October 3, 2024

Train people well enough so they can leave

Richard_Branson_Addresses_the_Our_Ocean_Conference_2015_in_Valparaíso_(21783214958)_(cropped)
Reading Time: < 1 minute

There’s a maxim I’ve heard a few times over the years that goes something like: “You should invest in your team to make them the best that they can be. This may mean that some leave for better opportunities, but that beats the opposite of just not investing in them at all.“

This came to mind while recently listening to Richard Branson on Adam Grant’s ReThinking podcast where Branson said:

“Train people well enough so they can leave. Treat them well enough so they don’t want to.”

It’s vitally important to do both.

  • If you fail to train people “well enough so they can leave”, you’re stuck with a bunch of employees that aren’t very valuable.
  • Of course, if you train them super well but treat them poorly, then you’re going to have never-ending churn.

The challenge is that it takes time, effort and resources for both sides of that. You’ve gotta commit to continue to train and treat them well perpetually, but if you can do it the payoff will be amazing.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related Posts

The eclipse is impressive. The explanation is more useful.

Reading Time: < 1 minuteI recently finished reading “A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur’s Court“, a classic book from Mark Twain. In the book, Hank mysteriously time travels from…

Read More

Our hotel has color TV

Reading Time: < 1 minuteStarting around 1950, hotels had a series of promotions on the great new technology they had in their rooms. The first was air conditioning. Then…

Read More

A five-year plan?

Reading Time: < 1 minuteWhile I’ve loved using EOS and the related Traction tools over the years, the idea of a long-term plan has always been problematic to me….

Read More