The People Playbook
Hire. Ramp. Retain. Fire. The complete lifecycle of every person who works for you. This replaces having an HR person for your first 20 hires.
Everything in the Workbook
- The 5-Stage People Loop framework (Hire → Ramp → Manage → Retain → Exit)
- Hiring scorecard template (the interview method that beats gut feel)
- Job description formula (the one that filters out tire kickers)
- Reference-check script (5 questions that surface what the resume hides)
- 30/60/90 onboarding plan (fill-in template plus example)
- First-week runbook for the new hire (hour by hour, day by day)
- The 1:1 template (30 minutes, 4 questions, weekly)
- Weekly team pulse (one question that surfaces every problem early)
- Compensation design worksheet (base, variable, meaning, growth, autonomy)
- The retention audit (12 questions to run every quarter)
- Performance improvement plan (PIP) template (the one that works or lets you fire clean)
- Firing script (the 6-minute conversation, word for word)
- Exit interview template (what to actually ask, and how to use it)
- Culture doc template (your operating principles, on one page)
- Org design worksheet (who owns what, and what happens when nobody does)
The Problem
Most owners hire on gut and fire in guilt. Neither works past about three people.
You interview someone, you like them, you make them an offer. Six weeks later you already know it's wrong. But you paid the recruiter, you told the team, and firing feels harder than tolerating it. So you tolerate it. Another quarter goes by. Now they've told two other hires how things "really work here" and your culture is shaped by the person you should have fired in month two.
Or the opposite. You have a great person and you're paying them fairly. You think they're happy because they never complain. Then they hand you a resignation letter and you find out they've been interviewing for six months. The exit interview surprises you. It shouldn't have.
People problems are structure problems. If you don't have a system for hiring, ramping, managing, retaining, and exiting, you'll get whatever the market hands you. And what the market hands most small businesses is chaos.
This workbook installs the structure. Not theory. Actual templates, scripts, and cadences you can run this week. It's built for the owner who is hiring their first employee, or sitting at 3 to 10 people wondering why they're doing the work of a 25-person team.
The 5-Stage People Loop
Every person who works for you moves through the same five stages. You either run the loop, or the loop runs you.
- HIRE. Get the right person in the seat.
- RAMP. Get them productive in 90 days or less.
- MANAGE. Keep them aimed at the right work, catch problems early.
- RETAIN. Give them a reason to stay when the recruiter calls.
- EXIT. Move them out cleanly when it's time (their choice or yours).
Skip a stage and the next one gets harder. Skip two and you're just cycling people through a broken machine and blaming the people.
Stage 1Hire
The single biggest mistake owners make in hiring is treating the interview as a conversation. It's not. It's a test.
Gut interviews are the worst predictor of job performance ever measured. Not one of the worst. The worst. You're picking who you'd want at a barbecue, not who can do the job.
The Scorecard Method
Before you write the job description, you write the scorecard. The scorecard has three parts.
- Mission. One sentence: why this role exists.
- Outcomes. 3 to 5 measurable results this person must deliver in the first year. Not activities. Outcomes.
- Competencies. 5 to 8 traits or skills they need to hit the outcomes. Rank them.
Now every interview question maps to an outcome or a competency. You stop asking "tell me about yourself." You start asking "walk me through the last time you did X."
What was the situation?
What did you personally do (not the team)?
What was the result?
What would you do differently?
Source Beats Filter
If your applicant pool is bad, no interview process will save you. Great hires almost never come from a job board. They come from referrals, from people you've worked with before, from communities where good operators hang out.
Before you post a job, spend one hour making a list of 20 people you'd hire tomorrow if they were available. Text five of them. Ask who they know. That single hour will out-produce a $2,000 recruiter fee.
Red Flags Nobody Talks About
- They talk about "we" but can't tell you what they personally did. Politicians. Get specifics or move on.
- Every previous boss was a problem. One bad boss is bad luck. Three is a pattern, and the pattern is them.
- They never ask hard questions about the role. Great candidates interview you back. Order takers just want an offer.
- They negotiate the offer before they've earned it. Different from negotiating fair comp. This is entitlement showing up on day zero.
