The A Player

The Definitive Playbook & Guide for Employees and Leaders Who Want to Play and Perform at the Highest Level

Rick Crossland

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781630479923
• eBook ISBN: 9781630479930
• Subtopic: Business Skills

A guide to becoming the kind of business all-star that companies want to hire—and keep—from an authority in growing and recruiting top employees.

A chasm exists in the worldwide workplace: CEOs and senior leaders expect better performance from most of their people. Simultaneously, those same employees know they have more to contribute, but are likely unaware of their leaders' true expectations regarding attitudes and results. The A Player is a breakthrough book that addresses how to forge a bridge between this critical gap to produce prosperity for both the company and the employee. When your company wins, as an employee you win.

Talent expert Rick Crossland gives you a private executive coaching lesson on how to be that prized top performer companies covet. A Players are always in high demand. They are not just more productive; they are also happier and work with more purpose, passion, fun and fulfillment in their lives. Nothing great was ever achieved with average performance and The A Player shows how to achieve outstanding A Player performance on both an individual and company-wide level.

Chapter 1

THE MAGIC OF A PLAYERS

“You Win with People”

—Woody Hayes, former Ohio State football coach

If you have ever worked on a team project and had your “A” grade dragged down to a lower grade by B or C Players who did not pull their weight, then you can immediately grasp the A Player concept and the importance of only having A Players on your team. In any endeavor, being a great team member on a fantastic team is the recipe for success. People have understood this concept in the world of academics and sports for decades. For some reason, however, we have too long tolerated B and C Players in the workforce. This is baffling, for unlike school and sports (unless you are a pro-athlete), at work we are now playing for our own livelihood. The stakes are much higher so to speak. If you stop to think about it, this is actually staggering, as your job and career prospects are directly linked to your organization’s performance. If your company is tolerating B and C underperformers, then by definition the company could be performing better, which hurts both the immediate and long-term compensation, benefits, and growth you and the other top performers should be receiving. With this revelation, there is no successful argument for why we should have B and C Players on a team.

So what is an A Player? A Players are defined as employees who are in the top 10% of their industry for the salary offered.¹ A Players are the employees that would be enthusiastically rehired by their employers. If you think about it a moment, defining A Players as the top 10% of the industry is actually very liberating to an organization, as there is no constraint to force rank people on the team. Since we are evaluating from an industry-wide vantage point, the very exciting possibility of creating an entire All-Star team of A Players in our own organizations becomes a reality. Therefore, our teams can be comprised of 100% A Players.

A Players are aligned in their careers and absolutely shine in their roles. They are the employees who make all the goodness in an organization happen. Their performance and great attitudes are almost magical. If you are reading this book, you are either an employee who aspires to be an A Player, or one who has already achieved A Player status and knows he or she can be even better. Or, you may be an executive leader looking for an essential playbook designed for companies who want to build an A Player Culture. The A Player offers employees and teams the roadmap to help get them there. Outstanding employees drive great companies, and in turn great companies provide amazing career opportunities for those employees who align with their mission and purpose. It is truly a two-way street. Great companies are inherently vested in your success.

However, just like All-Stars are annually voted on in professional sports, achieving and then maintaining A Player status requires continual effort. We can lose it just as quickly as we receive it. We cannot rest on our laurels. The expectations increase as we reach higher levels in our careers.

Why are A Players so important? Most people are not thrilled to have surgery performed by a B Player heart surgeon; or fly on an airplane piloted by a B Player pilot. Obviously these are mission critical occupations, and there is no room for B or C Players to be at the helm in such sensitive situations.

Similarly, the work you do is important. You are mission critical to your employer and your customers. Thus, there is no room for the mediocrity that a B or C Player offers. On average, an A Player produces at least two to three times the quality and volume of work of the B Player, which is why A Players are so greatly coveted. We don’t settle for B or C Player surgeons or airline pilots, so why should an employer settle for less than the absolute best in their specific industry? The reality is that they should not.

Likewise, if you are a leader who manages people, you cannot settle for underperformers who will drag down the overall performance of your team. This book will give you the tools to shape your team into a group of high performers. It will help you identify, lead, coach, and develop A Players, as well as become a better leader yourself. In fact, leaders need to understand A Player acumen better than anyone else. Remember, the rest of the organization rises or falls to your level of leadership competency, so you need to model the way.

