There’s a quote I’ve heard for years:

“The fastest way to lose great people is by keeping the wrong ones.”

I don’t even know who said it first, maybe it was whispered in a leadership meeting or scribbled on a napkin somewhere, but I know this: it is 100% true.

Let me tell you a story from my own leadership journey.

Years ago, I had an employee who looked perfect on paper. Smart, competent, operationally strong. The board loved her. She and I got along well. She was respectful, almost overly respectful, toward me. And she was good… at hiding the truth.

What I didn’t see was how toxic she was to everyone else.
What I didn’t know was how many good employees were leaving because of her.
What I didn’t realize was that my company’s culture was slowly eroding from the inside.

She was controlling.
She lacked transparency.
She ruled by fear, not trust.
And underneath it all? She was deeply insecure.

It wasn’t until I implemented EOS in my own company that I finally saw it clearly:
She was the wrong person in the right seat. She could do the job, but she wasn’t a cultural match. She didn’t embody our core values. And the longer I kept her, the more damage she did.

If you're a founder or leader, hear me clearly:
You cannot build a healthy, scalable business with even one toxic person in a key seat.

The Right People, Right Seats… and how Kolbe + EOS reveal the truth

EOS gives you the structure to evaluate people objectively, not emotionally:

• Do they share your core values?
• Do they truly get the role?
• Do they want it?
• Do they have the capacity to do it?

And Kolbe adds an entirely different layer:
How do they naturally take action?
Are they wired in a way that complements the seat they’re in and the people around them?

You cannot coach someone out of a Kolbe instinct.
You cannot “train” someone to magically align with your core values.
And you cannot keep a toxic performer without sacrificing your culture.

Here’s the real challenge:

What’s the person in your organization right now that you KNOW is misaligned…but you’re avoiding dealing with?

Because until you address it, I promise you, your A-Players are already thinking about leaving. They always are.

Great people will not stay in mediocre environments.

And great companies are built by leaders who are brave enough to make the hard “people decisions”.

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