It only takes one turd in the swimming pool

I started my own ad agency in 1989 when I was still in my twenties and I soon learned the most difficult thing about running an ad agency is managing people. I'm sure it is in most businesses but it's magnified in an agency because all you have to sell is people and their ideas.

Another lesson I quickly discovered is that getting good professional advice is almost as difficult, whether it be accountants, lawyers, financial advisers, bankers or property consultants. Bad ones will cost you a lot of money! And to be frank I've met more bad ones than I ever met good ones.

So it was a lucky evening, not many years after we started the business, that my business partner and I John Wood decided to go along to a presentation by a law firm called Lewis Silkin. Amongst the presenters was a young associate in the firm called Jo Evans; there was something about her we liked – she was plain talking and we actually understood what she was on about, she was down to earth and without a trace of pomposity.

She became our lawyer and went on to deal with all matters corporate (she is now a senior partner and head of corporate at Lewis Silkin), including the sale of our company. She gave us outstanding advice and I'm sure saved us from making a lot of costly mistakes.

I mention her because she introduced me to the saying, "It only takes one turd in the swimming pool" i.e. it doesn't matter if you have an Olympic size pool, if there is one small turd floating in it, no one fancies a dip!  We were specifically talking about someone within the agency when she used the phrase and she was encouraging me to 'let that person go'.

She was right. One disruptive, negative member of staff can be like that turd in the swimming in the pool and have a disproportionate affect on the rest of the agency. She was encouraging me to take decisive steps (and I'm going to stretch this analogy a bit further), rather than simply float that turd down to one end of the pool.

So over more than twenty years of running the agency, I came across a few turds, some larger than others, but thanks to Jo's saying, I soon recognised that despite all the hurdles and challenges of employment law, it's always best to take decisive action and get that turd right out of the pool!