You Don’t Need to Pay More for A-Players. Here’s Why.
One of the challenges that I come across when meeting with CEOs is they associate their A-Players to higher salaries and big bonuses.
What if I told you that finding and retaining A-players wasn’t always about the money?
The first step I share with my clients is you need to establish what an A-player looks like for your business. The fact is: an A-player in one company or role might be a B-player in another.
How do you figure this out?
Talent scores are a great way to evaluate your team and to figure out how people are doing in their roles and what’s working and what’s not from a "people" point of view. It’s important to get into the nitty gritty details to be able to evaluate your people. And knowing your people has many advantages when growing and scaling your business.
If you’re familiar with the Top Grading process, you know that we like to talk about the definition of an “A-player.” The technical definition of A-players I like to use is the top 10% of talent for a given salary level and a specific geography.
You can always find better people if you start throwing money at the problem, but an A-player is not the best person money can buy, it’s the best person you can get for your budget.
The thinking here is that if you can get better talent for the same price that your competition is paying--through smarter sourcing, better interviewing, and more effective on-boarding--you’ll be able to beat the competition. If you’re paying more money than the competition, then they have more resources and can outflank you in other ways.
Defining your A-player is not hard, but it takes some work.
There are a handful of parameters--all unrelated to salaries and who I like the most--that I like to use when evaluating people.
If you want to learn more about these key evaluation criteria, watch the video or check out the article I wrote for inc.com about the topic.
A-Players Are Not the People You Like the Most, But They Drive Results. Here’s How to Tell Who Your Best Employees Are
Putting the right people in the right seats has benefits for you, the CEO, and the employee, alike. Taking the time to get this right has significant benefits to the organization and fuel success.
Are you finding it difficult to identify your A-Players?
Sometimes it’s hard to look past the the people you like the most or the people with an impeccable CV. Let’s set up a call to discover ways that you can get into more of the implicit ways your people are helping or hurting your business's success. Book a call by clicking here.
I'll conclude with one of my favorite quotes about talent from Jim Collins in his book Good to Great...
People are not your most important asset...
...the right people are.
Bruce "Talent Scout" Eckfeldt
bruce@eckfeldt.com
P.S. Whenever you’re ready... here are three ways I can help you grow your business faster, and with less drama:
1. Take my Growth Readiness Assessment
Download the 24 questions, send me the results, and set up a free one-on-one call to review the results and identify where you can accelerate your growth with the right focus. - CLICK HERE
2. Check out my Leadership Team Intensive
Every team can get into a rut—leadership teams are no exception. My half-day intensive helps the top team take a step back and see what’s working, what’s not, where they can develop new, better habits, and where they can break old ones that aren’t working. It’s like a B12 booster for your entire company. - CLICK HERE
3. Let me facilitate your next annual or quarterly planning meeting
Want to kick your planning sessions up a notch? Have me come in and we’ll work together on your annual or quarterly plan. Set goals that will really drive strategy, and create an action plan that will make sure everyone has clear accountability for results. - CLICK HERE
