Early in the year most companies go through performance evaluations and the necessary rating systems. They typically answer the question of who is an “A”, “B” and “C” player with the inherent assumption that every person can become an idealized “A” player and in fact organizations can be built with all-A teams. I’m not going to argue the statistical futility of this effort, rather point to what is really important in an organization:
Build a world class team with a mix of A/B/C players, that is a high diversity high performance team.
A client friend of mine asked a similar question during the performance season. He had some great thinkers and some outstanding doers in his team. Sometime both. He started plotting them on the magic quadrant, a matrix that compares ability to execute and the ability to formulate and articulate a vision or a plan.
The (simplified) result is below. What is interesting is what he did with all of that. He ended up with 4 categories of people:
- Leaders - who can define a vision / outcome and have the energy, commitment to follow-through till the results are there
- Innovators - who come up with awesome ideas, plans, goals but never actually deliver the results
- Performers - who will climb any mountain, break down any wall to reach an objective but have a hard time plotting strategy
- Apprentice - who need a lot of direction in both planning and execution of the tasks
He had A/B/C players in all these categories but decided to team up his Innovators and Performers on projects so they have a great plan and they execute on them. He also made sure his well-rounded leaders were put in charge of mentoring the Followers.
The jury is still out on the experiment but the team loves the clarity around the roles much better than being given a “B” again. Now they can all be “A” players in their own game without having to become something they are not.
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