REAL WORLD FOUNDER LESSONS #3

If you tolerate something often enough, it stops being an exception and starts becoming your culture.

Nobody really prepares a founder for the moment when a respected colleague — sometimes an early or key member of the team — starts taking advantage of their status.

It may begin with small things:

• Arriving at 09h00 — or later — when the agreed start time is 08h30.

• Leaving early without checking with their manager or team.

• Deciding at short notice that today will be a “work from home day” without letting anyone know beforehand.

• Missing deadlines.

• Ignoring agreed processes.

  
  

It then escalates, becoming confrontational or disrespectful when challenged. None of these things may seem catastrophic on their own.

But the problem is when this behaviour is tolerated because the person is valued, experienced, difficult to replace, popular with the team or you have a long history.

That is where the trouble starts.

Because once one person appears exempt from the rules, consistency disappears.

And without consistency, discipline becomes much harder.

Your team is also watching. They watch everything. "Is this favouritism", "How come they come and go as they please"

If somebody is repeatedly late, or misses deadline commitments and nothing seems to be done about it, what happens when you eventually have to warn someone else for the same thing?

You get resentment : Why me? Everyone does it.”

If it escalates further to dismissal, you have CCMA to contend with and consistency is a big deal for them.

We had employment contracts that specifically required employees to comply with company policies.

We developed policies covering workplace conduct, leave, working arrangements and disciplinary processes, and employees had to sign-off that they had read and understood them.

But policies only mean something if they are applied. Consistently.

Eventually, we brought in LabourNet to train everybody on disciplinary procedures — warnings, misconduct, grievances, disciplinary hearings, dismissals and the respective responsibilities of employer and employee.

The hardest situations were often with people who were important to the company began behaving as though that importance made the rules negotiable.

It doesn't.

This is where being a founder / CEO gets uncomfortable.

You may like the person.

A warning creates tension.

Other team members may take sides.

A second warning may place a key employee's future at risk. Disconnect deepens within your team.

But avoiding the issue is worse and you risk landing up with the tail wagging the dog — where team leads or management becomes reluctant to engage because the employee believes they are too important to challenge.

Your company and team culture is too important not to.

My lesson?

Set the employment culture early.

Be clear about expectations.

Apply the rules consistently across the board - no exceptions.

In fact, impress this discipline on your strongest and most senior people.

Consistency sends a clear message. On this, you run a tight ship.

Deal with problems while they are still small - and quickly.

Document what happens.

And get professional HR and labour advice before the problem becomes serious.

A startup can be and should be warm, flexible and supportive.

Accountability and respect have to work both ways.

And if I were starting again, I would do one thing much earlier:

Don't wait until you have a disciplinary problem to learn labour law.

Have an awesome day now!