This page is part of The Toolbox by Danny Smith.
It’s common wisdom that people are the most important ingredient for the success of any team, but it can sometimes be hard to honestly evaluate how good your people are. The Keeper Test is a simple way to stay honest with yourself when it comes to your people.
Essentially, you regularly ask yourself this question about each person on your team:
If this person were to hand in their notice tomorrow, how would I react?
- I’d fight so hard to keep them – I’d double their salary, take a bottle of Champagne to their house and do whatever else I could to meet their needs.
- I’d definitely fight to keep them.
- Meh. I’d be inconvenienced, I guess. But good luck to them.
- I’d secretly be kinda glad.
- I’d secretly crack that bottle of Champagne myself 🍾
If your answer is (5), the responsible thing to do is probably to let them go with a decent severance package. If it’s (1) you should probably send them that bottle of Champagne. If it’s anything else you should think hard about why and how to change it.
Here’s the original quote from Netflix’s CEO Reed Hastings (from No Rules Rules)…
If a person on your team were to quit tomorrow, would you try to change their mind? Or would you accept their resignation, perhaps with a little relief? If the latter, you should give them a severance package now and look for a star, someone you would fight to keep.
Potential Pitfalls
This comes with a few warnings though…
- This is highly subjective, and is likely to favour those whose work and performance you already understand. Make sure your other performance indicators line up with your answer, and if they don’t ask yourself why.
- Because it’s so subjective, it’s likely to be heavily influenced by your personal subconscious biases.
- This kinda evaluation can easily lead to a culture of fear and hustle, where folks feel like they always need to performing at 💯. Or even worse, that they always need to keep their manager thinking that they are.
So use with caution.