- The reference check gets vague. "They were a great person" with nothing specific means the reference is protecting them. Push harder.
(Then sit in silence. Anything below 8 is a soft no. Ask why it isn't higher.)
Stage 2Ramp
About 40% of new hires fail in the first 90 days. The number one cause isn't the hire. It's the ramp. You brought them in, handed them a laptop, and expected them to figure it out.
Nobody figures it out. They fake it, they underperform, and by month three you're both frustrated.
The 30/60/90 That Actually Works
Written on day one. Reviewed weekly. The structure is simple.
- Days 1 to 30: Learn. The goal is understanding, not output. They meet everyone, shadow every process, read every doc, and by day 30 they can explain the business back to you.
- Days 31 to 60: Contribute. They own small things end to end. Not the whole role yet. Enough to build reps.
- Days 61 to 90: Own. They are running their scorecard outcomes. You are checking in, not coaching every step.
By day 90 you should be able to answer one question honestly: would you hire this person again knowing what you know now? If the answer is no, you already know what to do.
The First-Week Mistake
Most owners spend day one on paperwork and org charts. The new hire leaves confused and slightly regretful. Instead, day one should end with them having shipped something. Anything. A customer email. A cleaned-up doc. A completed intake. First-day wins wire the brain for the next 89 days.
The single behavior that kills 40% of new hires in month one: leaving them alone. Not micromanagement. Not overload. Isolation. They don't know what's normal, so they invent it. Book yourself in their calendar for 15 minutes at the end of every day for the first two weeks. Ask two questions. What did you do today? What confused you?
Stage 3Manage
Managing people is 80% cadence and 20% content. If your cadence is wrong, no content will save you. If your cadence is right, average content works fine.
The 1:1 Template
Weekly, 30 minutes, same day and time. Their agenda, not yours. Four questions, in this order.
- What's working?
- What's not?
- What do you need from me?
- What's one thing I could do better as your manager?
Question 4 is the one everyone skips. Ask it every week. For the first month they'll say "nothing." Around week 5 they'll finally tell you something real. That's when the 1:1 starts working.
Radical Candor Without Being An Asshole
Kim Scott's framework is the cleanest way to think about feedback. Two axes: how much you care about the person, and how directly you challenge them.
- High care, high challenge: radical candor. What you want.
- High care, low challenge: ruinous empathy. You're being "nice" and they're getting fired in six months without warning.
- Low care, high challenge: obnoxious aggression. You're the boss nobody wants to work for.
- Low care, low challenge: manipulative insincerity. Passive aggression. The worst quadrant.
The most common failure mode for small business owners is ruinous empathy. You like the person, so you avoid the hard conversation. You avoid it long enough that when it finally happens, it's a firing conversation instead of a coaching one. That's on you, not them.
Behavior: "...when you interrupted the client twice..."
Impact: "...it made them stop bringing up concerns, and we ended up not learning what they actually needed."
Then stop talking. Let them respond.
The Weekly Team Pulse
One question, sent every Friday, one line reply expected. Read them all Monday morning before you do anything else.
You'll get warning signals weeks before they turn into resignations. Watch the trend line for each person. A 7 dropping to a 4 is the second-most-important number in your business, right after cash.
Stage 4Retain
Great people don't leave for money. They leave because someone else offered them meaning, growth, or autonomy, and you were only offering money.
Compensation Is Four Things, Not One
- Base pay. Fair for the market, no lower. Underpay and you're recruiting your competitors' next hire.
- Variable pay. Tied to outcomes they can control. Not company-wide profit if they can't move the profit needle.
- Meaning. They understand why the work matters. You tell them, in specifics, when their work made a difference.
- Growth. They are visibly better at their craft than they were 6 months ago. You are the reason.
- Autonomy. They own something end to end. Not "you handle this piece and I'll approve every step."
Miss any one of these and the other four have to work overtime. Miss two and they leave.
Why Great People Leave
Do a retention audit every quarter. Answer these honestly for every person on the team.
- Do they know exactly what winning looks like this quarter?
- Have they gotten meaningful feedback in the last 30 days?
