LEARNING TO FIRE

in 1998, Tom Gimbel, THEN 26, FOUNDED Lasalle NETWORK To Help staff CHICAGO businesses. He focused on BUILDING a Company Where people WANTED To WORK—BUT also HAD To GET Comfortable WITH LETTING Them Go.

DO YOU FIRE PEOPLE WHO DON’T FIT YOUR CULTURE?

i fired one of our top salespeople last year. it had been a couple years coming. He had sold the most revenue for years, but he began to think that fun came first and other stuff second.

WHAT WAS YOUR TOUGHEST EARLY CHALLENGE?

i hired a guy 15 years my senior to head recruiting and assumed he was training people the way i wanted them trained. He was less than desirable as a manager, but i was a weak manager, too. We’d become friends; it took me eight or nine years to fire him.

WHAT MADE YOU FINALLY LET HIM GO?

i got divorced, which helped me realize that when something’s not right, you’ve got to make a decision. after i let him go, our sales skyrocketed.