is ”they just didn’t fit in”. How many times have you heard that?

So why do we think that is? How can we employ people that can do the job but then discover they don’t fit in? How many times do we just let that situation continue? And how much damage is done to team and company morale by letting these ’outliers’ continue to disrupt?

The answers to these questions does not reflect on us very well.

So, how do we take some of the subjectivity out of establishing whether someone will “fit in” and keep track of it and then if it doesn’t work out for any reason, be able to rationalize why it’s not working?

Much has been written about the culture of companies and how it’s key to have the right culture for companies to sustain and succeed. In 1996 Harvard Business Review published an article, Building Your Company’s Vision, by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras, that explored a number of the principles from their book Built to Last, and specifically the fact that companies who enjoy enduring success have core values, a core purpose that remain fixed, while their business strategies and practices endlessly evolve and adapt to the changing world.

This is something we spend time early on in EOS/Traction with the Leadership Team. It helps ensure all the leaders understand what they stand for together and as individuals. They then cascade this down through the company whether there are 6 people working for the company or 600. The leadership team needs to demonstrate these Core Values and walk the talk in every way during the working day. And people in the company need to understand they are being measured on their identification with these.

By examining and establishing Core Values for the organization, we should reduce the number of “non fits” by hiring to and carrying out performance reviews based on the Core Values.

Core Values attracts the right people to your organization as they become a key interviewing screen and tool. They must be realistic, lived and used.

In his book The Advantage, Patrick Lencioni says to “think of your core values as a few behavior traits that are inherent in the organization.”

So, if you hear the expression “They just don’t fit’, it’s probably because Core Values have not been identified or used.