Types of A-Players

Did you know there are four dif­fer­ent types of A‑Players? It’s an impor­tant insight to under­stand as you man­age your team.

To re-cap a pre­vi­ous blog post about the cost of not hav­ing A‑Players on your team:

• An A‑Player fits your cul­ture well and deliv­ers con­sis­tent­ly excel­lent results. In school terms, they would get a 90% or high­er grade on both. They are cre­ative and effi­cient, and you love work­ing with them.
• A B‑Player fits the cul­ture very well but doesn’t con­sis­tent­ly get an A grade on the qual­i­ty of their work or hit­ting dead­lines. They are pro­duc­tive­ly good.
• A C‑Player doesn’t achieve the expect­ed results and they don’t fit the culture.

There are 4 types of A‑Players:

1. Tox­ic A‑Player

This A‑Player gets awe­some results but doesn’t fit the cul­ture. Often referred to as a high-per­form­ing jerk, this per­son cre­ates stress or dra­ma in the orga­ni­za­tion because they oper­ate under a dif­fer­ent belief or behav­ior sys­tem. While they usu­al­ly don’t or won’t, they need to be giv­en a chance to step up and fit the cul­ture. Oth­er­wise, you need to help them to find a new home that’s a bet­ter fit.

I once worked with a woman on a sup­port team that processed orders. In the busiest month when 20% of annu­al com­pa­ny busi­ness got done, the team stayed late to catch up. This A‑Player was so good, she was done by four o’clock and went home. In a com­pa­ny with a core val­ue of team­work — where every­one chipped in to help one anoth­er — that cre­at­ed a lot of ten­sion and frus­tra­tion. Her man­ag­er talked to her, but she wouldn’t budge from her view that it wasn’t her prob­lem that every­one else was too slow. After she flat­ly refused to sup­port her team — to live the core val­ues — she had to go.

One client had an employ­ee who was the best truck dri­ver in his fleet. This guy could deliv­er stuff across Cana­da, in all kinds of tough con­di­tions, and main­tained his vehi­cle well. He was tox­ic because his aggres­sive dri­ving brought two or three com­plaint calls a month, incon­sis­tent with the com­pa­ny brand. He had to go.

2. A1 A‑Player

An out­stand­ing, sol­id, reli­able fit. They are hap­py and mas­ter­ful in their role and may con­tin­ue to be for the next 20 years. You want a lot of these peo­ple in your business.

They are not nec­es­sar­i­ly pro­motable, and they may not want to rise to the next lev­el. Because of that, some may think they are not A‑Players but that’s not true.

My father was an A‑Player mechan­ic. He did high qual­i­ty work, had integri­ty, got the job done, and took good care of the cus­tomers. But he had zero inter­est in mov­ing up into man­age­ment and was hap­py stay­ing in his role.

What to watch for: Make sure their skills stay rel­e­vant, for the role, to con­tin­ue to stay an A‑Player, over time.

3. A2 — pro­motable one level.

This is some­one who can move up one or two lev­els or increase their breadth.

Like a sales­per­son who has poten­tial to be a man­ag­er, or some­one who runs one team or loca­tion who could lead anoth­er, or a direc­tor of finance who could be a CFO.

Not nec­es­sar­i­ly today, or even next year, but you can see anoth­er step for them that’s wor­thy of investment.

4. A3 — pro­motable two+ levels

These are your future senior lead­ers. Super-moti­vat­ed, dri­ven and will­ing to push ahead two or more lev­els, you can spot these high-poten­tial peo­ple ris­ing up through organizations.

You want to invest in them and help them to grow.

What to watch for: We can some­times be too enam­oured and over-pro­mote these keen peo­ple too soon, caus­ing them to fail because they weren’t ready.

Assess for Success

When you think about tak­ing some­one to the next lev­el, be sure they are ready.

• Eval­u­ate where they stand in their cur­rent role.
• Test and try before you buy.

Give peo­ple projects that are con­sis­tent with the next role to see how they do.

At every quar­ter­ly and annu­al plan­ning ses­sion, when you set everyone’s top three-to-five pri­or­i­ties for the next 90 days, help peo­ple to take on projects that are going to chal­lenge them, or give them a taste of the next lev­el, to see how they perform.

We worked with a com­pa­ny, on the oth­er side of the world, on suc­ces­sion for a CEO, with two poten­tial can­di­dates. Although five or ten years out, we want­ed to lay the ground­work and give them oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow. We assigned them addi­tion­al projects and gave them coach­ing. After a cou­ple of quar­ters, it was clear there was only one con­tender who moved up sev­er­al notch­es in their role in nine months. The oth­er one didn’t, which is okay, because he was thriv­ing in his cur­rent role.

• Use a Top­grad­ing™ score­card for the new role and eval­u­ate the can­di­dates against it and where they stand on the 50 dif­fer­ent competencies.

Don’t for­get, this is also a test dri­ve for the per­son to try and see how they like it. Although many peo­ple are moti­vat­ed, they may find they are not suit­ed for the next big job.

This is a chance for both of you to find out with­out mak­ing a big­ger commitment.

The Chal­lenge

• How can you iden­ti­fy the types of A‑Players in your orga­ni­za­tion — whether they want to stay, or to grow and to move up?
• How can you help those who are pro­motable get to the next level?
• How can you sup­port those who are hap­py where they are?

And what is the plan to help them either be the best they can be in their cur­rent role, or to get ready to move up?

For more about the types of A‑Players, lis­ten to Episode 89 of The Growth Whisperers.

Lawrence & Co’s work focus­es on sus­tain­able and enhanced growth for you and your busi­ness. Our diverse and expe­ri­enced group of advi­sors can help your lead­ers and exec­u­tive teams stay com­pet­i­tive through the use of var­i­ous learn­ing tools includ­ing work­shops, webi­na­rs, exec­u­tive retreats, or one-to-one coaching.

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