- Do they have one skill they're visibly building?
- Do they own at least one thing you don't touch?
- Have they been recognized publicly for good work in the last 30 days?
- Do they have a peer they respect on the team?
- Is their comp within 10% of market?
- Have you had a real career conversation in the last 6 months?
- Do they trust that you'd have their back if something went sideways?
- Would they recommend working here to a friend?
Any "no" is a retention risk. Three "nos" and they are already interviewing, whether you know it or not.
The counterintuitive one: your best people leave when they run out of hard problems, not when they run into them. If your top performer is bored, you have about 60 days.
Stage 5Exit
Every person who works for you will eventually leave. Either they choose to, or you choose for them. The only question is whether the exit is clean.
Firing Well
You fire people for one of two reasons. They can't do the job (competence), or they won't do it right (conduct). Both are your problem to solve, and both should be preceded by one of two things: a clear PIP or a serious conduct conversation. Never a surprise.
PIPs That Actually Work
Most PIPs are legal cover for a firing you already decided on. That's not a PIP. That's paperwork. A real PIP has three things.
- Specific gaps. Named outcomes they're missing, with numbers.
- Specific expectations. What "meeting the bar" looks like, measurable.
- A specific timeline. 30, 60, or 90 days. Weekly check-ins. Written.
About half the time, a real PIP works. Because it's the first time the person has actually understood the gap. The other half of the time, it makes the firing clean because there's no ambiguity for anyone.
The Firing Conversation
Six minutes. In person or on video, never over text or email. Do it early in the day, early in the week. Not Friday afternoon.
We've talked about the gaps in [X and Y]. Those haven't closed, and I've decided to end the role.
This is not a conversation, it's a decision. I want to walk you through what happens next.
[Severance if any. Final paycheck timing. Insurance. Return of property. Reference policy.]
I know this is hard. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I do respect you, and I wish you well. Do you have questions about the logistics?"
Don't apologize. Don't explain twice. Don't renegotiate. You made the decision before the conversation started. Kindness is clarity, not comfort.
The Exit Interview That Saves Your Next Hire
Do exit interviews for people who quit, not just people you fire. And do them yourself, not through a form. Real answers only come from a real conversation.
2. What would have had to be true for you to stay?
3. What's one thing we do that you'd protect if you were me?
4. What's one thing you'd change tomorrow?
5. Who else on the team should I be worried about losing?
Question 5 is the one that saves the next hire. If two exit interviews name the same person as a flight risk, believe them.
On Culture
Your culture is not what's printed on the wall. It's not the values statement. It's not the offsite. Your culture is what you tolerate.
If you tolerate a top performer being a jerk to junior people, your culture says "results excuse behavior." Everyone on the team learns that. You don't have to say it. They watch what you do about it.
If you tolerate meetings starting 10 minutes late, your culture says "your time doesn't matter." If you tolerate half-finished work, your culture says "shipping is optional." Nobody reads the values doc. Everyone reads your behavior.
Write your culture doc in the negative first. Not "we value excellence." Say "we don't tolerate half-finished work." Not "we value respect." Say "we don't tolerate anyone being talked over in meetings." Behaviors are teachable. Values are wallpaper.
The culture doc in this workbook is one page. Five things you tolerate. Five things you don't. Reviewed every quarter. Enforced every day.
Who This Is For
You should buy this if you are:
- Hiring your first employee and you've never done it before.
- Sitting at 3 to 10 people and doing the work of a 25-person team.
- About to fire someone and dreading the conversation.
- Losing good people and don't know why.
- Making offers and getting ghosted, or hiring people who leave in month three.
- Running 1:1s that feel like a waste of time (for you and them).
You should not buy this if you have a full-time HR person or an internal recruiter. This is built to replace those roles for your first 20 hires. Once you're past that, you need the real thing.
Ready for us to install this for you?
You have the 5-Stage People Loop and every template. If you'd rather have us build the hiring scorecards, wire the onboarding into your systems, and set up the 1:1 and pulse cadence with you personally, we do that inside every build we run.
Book The Teardown →Zero pitch. You leave with a written plan whether we work together or not.
