Why A players are no longer enough
Markets today demand more value from employers and employees than ever before. The best companies prefer to have fewer, better-paid, smarter people than larger teams of lower-paid, less valuable employees, especially in an AI-driven environment where good enough is no longer enough.
To create more of what your organization truly values, you need to hire ‘Super Players’, as I describe in my new book of the same name with Kevin Daum.
These are the people who make us say, "Wow, that’s better than I could have done," or "Wow, I’m impressed they took the initiative to figure that out!"
What they embody is intelligence in action. They can sense patterns, create coherence and guide systems forward.
You may be hearing a lot about AI these days – tools, prompts, automations and more. But real Super Players don’t just use intelligence. They lead it – in themselves, in their teams and in the systems they shape.
So how do you find the Super Players you need to stay ahead of the competition and navigate uncertainty?
It starts with how you hire. There are four criteria for hiring top talent in the Scaling Up framework – will, values, results and skills, listed in order of importance – that allow organizations to identify and test for Super Players who can help them scale.
These qualities are consistent with the philosophies of Jim Collins, Patrick Lencioni, Brad Smart and other experts in company and team performance.
Will: Winners, not whiners
The Super Players most desirable to the best companies have the will to update their skills and stay current – something professional athletes demonstrate constantly. This not only allows them to survive and thrive in a fast-changing workplace, but also gives their companies an edge.
Will is often defined as the desire to excel, act with courage, persevere, learn and innovate. Without strong will, nothing else will happen and nothing else will matter.
The beginning of the employer–employee relationship almost always feels perfect. About 90–120 days later, however, reality sets in.
What seemed perfect to the employer starts to shift as the reality of flaws in the new employee begin to emerge. For the employee, what initially felt exciting and new can start to feel cumbersome and much harder than expected.
The beginning of the employer–employee relationship almost always feels perfect. About 90–120 days later, however, reality sets in.
It’s easy to blame this shift on the employer, the company culture or inadequate leadership. While companies are certainly imperfect, the ultimate power often belongs to the employee.
Leaders may misplace their efforts, but employees can disengage or even leave when they want. Employees are responsible for their own experience and for harnessing their curiosity to find ways to bring value and create positive change within the organization.
But let’s face it: if they don’t care – if they don’t want success badly enough – they will never make the effort to take themselves and those around them from good to great.
Will is what allows Super Players to lead, whether it’s a team, a project or even an AI system trained to follow human cues.
The bottom line is that you need to shape your recruitment and hiring processes to attract employees who demonstrate will. You need core-values-driven and core-purpose-based job descriptions and performance reviews, as well as a steady recruiting program.
Companies that don’t have a waiting list of ready-to-go, values-compliant recruits risk being held hostage by poor performers.
Values: Knowing when to follow, bend and promote
Values represent the cultural rules by which people act and make decisions within an organization. A Super Player must be willing and comfortable playing by those rules.
Every company develops these cultural rules over time and makes them known either by design or by default. Team members may unintentionally influence the culture positively or negatively, so it is better to ensure there is intention behind decisions and that they align with the company’s values.
You will only attract and retain Super Players who believe in your company’s core values and purpose if you put them into action.
You will only attract and retain Super Players who believe in your company’s core values and purpose if you put them into action. They must be pervasive and intentionally integrated into company processes and procedures, from orientation through advancement.
At that point, only employees can know whether a company genuinely aligns with their own values – whether they have the freedom to be creative and whether they can have a positive impact on others in the workplace.
If you have designed core-values-based performance reviews, you will also have the opportunity to determine whether that fit is there.
Results: Failure is not a long-term option
Even motivated people with shared values are ultimately ineffective if they can’t deliver against desired performance metrics.
There are many well-intentioned people who somehow never seem to achieve the expected results. Lack of performance is so prevalent that many employers will, often wrongly, tolerate significant negatives from employees who consistently get things done.
We have seen companies willingly accept tardiness, disloyalty and personality issues from someone who performs, regardless of the cultural damage that person may cause.
Everyone has unproductive moments, but employers are ultimately looking for measurable consistency and self-improvement. Companies value employees who can distinguish between working hard and working smart so they consistently achieve the objectives that matter most.
Skills: Doing what needs to be done
Aside from interpersonal skills, this capacity is the lowest priority for assessment because most technical and functional skill sets need updating every three-to-five years. It is difficult and costly for any corporate training department to keep pace with technological and organizational change.
Companies today need employees who can develop and advance their own technical and soft skills while adapting quickly to a changing environment. They must be self-driven and have the will to become masters of their domains.
Those who wait to be taught place a burden on the system and slow company growth.
The 21st century skills that matter most, regardless of industry or geography, are:
● Observation: Seeing what’s happening around you so you can perceive and interpret patterns and anomalies, as well as having the willingness and ability to research what you need to learn.
● Communication: Connecting effectively with those above, below and beside you, while relaying the information and emotion required to move the team toward a common goal.
● Adaptation: Reflecting so you can remove yourself as an obstacle, efficiently executing necessary tasks and leading others so the team can accomplish more than any individual could alone.
Properly developed, these skills will not only survive external and internal disruption, but also place a team member at the top of the value chain in almost any working environment.
Ultimately, a culture that prioritizes hiring Super Players will see growth driven not just by its leaders, but by its employees. Employment is a pact that, in successful scale-ups, goes beyond deliverables and compensation.
Both employers and employees would like to think of employment as something more. Employers can’t control employees’ innate personalities and behavior, but they can create an environment where Super Players want to stay.
That, in turn, can deliver the speed, agility, innovation and growth that allow an organization to stand out, no matter how the economy transforms in the years ahead.