Hi everyone, I'm Susie Weiss, and I've noticed there's just simply not enough podcasts in the world. So I'm launching my own. Let's go. Let's go, baby. Second Thought is a weekly show about pop culture. The stuff everyone's been binging, arguing about, obsessing over. Here's the thing about heated rivalry. I mean, even the most devoted swifties, I think we can agree, not our best work. We'll be hosting thoughtful conversations with culture's most important figures. Talk about genius.

Talk about generational talent.

Coming to headphones near you on April 17th with a first guest you won't want to miss. Available wherever you get your podcasts. You've decided you want to fire Jim. You need to fire Jim. Do you have a plan about how you're going to do it? My plan is to talk to you and have you tell me how I'm

going to do it. I got, um, that's kind of a Hail Mary play you're making there, Gabriel.

Welcome to how to. I'm Charles Duhigg. Each week, we talk to listeners who are trying to figure out how to solve one of life's big problems, like how to withstand pain or how to find your soulmate. Then we do some research and we track down an expert and get their advice to see if it helps.

This week, we're talking with the owner of a small business who's having a hard time

with one of his employees. My name is Gabriel Silverman. I live in Missoula, Montana. I started a

company called Gecko Designs at a young age when I was in high school. You've been basically doing this your entire life.

And how many employees do you have?

So my wife and I are both technically employees, and in addition to the two of us, we have seven full-time employees.

To understand why Gabe reached out to us, you first have to know that even though he's the boss, he doesn't really think of himself that way.

No, I don't like being the boss. And managing employees is not something that I like and it's not something that I'm good at.

When we bought our building and remodeled it, we made a private office. And I thought, well, I'll be, I'm the boss. I'll be in the

private office. And so initially, that's where I was. And I hated it. Our staff was out together

doing their work, talking, laughing at YouTube videos, doing the things that we'd always done.

And I was isolated there in the important owner's office. And pretty quickly, I dragged my desk out of there

and set up with the team because that's where I want to be. So tell me what's going on that you're

struggling with. The problem that we're having now is we have an employee and we can call him Jim.

And he's a really nice guy and works really hard. I don't have any

issues with him other than just the quality of work. So we're, you know, we do a lot of technical

work programming. And it's just not up to the level that we need it to be. So what we've started

to do is avoid giving him projects or at least projects that are important.

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