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Why You Should Treat C-Players Like A-Players
- kelukelugames 9y agoI remember listening to a 30 year old manager say you can't turn a C player into a B or a B into an A. That's a poor attitude for a manager.
- fatjokes 9y agoAgreed. Their preconceptions would ensure that those under them would adhere to that belief as their achievements would probably be discounted and not be given any opportunities to shine. I would remove this person from a managerial position.
- kemiller2002 9y agoI think my response would be something like, "You're right, I can't turn them into A people, but they can. That's not my job. My job is to help them get there."
- abraae 9y agoMaybe what they should have added is "within an acceptable time period". If it takes a skilled, determined manager (say) 6 months to mould a C player into an A player, then that's a big hit on the manager's time, and an eternity (in the modern fast paced world) before the employee starts delivering the goods. It might not make business sense to make that kind of investment, especially if the typical employee leaves after 2 years.
- kybernetikos 9y agoSure, if your hypothetical determined manager never expects to need a job elsewhere, is never in a position where a previous employee speaking well of them is useful, doesn't need to hone their mentoring skills and never expects to be in a position where hiring someone who left years ago might be possible.
- maxxxxx 9y agoFrom my experience most people who talk like that are D players themselves. They are just pricks who blame their own failures on the people that work for them. Most real A players I know are very much into coaching other people and giving them opportunities to grow.
- kelukelugames 9y agoI think you are right. The company used NPS to measure everything. His org had a score of 10. lmao
- mangamadaiyan 9y agoAsking because I'm not familiar with the term. What is NPS?
- kelukelugames 9y agoNet promoter score. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_Promoter 10 is a low score.
- nasalgoat 9y agoAfter a certain point, you're throwing good money after bad. Some people just aren't good at certain things, no matter how many chances and coaching you give them.
- anko 9y agoI don't know exactly what the definition of an A / B / C player is, so take this with a grain of salt. I think managers can give mentorship and advice but it's up to a person to improve themselves. That mostly comes down to attitude, interest and perseverance. Some people just stop themselves from being better, and give themselves arbitrary limits on what topics they won't learn or areas that aren't in the scope of their job.
- vogt 9y agoGreat article. I very much agree with all the points made, and see a lot of myself in the author's hindsight about themselves.
- mcguire 9y agoYou know you're in for a good ride when, "This is so pronounced that if I were to evaluate myself 15 or even 10 years ago, I wouldn’t recognize myself as an A-player. I simply wasn’t one. And yet here I sit looking down at my previous self."
- thesmallestcat 9y agoThe post fails to define an A, B, or C player, so it felt like a harangue about nothing. Frankly I don't believe that measurement along one axis can capture an individual's impact. Also, discussion of an organization's effects on one's output and attitude is notably absent. Only the manager-direct report relationship is considered.
- danielrm26 9y agoIt's hard to define decent, good, and bad health too. But you know it when you see it. Managers are the same with employees.
- thesmallestcat 9y agoI guess so, but that's what I mean: The article's meaning depends on one's view. To me, C = inevitable disaster, A = inevitable success, and B is everybody else. With three grades/classes, that's as far as I can get. You have to keep the "A"s happy and prepare for their exit. You have to get rid of the "C"s as soon as you've identified one and given them their fair chances. But I think that your A-B-C scale only addresses those who I consider "B"s, as "A"s and "C"s are mostly immune to management technique.
- danielrm26 9y agoC is average, as per American school grades. D and F are below average.
- thesmallestcat 9y agoYou should mention that in your article then, keeping in mind that the progression from F to A in most grading systems is linear and that some of us may not see the differences between calibers of engineers in the same way. That said I'm grasping for the grade analogy, as grades are highly dependent on the subject matter and other factors that I'd consider external, and represent a rigid point-in-time assessment.
- rjsw 9y agoIsn't the real problem that B player managers do treat their C player reports like A players, and that both of them believe it ?
- hdi 9y agoI've seen this happen in a previous job. It literally made all the top performers in the team leave.
- danielrm26 9y agoTreating them like an A player includes not babying them and telling them they're amazing when they mess up. So, no, you shouldn't have that problem.
- rabidrat 9y agoBut it does involve trusting their expertise and ability to deliver. After they mess up it's a bit late.
- ChuckMcM 9y agoPeople try to live up to the expectations you set for them. From kids to adults. Expect people to be excellent, ask how you can help when they are behind (helps validate the expectation) and celebrate excellent results.
