Are you hiring or firing?

Hire or Fire. Adding or Deleting. A fairly good indicator of what is happening in general within your organization. We ask this to each other all the time. Sometimes it's direct and specific, and sometimes it's more generic in nature.

"How's business?" "You all adding anyone to the team?" "You got any openings?" "Wow, I can't believe you had to let so and so go." "You guys are really expanding." "Times must be tough since ....."

These are actually not just specific questions for leaders, but more of a mindset.

An outlook. A point of view. A way in which we approach the year. A philosophy or principle of management and leadership that permeates throughout your team and your organization.

Are you growing and multiplying, or are you reeling and cutting and removing folks from the organization? Are you risking and pushing for more opportunities, or are you focused solely on cutting costs and scaling back? Do you see this year as a chance to expand, or as a chance to minimize?

Most of the time, if you are hiring, that means you are growing, which in turn means you are doing well and need more folks on the team to accomplish the mission. Right?

And if you are firing, that means you are cutting, which in turn means you are not doing well and need less team members because you are not hitting your numbers and need to slash costs in order to hit the budget. Right?

It's not that simple. But still a really good indicator.

Now, in regards to team members, think of your team right now in terms of three types of team members- those that are irreplaceable, those that are integral, and those that are expendable. Get rid of the expendable ones, absolutely value and honor the irreplaceable ones, and equip and grow those that are integral.