Permission to Screw Up

"Having a young leader like Kristen Hadeed in the world gives me hope for the future. In a world in which numbers often seem more important than people, Kristen remains steadfast in her belief that her people are always her priority."
—Simon Sinek, author of Start With Why and Leaders Eat Last
Kristen Hadeed unintentionally launched Student Maid, a cleaning company that hires students, while attending the University of Florida in 2007. Since then, Student Maid has employed hundreds of people and is widely recognized for its industry-leading retention rate and its culture of trust, accountability, and compassion. But Kristen and her company were no overnight sensa­tion. In fact, they were almost nothing at all.
A few months into her new venture, disaster struck when 75 percent of her cleaning team quit on the same day. Reclining in a comfy armchair, Caesar salad in hand, Kristen watched in shock as forty-five grimy, sweaty peo­ple...