Bad Hires 101: Building a PeopleOS That Fixes Underperformance

When someone isn’t delivering, founders get stuck.

Do you coach them and risk dragging it out - or do you exit them and risk getting it wrong?

This is a small, curated founder clinic to diagnose a real underperformance cases and decide what to do next.

Led by ZeShaan (ex-Onfido)

ZeShaan scaled Onfido from 50 → 300 as Director of Talent (to a $650M exit).

He’s seen every version of “this person isn’t working out” — and what actually fixes it.

He’s seen the same failure modes repeat across hiring, onboarding, and management - and the fixes are usually simpler than founders think.

Now he’s running a hands-on session designed to get you to a clear call, fast.

Is It Them? Or Is It Your Systems?

If someone on your team isn’t delivering, you’re usually stuck between two bad options:

keep hoping it improvesor fire them… then spend the next month wondering if you got it wrong

This clinic is for founders who want clarity before they make a decision they can’t undo.

Because here’s the uncomfortable truth: what looks like a “bad hire” is often bad people systems.

And if that’s the case…

you can fix it — without the disruption, cost, and morale hit of firing someoneyou can stop reacting in the moment, and start diagnosing what actually brokeyou can build a system that makes high performance inevitable — so the same issue doesn’t come back with the next hire

This isn’t about being “nice.” It’s about building for the long-term: a team that performs because the operating environment makes it easy to perform.

What you’ll leave with

By the end of the evening, you’ll know:

✅ Whether your instinct to fire is right — or premature

✅ What actually caused the underperformance (the person vs your system)

✅ Your next move: A short plan for the next 2 weeks

✅ One system change that stops the same issue repeating with the next hire

The Agenda

🔍 Workshop 1: What a PeopleOS is — and how it breaks

Underperformance usually isn’t a “bad person” problem. It’s a PeopleOS problem: the system your team runs on.

In this session, ZeShaan teaches a simple diagnostic framework — the four places a PeopleOS breaks down — so you can pinpoint the real failure instead of guessing.

Scoping — Did you hire into a defined outcome — or into a vague “we need help” bucket?Assessment — did you evaluate against the role, or mostly on vibes?Onboarding — did you set them up to win, or throw them in and hope they swim?Ongoing management — do they get regular feedback, clarity, and checkpoints?

Outcome: you’ll know exactly where to look first — and why the right fix depends on the stage that broke.

🎯 Workshop 2: Diagnose Your Situation

You’ll map your real scenario onto the framework and answer:

where did it go off track?what did you miss (or never make explicit)?what’s fixable vs terminal?

Outcome: a one-page case map + your working diagnosis.

💊 Workshop 3: Get the Fix

This is the clinic part.

We rotate through the four stages — Scoping → Assessment → Onboarding → Ongoing Management — using real cases from the room (share as much or as little as you want).

ZeShaan will guide the group through fast, structured diagnosis and turns insight into a concrete next move.

The goal isn’t to “save” everyone.

It’s to make the right call — and build a system where performance problems don’t keep reappearing.

Output of Workshop 3:

By the end of the clinic, you’ll have:

Outcome: a tight set of next steps you can execute immediately

Intimate by design - Max 10 founders.

High trust, high signal, and you’ll get real time on your case.

Bring the situation. Leave with the answer.