Hire slowly? Fire quickly? Rely on processes and less on people.  Hire unicorns (superstar employees) but build means so you can replace them with 2-3 other employees when they leave. Or Automate? I came to these conclusions by leading several marketing teams in Europe/US. I have worked with many people throughout my career, especially sales and product people and marketing.  Many of them were ambitious, but some weren't. When I hired ambitious and talented people, I was usually happy with them, probably because I am ambitious. People who are not ambitious or talented, I find it harder to work with them. I need to put an extra step to get them working, motivate them, challenge them. But lately, I get a lot less ambitious people to work with, at least here in Central Europe.  And this is just not me. A friend of mine opened a factory somewhere in the countryside last year, and they invested good money. He tried to bring the best of the best to work for him, but all of them but 1 left, it's countryside. Very far from any major city. He ran out of *ambitious unicorns (good employees), so he had to hire regular employees (some with alcohol problems or just unreliable). He spent a bunch of time teaching the processes and rewarding them for good performance. All was going ok. Once in a while, my friend comes to Budapest so we can hang out. This time he could not. Guess why? Somewhere around midnight, one of his employees decided to wash the electrical enclosure (cabinet). Thank god the guy is safe, but not the equipment. Some of the equipment got to the state beyond repair, and the fire burnt all the cables. The factory stood still for two days. And what now? All he can do is fire the employee and invest in automation to get rid of people. Now, only the very best will be operating the machines, but there will be just a few of them. Going back to my work, I experience similar issues but less dramatic endings. No matter the process, the people, or the job, there are three primary options for me. Question for SMBs and solo entrepreneurs, in your work, do you? Hire unicorns  Regular FTE and processes  Automate  What is your approach?