These aforementioned tools will help you serve your organization at the highest possible level, while also achieving your personal best. Being an A Player helps you achieve excellence, which produces a more long-term and altruistic impact for a much larger constituency than just yourself.

When you do your best, you become more personally satisfied, your company’s leadership is also more satisfied, and the organization flourishes. Everybody wins. Being an A Player employee will not guarantee you job security, but will guarantee you career security, as the services of the “best” employees are always in high demand.

Everyone wants to know what it takes to be an A Player. You will soon discover the proven mindsets, behaviors, and actions that these elite performers have in their DNA. A Players not only drive better performance, but also create a more professional and collegial work environment. A Players are beneficial, wholesome, and helpful people to have around. The truth is that powerful things occur when a team of 100% A Players come together to create a fantastic environment. There is no denying that A Players are at the center of every great endeavor. Thus, being an A Player is the straightforward, simple, and practically universal goal for us all.

Now, you may be thinking: Am I an A Player? And if not, what happens to me? Let’s answer that important question this way: everybody deserves the opportunity to be an A Player somewhere. The goal is to help you become that top performer at your current organization. This book will show you what it takes.

So, what if you already consider yourself an A Player? Most people, even high performers, have some B and C Player tendencies that need to be purged. Everyone in your organization needs to fully understand what it means to be an A Player, and then recognize the mindsets, behaviors, and actions required to achieve and maintain that status. Simultaneously, you will also learn how to recognize A Player performance and how to hold yourself and others accountable for achieving it. In fact, having your entire workgroup read and apply the principles of The A Player will create the biggest gains for your organization. Think about how wonderful life will be when you fully respect the work ethic and results of all of your coworkers. On top of that, you get the joy of working with the best in your business—your own All-Star team. The results are limitless.

The payoff for being an A Player is huge. If you are a leader, becoming an A Player will yield even more respect and high performance from your team. They will follow you because of who you are, not because of your title. If you are an employee, becoming an A Player means you are contributing at a very high level to the success of the organization. This means your employer will enthusiastically rehire you, support your development, and put you in positions of increasing responsibility. This also means that you are in high demand and are employable, no matter the circumstances of your business.

There is also an even bigger societal benefit at play here. Businesses that have teams of 100% A Players create companies that thrive. They are able to offer better opportunities, and more stable environments; they also grow with the needs of their team members. Beyond that, the company is better positioned to share that prosperity in terms of a greater purpose by providing incredible products and services that truly help people, as well as by providing amazing benefits and growth opportunities for its employees. Many of these companies also use this prosperity to fund meaningful social responsibility work such as improving the working conditions in their supply base. Think Apple here, as Apple was founded on the principle of 100% A Players.

Becoming an A Player requires a higher level of strategic thinking than most employees consider. The A Player focuses on strategic issues that will endear you to high-performing managers, leaders, and companies. By focusing at this strategic level, it will open up your horizons to ever-increasing levels of responsibility and success—wherever you are. It will also require that you raise your levels of leadership, accountability, and business acumen. The bigger impact is that you will attract others just like you, and recognize enormous results to culture, performance, and happiness. As Daniel Pink summarizes in the book Drive, “We are motivated by our innate need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things and to do better for ourselves and our world.” These motivations are precisely aligned with how the A Player’s mindset operates. We play for bigger stakes than just a paycheck.

Everybody has the opportunity to be an A Player somewhere. The question is: do you have what it takes to be an A Player employee in your current organization? Your employer has the right to create a team of 100% A Players. If you are not currently performing as an A, you either need to make the attitudinal shifts and additional effort to get there, or find an organization where the demands of being an A Player are less challenging. However, keep in mind that just like in investments, the more risk you take, the greater the returns and potential benefits. If you play at a less demanding level, you may be happier, albeit likely for less compensation than you were making on the bigger stage. We’ll leave that decision up to you, as the important thing is that you find a place where you can thrive and align your purpose with the organization’s.

Congratulations on your journey to becoming an A Player! The pages that follow contain the experiences, strategies, and advice of proven A Players, CEOs, and other executive leaders—this is all included so you can thrive in your career and create an unbelievable culture within your team. This book’s aim is to fundamentality change the way people approach work, and to create the magic in your organization that happens when people are aligned and play with passion, drive, and purpose. There is no theory within, only methods proven to work in the real world. Taking this information to heart and using it can literally be life changing. Please keep an open mind. The results will astound you.

