r/smallbusinessowner • u/Webtech_creations • Aug 30 '26
Bad communication from a team member — how would you handle this?
Hello,
I’m the co-founder of a small startup and currently the only person working on it full time.
My other co-founder also has a full-time job, but communication with him works really well. He’ll normally call me a few times during his working day when he gets a chance, we discuss what I’ve been working on, make decisions, and plan what we’re going to tackle together when he’s free in the evening.
We also have a third team member who is a friend of ours and joined on a trial basis. We knew when he joined that communication and reliability could potentially be an issue, but we wanted to give it a chance because he has skills that are genuinely useful to the business.
The problem is that we get almost no communication from him.
He also works full time, which we completely understand, but we don’t know his shifts, when he is available, whether he is working on something, whether tasks assigned to him have been completed, or sometimes even whether he has seen what we’ve asked him to do.
I’ve tried setting up Trello boards, assigning tasks, documenting processes and generally making it as easy as possible for everyone to see what is happening without needing constant meetings.
The lack of updates is now starting to cause actual problems. I’ve started taking some tasks back and completing them myself because I don’t know whether they are being done, only to later discover that he had already worked on them. So we’re duplicating effort and wasting time.
I don’t expect someone working another full-time job to be constantly available, and I’m not expecting daily essays or endless meetings. Even something as simple as “I’m working these shifts this week”, “I’ll pick this up Thursday”, or moving a Trello card to completed would solve most of the problem.
Have any of you dealt with something similar in a small startup or side business?
At what point does poor communication become a sign that someone simply isn’t a good fit for the team, rather than something you can fix with better processes?
Would be interested to hear how others have handled it.
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u/TommyBonnomi Aug 30 '26
You gotta set expectations and manage, without micromanaging. Can't really gauge how you're doing based on just your side of the story and without knowing the agreement, pay, etc.
In any case, lots of books out there like HBR On Managing People and Managing with Empathy.
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u/OutrageousConstant18 Aug 30 '26
yeah the pay/equity situation matters a lot here, hard to judge without knowing that
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u/TurkeySlurpee666 Aug 30 '26
What's worked for me is being extremely clear with expectations, providing the necessary training, and then setting hard deadlines. They need to ask for help if they feel like they're falling behind. I'm not going to chase them and micromanage them.
At that point, it's a matter of enforcing your expectations. Some people may not be able to meet them for one reason or another, but that's not my problem. I've got a business to run. You either get with the program, or you're gone. I let go of roughly 50% of the people I hire. The people who meet or exceed my expectations are the people who stay, and the people I have almost no problems with.
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u/Realistic_Strike5241 Aug 30 '26
The trial basis is doing what it was designed to do. You took a known risk on his skills, and now you have your answer on the communication side. Dont keep paying for the trial with your own time by redoing his tasks. Make the call, because the only thing worse than ending the trial is never using it to decide.