- wellpast 9y agoSpoken like an A-player. It is unfortunately not uncommon to find people who see the world as a fixed bag of A- vs. C-ers (and many of course whom think of themselves in the A category.) But this is a fixed mindset and I think it correlates (when you get down to it) to one's own private/personal sense of their ability to grow. You really want to become a rockstar/master/A-player? Don't define yourself by your skill set. Always keep a clear focus on that wide gap between you and what you could be. In other words, always think of yourself as a B-player trying to get to A. Know you'll never get there, but keep trying. Do this, and you'll reach excellence. You'll also see how little difference there is between you and the "C-"...and then you can collaborate on helping each other toward mastery.
- vladgiverts 9y agoThis post touched on an interesting part of human nature. So much of our personality and behavior is based on the identity that we create for ourselves. Most of that gets set in early childhood, but we keep adding to it with our latest experiences at work, with friends, dating, etc. "Girl didn't like me? Maybe I'm not attractive." Have that experience enough times and it becomes a part of how you view yourself (i.e. your Identity) and you'll behave accordingly. A lot us struggle with identity issues that cause us to act out in unproductive ways, particularly when we're treated badly (like as if we're a c-player the author points out). I think treating people with respect and giving them the benefit of the doubt as the author advocates is spot on, which is what I suspect is what he meant by treating c-players as a-players. What I don't think the author meant was that we should treat ALL c-players like a-players as that sounds like an oversimplification. It would only help if someone is actually high potential and their ego and self-esteem issues get in their way. That's far from the only reason people perform poorly. Quite often, someone is simply less capable than the top performers (that flows from the definition of "top" performance). And yes, with experience and practice, people can improve. And it's good to assume they will and give them the guidance they need to get there. But if you treat someone as if they're better than they really are, they might feel better about themselves but they could also loose the motivation to improve because they're getting the signal that "they're already there" and they'll start to develop a distorted self-image that could lead to other kinds of problems.
- ciconia 9y agoNothing can be more destructive to a person's competence and skills than an abusive treatment by his superiors. As far as I'm concerned, the true test of leadership is dealing with a subordinate's shortcomings. It's not only about breaking your workers' spirits (and sometimes causing real psychological damage), but also about how to get the best out of your team, taking the abilities of each player into consideration.
- heymijo 9y agoWhat you just described sounds a lot like Peter Drucker's description of management: "Management is about human beings. Its task is to make people capable of joint performance, to make their strengths effective and their weaknesses irrelevant."
- kristianc 9y agoIt's hard to trust that this is from a real "A-player" when it throws so many of my "not an A-Player but a genial bullshitter" flags. - Poorly written and communicated, with faux-profound single word paragraphs - 'Insights' that would look more at home on a wall decal ("It’s true that I resisted the negativity, escaped, and embraced the positivity and rode it to its potential.") - "I used to think this way, before I became enlightened" style statements showing complete lack of self-awareness - Article about a vague concept without defining any of the behaviours that go along with that concept - Reference to 2x2 matrices (iron law of management theory: all of human behaviour can be collapsed into four quadrants) - Sign up for my newsletter modal - His own signature at the end of the post Is there anything in his background that separates this from the low-grade shlock that pollutes my Medium feed on a daily basis?
- jasonlotito 9y ago> Is there anything in his background that separates this from the low-grade shlock that pollutes my Medium feed on a daily basis? Considering he posts about his background on his very site, maybe you should do a bit of research before asking such a basic question and sling what amounts to a bunch of insults. It's hard to trust this comment is from a real "journalist" when it throws so many of my "doesn't do any research and just asks questions to try to be different" flags.
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- kasey_junk 9y agoYou've listed things that make him not an A player in your mind, can you list the things that would indicate he is one? Can you objectively compare that list to some A players and back test your assumptions? My biggest problem with the "A" player mythology is that I don't think anyone has any real way to judge it, so "A" player becomes "looks like me". Which I think is the heart of our industry's myriad issues.
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- Blackthorn 9y agoI recognize that I'll never be Jeff Dean or Sanjay Ghemawat. That's okay, though. There's a much smaller set of things I'm really good at, like debugging. I also get paid acceptably well. There's a few 10x engineers out there, which I would call A players, but I've only met a couple of them in my lifetime.