Chapter 2

DEFINING THE A PLAYER

“Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.”

—John Wooden, Hall of Fame Basketball Coach

As you can imagine, the term A Player carries a very specific definition. Many business leaders enjoy touting how their business is differentiated by their team of great people. However, when asked the critical question: “How many people on your team would you enthusiastically rehire?” Their response is usually surprisingly, that they would only rehire less than 50% of their current “dream team.” What was once a strong group of team members is now less than half what they would enthusiastically rehire! How is that possible?

Obviously, the operative word here is enthusiastically. This exercise proved very effective at challenging leaders to upgrade their teams. It was as if a light bulb went off as the answer to the question rambled off their tongues. Since employee payroll is likely the largest fixed expense of every business or organization, putting up with employees who are not high performers in terms of bottom-line results, attitudes, and cultural fit will cause the business to jeopardize performance and make the lives of everyone who has to deal with them pretty miserable. If the business is not functioning at its peak performance, you are literally subsidizing those who are unwilling to work at their peak potential. If that’s the case, the business is literally leaving money on the table—money that should be in the pocket of an A Player in terms of a bonus or profit sharing.

In Dr. Brad Smart’s Topgrading® work, he defines an A Player as an individual that is part of the top 10% of talent available in the market for the salary paid. Notice we say the overall market and not the company. This mitigates the infighting all too common in many corporate cultures to grab the top spot. In an A Player Culture, it’s an All-Star team, so everyone can win. A Players are the employees that get enthusiastically rehired. They have great attitudes, work ethics, and abide well with company cultural values. Don’t confuse A Players with Type-A personalities, as they may or may not be more assertive, but are clearly driven and maintain strong core values, making them great team players. For this excellence, A Players are typically compensated at the top of the salary range for the position and may command a higher salary premium versus B Player talent; and rightfully so—they are worth it.

In fact, they are the driving force of company productivity because a workforce of 100% A Players is much more productive than the average team, as far fewer employees can produce far greater output. A Players produce between two to three times more results and productivity than their non-A counterparts. Hiring fewer and better candidates is a recipe for business success and happiness. In addition, teams of A Players drive additional efficiency because a manager can easily manage twice as many A Players as B and C Players. The manager with Bs and Cs on the team may only be able to manage say six employees, whereas with 100% A Players that span can easily go to twelve or more.

In his excellent book Scaling Up, business expert Verne Harnish has a fantastic shorthand test to define the A Player. He states that A Players:

1. Fit the company culture.

2. Don’t need to be managed.

3. Regularly wow the team with their output and insights.

The A Player employee’s performance is magical, but not mythical! So much happens in the daily whirlwind of business that it is impossible for a manager to prescribe every move an employee should make. In fact, to do so entails micromanaging, which is counterpro...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of contents
• Story The ABCs of Business
• Chapter 1 The Magic of A Players
• Chapter 2 Defining the A Player
• Chapter 3 Make a Decision
• Chapter 4 How CEOs and Senior Leaders View A Players
• Chapter 5 Purpose Beyond Profits
• Chapter 6 The Prosperity Principles
• Chapter 7 How Business Really Works: Becoming a Prosperity Center!
• Chapter 8 What Your Business Owners Want You to Know
• Chapter 9 Everything Has a Business Case—Put Your Plan in Writing
• Chapter 10 Why A Players Don’t Really Work for Money
• Chapter 11 The Employer and Employee Bill of Rights
• Chapter 12 A Player Acumen
• Chapter 13 Character Counts
• Chapter 14 A Player Leadership at All Levels
• Chapter 15 A Players Are Team Players
• Chapter 16 The “A” in A Player Is for Accountability
• Chapter 17 A Player Hard Work and Discipline
• Chapter 18 Be Coachable
• Chapter 19 A Players Deliver Results
• Chapter 20 Develop an Attitude of Gratitude
• Chapter 21 A Player EQ/EI, Putting Emotional Intelligence to Use
• Chapter 22 Parting Words
• About the Author
• Acknowledgments
• Appendix 1 A Player Assessment
• Appendix 2 A Players Set SMART Goals
• Appendix 3 Summary of the Core Competencies of A Players