The 4-Circle Performance Test That Changed How I Asses My Team

Welcome to Peaceful Growth, where you will find actionable tips to grow your agency to $10M (without working overtime).

The Hardest Part of Being a Founder? Letting Someone Go.

I’ve been running my agency for 16 years now.

You know what’s still the hardest part of my job?

Not finding clients. Not hiring. Not even dealing with tough projects.

It’s letting someone go.

And I’m not talking about the obvious ones — the toxic ones or the ones who completely checked out. Those are easy calls.

I’m talking about the good humans.

The ones who are kind. Loyal. Always show up.
They’re just… not delivering what the business needs.

That stuff wrecks me.

Because I care.
Because I’ve built real relationships with my team.
Because I want to believe that with enough support, everyone can grow into the role.

But sometimes, that hope turns into a blind spot.

I’ve tried all the classic performance management stuff:

KPIs. OKRs. 360 reviews.
Color-coded spreadsheets that look great on slide decks.

But honestly?

They felt like homework.
Too much effort. Too little clarity.
They didn’t help me see what I actually needed to see.

So I did what most founders do...

I avoided the problem.

I kept people around longer than I should have.
Told myself stories about loyalty and potential.
Got distracted with new goals or shiny tools.

But the truth sat quietly in the background:

“This person is not helping the business move forward.”

A few years ago, I was talking to my coach about this exact struggle.

I told him, “I don’t think these people are A-players… but I like them… and they get some stuff done. I’m stuck.”

He asked me a few simple questions:

“Who are your A-players?”
“Tell me what makes them great?”

That part was easy. I said:

• I trust them completely
• They’re always learning
• They’re skilled at what they do
• They get things done fast and well

Then he asked:

“When do you know someone’s not a fit?”

Again, the answer came fast:

• I can’t trust them
• They don’t grow
• They’re not skilled or they waste time

That conversation changed everything.

It helped me stop overcomplicating things.

I didn’t need 20-question scorecards.

I needed a simple gut-check system to evaluate people.

That’s when I came up with the idea of 4 Circles.

4-Cricles Of Performance Assesment

1. Trustworthy
Can I trust them with passwords to the most sensitive information?
Call them in a crisis? On the weekend? In the middle of the night?
Will they own the outcome without me checking in?
Are they good human beings, happy and helpful?

2. Learner
Are they getting 1% better every day?
Do they chase growth?
Are they curious, or stuck in “this is how I’ve always done it”?

3. Skillful
Can they do the job?
Are they someone I’d go to for advice on their craft?
Or am I constantly stepping in to fix stuff?

4. Productive
Do they get things done — fast and well?
Or do they overthink, stall, or drag others down with them?

That’s it.

Every person on my team gets scored out of 10 in each circle.

If someone scores 9+ in all four, they’re an A-player.
If they’re strong in three but missing on one (skills or productivity), they’re a B-player (coachable).
If they lack trust or a growth mindset? Game over.

It’s raw. But it’s clear.

So… why do I like this method?

Because it’s not just built on logic.
It’s built on instinct.

It honors your gut.
The founder’s radar that gets sharper every time you hire, coach, and fire.

Most systems try to make people decisions “data-driven.”
That’s fine, until you realize a spreadsheet can’t feel what you feel.

The 4 Circles method blends both:
Clarity of structure + wisdom of your instinct.

It helps you make tough calls with confidence — not just calculation.

When I started using this system, a few things happened:

1. I got real with myself.
   No more hiding behind "potential."
2. I spotted patterns in my hiring.
   I was favoring loyalty over skill. That wasn’t working.
3. I had better conversations.
   Instead of vague feedback, I could say, “Here’s where you’re strong, here’s where you’re falling short.”

If you’re a founder struggling with this stuff, I get it.

You don’t want to be the bad guy.
You want to believe in your people.
You’d rather avoid conflict and focus on growth.

But here’s the deal:

Keeping the wrong people slows everything down.

Your good team members feel it.
You feel it.
The business suffers — silently at first, then loudly.

You don’t need a cold heart to make better people decisions.

You need clarity.

And a simple system to see the truth.

That’s what the 4 Circles gave me.

Try it

Make a list of your team.

Score each person from 1 to 10 in:

• Trust
• Learning
• Skill
• Productivity

Don’t overthink. Go with your gut.

Then sit with what you see.

You might be one hard conversation away from unlocking a whole new level of growth.

Let me know what you find.

You’re not alone in this.

And you’ve got this.

Letting Go Still Hurts—Here’s What Helped Me

The 4-Circle method helps with clarity.

But what about the emotional part of letting someone go?

Here’s something I wrote that might help with that:

3 Tips for Founders to Handle the Stress and Guilt of Letting Someone Go

Did you enjoy this newsletter? Check out my other stuffs too:

• Subscribe to Learn + Grow for tips on leadership, health, and productivity to keep you at your best
• Subscribe to WP for Enterprises to learn how billion-dollar brands use WordPress
• Listen to Peaceful Growth Podcast for insights on how to grow your agency
• Hire Multidots to build or migrate your website in WordPress
• Try Google Docs style collaboration in WordPress with Multicollab
• Checkout collection of premium WooCommerce Plugins
• Feel stuck? Try 1:1 founder-to-founder mentoring. Ask anything: sales, marketing, people, growth. Pay only if I help. Schedule a free 15-min intro.

Follow me on Twitter/X: @guptaanilg
​Connect with me on LinkedIn: @guptaanilg

Someone forwarded this message? Subscribe here.

One More Thing...

A lot of you have asked about the tools I use to stay productive and grow my agency.

So, I put them all in one place—organized by category:

• Writing Tools ✍️
• Productivity Apps ⏳
• Skills and Courses for Founders 🎓

And more.

You can check them out here.

Hope it helps! 🚀