Know It's Okay to Fire an Employee

Here's another Art Freedman nugget from Making Money Is Not Illegal, Immoral or Fattening:
     "Amateurs make emotional decisions. Professionals make decisions based on what's best for the business. One part of that: Suppose you're moving your store a quarter mile down the road. How many of your employees are you going to keep in your new location? If you say anything less than 100%, then I've got a follow-up question: Why do you have them on the payroll now?
"You know, it is okay to fire an employee. I love to use Sherry (not her real name) as an example. I kept Sherry for years past the date that she should have been gone. I understand the challenges here. I've gone through those challenges as well in getting employees who will do what needs to be done, but sometimes we just hold on to them too long. Sherry ran the tool department for a long time, but she was never going to advance anywhere in our business at all. I kept her and kept trying to work with her. One day Eric, my son, came to work, and he said, 'I'm going to go down there and fire Sherry today.' Hey, why didn't he do that three years earlier?
     "When Eric told me what he was doing, it took a load off my mind. I was so emotionally attached that I just couldn't come to the decision. I felt like I had so much going on in running the business that I could not come to the decision to let her go. But we must make business decisions. We must make decisions based on what benefits the business, not just what feels comfortable to do. We must be able to make tough decisions. That's another sign of being a professional."