Some Expensive On The Job Training
I came across the following business quote from Thomas Watson, the founder of IBM.
Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him.
- Thomas J. Watson/IBM founder
A similar mistake happened at a previous high tech company I was with, a series of mistakes cost the company nearly $70,000. No one was fired, no heads were rolled, but it was one of the most expensive learning experiences one can ever learn.
In some ways, I would say ‘hell ya, fire that sucker.’ But the changes of you bringing on someone new and having that new person make the mistake is probably higher than from existing team members that have learned the costly lesson.