Your Starting Lineup: Identify Your A-Players

I am a self-proclaimed sports nut and if one lifelong wish could come true, I would be coaching high-school basketball anywhere in the country. I am intrigued by the strategies, philosophies and the successful and sometimes unsuccessful results that come from their implementation. Through my 22 years of working in human resources, operations and consulting, I have realized many correlations between sports and business success. The biggest of these is that great players produce great results.

At the close of football season and the Super Bowl, I can't help but reflect on the two teams that made it to this prestigious event.

Give thought to how many A players made up these two teams as opposed to the teams in the NFL that might have ended up with 4 and 12 or 6 and 10 records. The same is true in business success when your focus centers on the number of A, B and C players you have on your team and then you direct your energy toward those that will produce the best results. The following might help in that analysis:

A Players

• Are focused not only on achieving their goals but helping others achieve goals for the good of the company.
• Have taken time to increase their skill levels or are certified in their chosen fields.
• Participate and lead in company initiatives and functions.
  Place a high level of respect for the customer, their needs and how well the company meets those needs.
• Continually increase the effectiveness of people around them.
• Own their own performance and accept personal responsibility for everything that they do.
• They refuse to lose.
• They have careers instead of jobs.

 B Players

•  Want to accomplish their goals.
• Participate in training as long as there is personal gain from it.
• Will attend company meetings and functions only to sit in the back and speak when called on.
• Produce quality work and good service even though the customer is often considered an irritation.
• A team player for their own personal gains.
• Do what is expected and usually wait to be told what to do.
• They have jobs.

 C Players

• Avoid the concept of goals because of the responsibility and accountability it places on them.
• Complain about training opportunities and generally will not constructively participate.
• Avoid company meetings and proudly proclaim they will not be going to this year's company picnic.
• Produce substandard quality work and service based on blame and excuses.
• Boldly disrupt the success of every team they are a part of.
• Are victims that do what they need to do to get by.

Once you have identified the players on your team, the next important step is to evaluate your lineup to make sure everyone is in the correct position and develop your strategy on how you will utilize and appreciate the strengths of each A Player while building upon the potential of the B Players. A few more ideas may help you in improving your team for 2005:

• Change the focus of where you spend most of your time and redirect your energy from the C Players to helping the A Players develop.
• Seek out sources that produce the A Players and focus your recruiting efforts toward them.
• Use training opportunities to not only teach a skill but to evaluate the players' A, B, or C status.
• Start now to reward A players, inspire and encourage B players and cut the C players.

As you look at your team this year, enjoy the challenges and opportunities of being the "coach." Be prepared to evaluate and re-evaluate each one's role and performance on a regular basis and set a personal challenge to surround yourself with best. And then, in an honest and frank discussion with yourself, determine what type of player and leader you will be on the team.

The author is a consultant with JP Horizons, Painesville, Ohio. If you want to learn more about the power of people solutions that drive business performance, contact:

JP Horizons
P. O. Box 2039
Painesville, OH 44077
Phone: 440/352-8211
Fax: 800/715-8326
e-mail: jim@jphorizons.com
web site: www.jphorizons.com