There is quite a lot of chatter on the paradox of hiring ‘A’ players in a downturn. Briefly summarized, hiring is harder today because the number of schmucks has dramatically increased while the true talent has remained constant.
While I can’t deny there is more noise I frankly think it’s the wrong conversation to have. The mantra of hiring only ‘A’ players is a fallacy that has gotten us into trouble. To lay my biases on the table early, they are:
To set the table, I think there are two viewpoints on this topic:
photo by Fred Armitage
The first advocates the traditional ‘A’ player mantra and sees a fixed world. We all have a fixed ability and what we’ve have shown in the past is all we’re capable of in the future. What you see is all you get. The onus for being engaged and kicking ass at work falls squarely and solely on the worker. They get a paycheck, it’s up to them to earn it. If they can’t, we’ll find someone who can.
The other view sees a dynamic world. Where actions do indeed have equal and, in this case, not-so-opposite reactions. While we may have ceilings on our potential, we are not limited to what we have done in the past. After a certain level of basic intelligence (a hurdle many - but certainly not all - knowledge workers will clear) we can flourish when properly utilized and engaged. Engagement and ass kicking is a two way street. The worker must bring the right abilities to the table, but those abilities won’t be fully utilized unless the worker’s needs are met.
Needless to say, I’m in the latter camp.
Now to expand upon my three and a half biases above.
First, how we currently define ‘best’ only evaluates one’s skills. It doesn’t credit people with having an appetite for learning. It doesn’t acknowledge that people can be good at something other than what they’ve already done. It accepts ‘any means necessary’ in order to accomplish a task. It rewards the hoarding of information and the loud, chest-thumping, spotlight-seeking blowhard. Skills and knowledge are only part of the equation in most corporate situations. And you can get by with them if you have a bunker to isolate these lone wolf geniuses. But if you expect them to contribute on a team you also have to add how they work with others to the evaluation.
photo by ooOJASONOoo
Dovetailing into my second bias, the attributes that make our teams successful are the antithesis of how we reward individuals. I’ve worked with several ‘A’ players who I’d politely classify as assholes. They only cared about the greater good of the team in the sense that they could take credit for something and use it to feed their egos and propel their careers. Who wants to work with that guy? Who wants to actively work against that guy? He may be good at what he does, but he brings down the effort and talent level of the people around him.
Teams are successful when information flows freely, people trust the team not to use their idea larvae against them and there is mutual respect that allows those larvae to breathe another breath and potentially bust out of the cocoon. Not exactly what jumps out at us on a resume or at the heart of the questions we ask in an interview.
photo by DavidDMuir
Finally, the idea of player development goes out the window if you’re only look for ‘A’ players. You believe rewarding these people is a matter of throwing more money or a bigger title at them. You’re rewarding the selfishness and ever-ballooning ego by throwing gas on that fire. Under our current evaluation system, you haven’t hired ‘A’ players that care about your business, you’ve hired mercenaries that care about themselves.
True ‘A’ people are motivated by more than extrinsic rewards. By not taking the time to understand that you’ve essentially cut off the long-term, sustainable avenues for true ‘A’ players to get rewarded. True ‘A’ players are the intellectually curious who want to tackle new challenges. Yet, you haven’t taken an interest in them, their career or their goals. You don’t have the inclination to help them acquire new knowledge or skills because you believe those are fixed. You haven’t set up the structure by which ‘A’ players can challenge themselves in an unfamiliar role or the support for them to succeed should they happen to accidentally get there.
This is already too long so I’ll end with this. How many championships have the Yankees been able to buy with the ‘A’ talent on the free agent market in the last decade? Their string of championships in the late 90s were the result of the players they had taken the time to coach/mentor through their minor league system. The business of hiring the best of the best doesn’t win when we incorrectly define ‘the best’ and wind up with people unwilling to do the little things that help the team, but hurt individual stats.
I’ll hedge my bets by saying that these aren’t wholly universal truths, but our current behavior is prevalent enough that I don’t feel badly making these blanket statements.
The morale of my soapbox rant is to reevaluate what it means to be great. Judge not just the on skills on brings, but how they affect those around them. And put the effort in to elevate the game of your existing team. They may not all have the motivation and intellectual horsepower to go from a B to an A player, but you can’t expect them to get there on their own. It takes two to tango. An ‘A’ leader understands that.
Feel free to set me straight.
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