当好朋友成为坏员工……

商业领袖常常会写点职场感悟，例如，他们如何通过早年间在工作中犯的错误而成长。但有时，错误就是错误。

我最大的一个错误，就是让某位员工留任太长时间。事后来看，因为我不想冒犯他，或者说担心伤害他的感情，在他就职期间我放弃了一些原本应该招聘的员工。本来有一些能力很强的求职者可以被我招入麾下，然后让他们带领公司前进，但我不想让这些人向他汇报工作，要知道我曾有一个优秀的年轻员工，在向他汇报工作期间受到压制。

就个人能力而言，他非常优秀，无论是销售还是招聘的岗位都能胜任，整体来说是一个好员工。然而，他从来没有与我的公司一起成长。尽管长时间雇佣他导致了许多问题，但也产生了一个正面效果：向我的员工证明了我是一个非常忠诚的人。

这段经历迫使我建立了一个培训部，因为我真的希望这位员工留在公司。他是个好员工，只不过那个部门不适合他。所以我找个机会设立了一家分支机构，让他在那里领导一个新项目。这次努力失败了，却给我上了一课，失败没关系，我知道了在未来面对同样的问题时怎样才能做得更好。

留住员工——尤其是那些已经成为朋友的员工太长时间——对企业家来说是一个巨大的挑战，因为这不是典型的“生意”层面的问题，不会关乎销售或市场，也不会关乎到业务扩张或运营。它看起来就只是一份薪水而已。对于这种难言之痛，企业家们往往自我辩解说，只是一点儿钱的事嘛，我付得起，对公司没什么影响。但事实上，影响确实存在。

员工会看到你厚此薄彼。即便你对那个人不满，他们也会看到那个人拥有豁免权——这是不公平的。你在工作上花了无数个小时，度过了无数个不眠之夜来为他考虑，以及“你能让他做什么”。但到最后，如果你需要为了公司的利益而不得不结束这种交情，那么这段关系从一开始就不够牢固。

我没有开除这个人。他自己辞职了。他不想从反应更快、更聪明的年轻员工那里学习，尽管我恳求他这样做。他不想花更多时间来学习新技能，构建新计划，尽管我要求他这样做。我最大的错误在哪里？就是认为包括他在内的每个人都想成长，并希望局面有所改观。然而，愿望终究不是行动方案。摆脱他很困难，但这件事给我上了宝贵的一课，让我成为了一名更好的领袖，更好的管理者，以及更好的自己。（财富中文网）

本文作者Tom Gimbel是LaSalle Network首席执行官。

译者：严匡正

Business leaders will often write thought-leadership pieces about mistakes they made earlier in their careers, and usually end with a positive outcome. But sometimes mistakes are just mistakes. And one of my biggest mistakes was holding on to an employee for too long. In hindsight, I’m confident I didn’t make some hires — while this individual worked for me — I should have for the fear of offending him, or was too concerned about what he was going to think. There were really strong candidates I should have hired because they could have driven our business, but I was hesitant to have them report to him. I had a great, young staff that was temporarily stunted while reporting to him.

He was a really good individual producer. He could sell, he could recruit, and was an overall good employee. However, he never evolved with my business. Despite the negatives that came with employing him for far too long, there was one positive that came from it: It showed my staff I was extremely loyal, and that goes a long way. This experience compelled me to create a training department because I truly wanted this employee to remain at my company. He was a good worker, but just in the wrong department. So I took a chance and opened a branch office for him to lead a new project. It failed, but it taught me that failure is okay, and it showed me how to go about doing the same task differently in the future.

Holding on to employees — especially those that become friends — for too long is a huge challenge entrepreneurs face, because it’s not really a “business” issue. It isn’t about sales or marketing. It isn’t about expansion or operations. It’s about one salary. It’s about . That’s how entrepreneurs always justify holding on to a pain in the you-know-what. It’s just “x” amount of money, I can afford it and it doesn’t affect the business. But it does.

Employees see you playing favorites. Even if you complain about the person, they see that person as having immunity — and that’s not fair. You spend countless hours at work and sleepless nights thinking about this person and what you “can do with them.” At the end of the day, if a relationship is severed because you had to do what was in the best interest of the company, then the relationship wasn’t strong to begin with.

I didn’t fire this person. He fired himself. He didn’t want to learn from younger staff who were faster and smarter than he was. I begged him to. He didn’t want to put in extra time to learn new skills and create new plans. I challenged him to. My biggest mistake? Thinking that everyone wanted to grow — including him — and hoping things would change. Hope isn’t a plan. It was tough to cut him loose; however, it taught me a valuable lesson and made me a better leader, manager, and person.