The CEO’s guide to building a team of A players

In working with growth companies globally for decades, one pattern has remained remarkably consistent: people are the number one issue. It does not matter the industry, the strategy, or the size of the company. When performance stalls, execution slows, or growth becomes harder than it should be, the root cause almost always traces back to the team.

Within the Scaling Up Performance Platform, developed by Verne Harnish, there are four critical decisions every business must get right: people, strategy, execution and cash. Of these, strategy is often considered the most important decision. At its core, strategy answers three fundamental questions: Who is our customer, and how do we uniquely serve them? And how do we decisively win?

The responsibility for strategy ultimately sits with the CEO, and one of the CEO’s most important roles is to lead the development of a clear and differentiated strategy – surrounded by a team capable of contributing at a high level.

Intellectually, this makes strategy the starting point. In practice, however, people are the constraint that determines whether that strategy ever turns into results.

Putting the right people in place

You can have a clear plan, a strong market, and the right opportunities, but without the right people in the right seats, execution breaks down. Therefore, people also need to be a fundamental focus for the CEO. Unfortunately, too often it is abdicated to HR.

That is why the most effective CEOs I work with tend to converge on the same realization. They gravitate toward A Players. Not because it is a popular concept, but because they see the impact. When the percentage of A Players on a team increases, everything else in the business becomes easier. Decisions improve. Accountability strengthens. Execution accelerates. The business simply runs better.

An A Player is not a subjective label. It is a clear and recognizable standard, originally operationalized by well-known leaders General Electric CEO Jack Welch and Apple Founder Steve Jobs. An A Player is someone in the top 10 percent of their profession for the compensation you offer; someone you would enthusiastically rehire; someone who consistently delivers results and models your core values.

These individuals make an immediate impact and, in many cases, are three-to-five times more productive than others in similar roles. In short, an A Player is someone whose performance you are thrilled with.

What becomes powerful for CEOs is not just understanding this definition, but applying it consistently across the organization. The breakthrough comes when talent is treated with the same level of rigor as financial performance. Most companies measure revenue, profit and cash with precision, yet rely on instinct when it comes to evaluating their people. That gap limits growth.

Scaling Up is the only performance platform that delivers a fully integrated system to strengthen the people decision – focused on building teams where A Players are the clear majority. While the idea of a 100 percent A Player team may seem implausible outside the Scaling Up community, we have seen time and again that it is entirely achievable with the right systems, discipline and leadership.

As teams move beyond 50 percent A Players, business performance improves noticeably; as they push past 80 percent, results begin to accelerate at an exponential level.

Building up the percentage of A Players

With the launch of the Scaling Up A Players program, scaleups now have an expanded set of tools to recruit, assess, and develop 100 percent A Player teams, making it easier than ever to build a high-performance organization by design.

One of the most important ideas within Scaling Up A Players is that the percentage of A Players on your team is the ultimate lead measure of performance. As that percentage rises, execution becomes more consistent, customer outcomes improve, and financial results follow. It provides a tangible way to connect talent decisions directly to business outcomes.

To make this practical, we introduced the A Player Talent Assessment. This tool gives leadership teams a clear, consistent way to evaluate talent, align on standards, and most importantly, build development plans. It removes ambiguity in assessing talent.

Instead of relying on opinions, teams can see where they truly stand, identify A Players and A Potentials and take focused action to improve. Again, the goal is a team of 100 percent A Players.

That clarity changes the dynamic – aligning leadership teams and giving CEOs something they have often lacked: a simple, visible way to measure and improve team strength, grounded in precise metrics like ‘84 percent A Players’, not vague estimates that tend to be overstated.

Building a team of 100 percent A Players does not happen by accident. As Suzanne Meyer, CEO of Vein360, a Cincinnati-based medical device reprocessing company, explains:

"We shifted from filling roles to intentionally building a team of A Players. That changed the entire organization and allowed us to grow at better than a 50 percent annual growth rate. I can’t say enough good things about the Scaling Up A Players program.

"Their recommendation to separate the tactical administrative duties of traditional HR and the strategic talent identification and development to a Talent Coach was brilliant, as it brings a disciplined and repeatable approach to recruiting and developing A Players.

"The Talent Coach becomes a huge aide to the CEO in upgrading the talent of her team. As we moved past 80 percent A Players, our revenue acceleration went off the charts."

Positive culture shifts in the workplace

As this process takes hold, culture shifts. High performance becomes the norm. A Players attract other A Players. Accountability becomes self-reinforcing. The organization gains momentum, not because people are working harder, but because they are working at a higher level together.

As Meyer adds: "With a team stacked with A Players, we now spend more time on strategy and execution, driving the business forward."

This is where the full power of Scaling Up becomes evident. People drive strategy. Strategy drives execution. Execution drives cash. When you strengthen the people decision by increasing the percentage of A Players, every other part of the business improves.

In Adelaide, South Australia, Stephen Young, Managing Director of Tasmea – a family of engineering services companies – credits the A Player initiative as greatest initiative undertaken by Tasmea, directly linking it to the company’s tripling of market capitalization since its IPO in 2024.

Central to that impact has been the disciplined rollout of A Player Agreements across the organization, combined with regular, structured quarterly Scaling Up A Players coaching sessions with each subsidiary CEO focused on personal growth, business performance, objective setting and execution planning.

"We have our 100 most senior executives on A Player Agreements. While I personally value the A Player Agreements and the review process with each of our Chief Executives, the greatest impact has been those CEOs rolling out the A Player thinking and process to their teams," Young adds.

"Many aspects of the A Player mindset and culture are now embedded in how we operate and behave and the results speak for themselves – revenue increased by 52.4 percent to A$620.8 million [US$443.7 million] in the last full reporting year alone."

Growing talent through deliberate action

Winning CEOs like Young and Meyer who embrace this approach do not leave talent to chance. They build it deliberately. They understand that while strategy sets direction, people determine outcomes. And they recognize that a high-performing team is one of the most powerful advantages a company can create.

And they do everything when it comes to talent fundamentally differently. For example, they do not rely on traditional job postings that tend to attract B Players. Instead, they use targeted recruiting strategies to identify and pursue the specific talent they want in the market – always engaging high performers who are not actively looking.

They apply rigorous interview methods such as Topgrading to ensure they consistently select A Players, not just available candidates. And over time they build what we call A Player Cultures, where A Players themselves become the centerpiece of the culture – setting the standard, reinforcing accountability and attracting more top talent into the organization in a virtuous cycle.

These leaders understand a simple truth: A Players want to join a gym, not a spa. They are drawn to environments that challenge them, push them to grow and surround them with other high performers – not to environments designed for comfort. Purpose before perks.

If the idea of building a higher-performing team is appealing, there is a clear path forward. Scaling Up A Players provides the tools and discipline to measure, develop and build a team of A Players – by design, not by chance.

As Meyer puts it, "At Vein360, we are committed to building a 100 percent A Player team and culture."

It’s a powerful commitment – and one worth considering for any leadership team focused on long-term growth and maximum valuation of your business.

Click here to connect with a certified Scaling Up coach and begin increasing the percentage of A Players on your team.