Will Herman has today’s excellent post up titled Prune and Upgrade as You Go.  It starts out with a quote from one of the board members from one of his early companies:

“any day, any time, you can fire a canon through the company’s building and not miss the employees taken out in the blast.”

My similar quote – which I’ve used for a long time – is “you can fire 10% of your company anytime and not notice.”  The point – while harsh – is an important one.  Will covers it very eloquently (and less harshly) in his post.