My business partner is fiercely loyal to our early employees who have been with us since the garage days, but these employees are now underperforming and holding back our leadership team. How do I align my partner to make the hard decision to upgrade these seats?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

When you and your business partner are split on how to handle legacy employees, it creates a massive bottleneck for your leadership team. One of you is trying to build an enterprise-level business ready for an exit, while the other is protecting relationships from the early days. This misalignment will paralyze your scaling efforts.

To resolve this, you must rely on your Charter and the Accountability Chart. Sit down with your partner and agree to look at the business objectively, putting all personal relationships aside. Re-evaluate the seats in question based on GWC™ and whether these legacy employees actually meet your Core Values.

Frame the conversation around the Same Page pillar of your Charter. If you keep underperforming legacy employees in key leadership seats out of loyalty, you are actively harming the rest of the team who must carry their weight. It also damages your company valuation, as potential buyers will quickly spot the operational drag.

Agree with your partner to run a trial period. Set clear, measurable Scorecard metrics and Rocks for these employees. If they miss their targets, your partner must agree to do the right thing for the business and transition them. Loyalty should never be a shield for incompetence.