Serve the Business, Not the People
Strip emotion out of hard calls by asking what you'd do if the person had no negative reaction.
- Difficulty
- Advanced
- Time to result
- ~ongoing to results
- Steps
- 3
- Confidence
- 91%
A decision principle for emotionally hard leadership calls (firing, reorgs, layering, killing projects). Because everyone benefits most if the business wins, the right decision is the one that serves the business; a specific test removes the emotional drag. Use it whenever a people-decision feels too painful to make cleanly.
Origin
Molly Graham developed this mantra across her scaling roles and paired it with a test she learned from her manager for deciding whether to fire someone or change a project.
Core principles
- 01Everyone is better off if the company is wildly successful, so serving the business serves the people
- 02Optimizing to make people feel good in the moment makes everything fall apart later
- 03Direct is kind; avoiding hard conversations is just drag (barnacles on the ship)
- 04Firing well is as important a skill as hiring well; even the best are right ~50% of the time
How to run it
- 1
Run the no-emotions test
Ask: if there were no emotions involved and this person had no negative reaction, what would I do? That answer is the right decision.
Pro tip It strips away the emotions so you see the actually-correct call.
- 2
Do the thing
Commit to the decision the test surfaced rather than choosing the easy, feel-good path.
Watch out Optimizing for short-term good feelings makes people suffer more down the road.
- 3
Communicate it in the kindest way possible
Once the decision is set, the remaining question is only how to deliver it so the person's pain is lowest.
Pro tip Direct is kind; being clear is more humane than avoiding the conversation.
In the wild
Leaders who can't fire accumulate people who aren't pushing the team forward, dragging on the company's time and energy. Molly frames firing as a skill as important as hiring, since even the best are right only about half the time.
→ Applying 'serve the business' and the no-emotions test lets leaders make cleaner, faster, ultimately kinder calls.
Common mistakes
Optimizing to make people happy
Prioritizing short-term good feelings over the business causes everything to fall apart and makes people suffer more later.
Avoiding hard conversations
Working around a bad fit instead of addressing it is just drag on the company, your time, and your energy.
Is it for you?
Best for
Leaders who like to be liked and get tangled in the human emotions of firing, layering, and reorgs
Not ideal for
Decisions where genuine care for an individual's circumstances should legitimately override pure business optimization
From the transcript
“serve the business, not the people”
“if there were no emotions involved if this person had no negative reaction to this what would I do”
“Direct is kind.”
From the episode
The high-growth handbook: Molly Graham’s frameworks for leading through chaos, change, and scale