We've discussed the difficulty of firing bad performers in the past — in the last episode on the Manager Ugh Field, for instance, I illustrated the ugh field with a personal story on the difficulty of firing an underperforming subordinate. 

I had to steel myself to fire him, and I mentioned all sorts of negative effects that would happen had I allowed him to stay. 

In this episode, we will focus directly on this question: what happens when you allow an underperforming subordinate stay on in your company? Why is this a bad idea?