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We spend a lot of time talking about whether someone is a good employee.
I think that is the wrong question.
When we think about A players in business, the question isn’t simply whether someone can do the job. It is whether this person is one of the best people we could realistically attract for this role, at this compensation level, at this stage of the company.
That distinction matters more than it sounds.
Because two businesses can have the same number of employees, pay roughly the same amount in payroll, and still have completely different organizations based on the mix of A, B, and C players inside them.
Most of us have never actually quantified that difference.
We probably should.
A Players in Business Do More Than Perform
The A/B/C player framework is useful because the commercial consequences of the different groups are not remotely equal.
We tend to look at performance at the individual level.
Is this person getting their work done?
Are they hitting expectations?
Are there any major problems?
But an A player affects more than their own output. They raise the standard around them. They influence the culture. They attract other talented people.
A C player can do the opposite.
They lower the bar. They can demoralize capable people around them, and they create management overhead because someone has to spend time dealing with the issues they create.
That management time has a cost.
Every hour we spend repeatedly managing poor performance is an hour we are not spending on growth.
So when we evaluate talent only by asking whether someone is “good enough,” we’re missing a large part of the equation.
The person isn’t operating in isolation.
They’re affecting everybody around them.
What Actually Makes Someone an A Player?
I like a very practical definition.
An A player is someone in roughly the top 25% of the people available for that specific role at that compensation level.
They consistently deliver excellent performance against defined outcomes.
They demonstrate the behaviors and values the organization requires.
And they have the capacity to grow as the role changes.
That last part is important.
We sometimes talk about A players in business as though the label follows someone forever.
It doesn’t.
Someone can be an A player in a $3 million company and not necessarily be the right person for the same function when that company reaches $30 million.
The job changed.
The expectations changed.
The complexity changed.
So the question isn’t, “Is this person an A player?”
The better question is, “Are they an A player here?”
For this company.
For this role.
At this level.
At this salary.
Right now.
That forces us to be much more precise about talent.
The Salary Matters More Than We Admit
There is another part of this definition that gets ignored.
Compensation.
It is easy to say we want the absolute best person available. But hiring doesn’t happen in an imaginary market where money doesn’t matter.
We are competing for talent within a compensation range.
So evaluating A players in business requires us to ask what the top quarter of the realistic talent pool looks like at the amount we’re prepared to pay.
That’s a much more useful standard.
If we’re paying for a certain level of talent, we should understand what excellent looks like at that level.
Otherwise, we end up judging people against vague expectations that were never clearly defined in the first place.
And vague expectations make hiring harder.
They make performance management harder too.
“Are They Any Good?” Isn’t Enough
I’ve noticed how easy it is to lower the standard during hiring.
We meet someone we like.
They seem competent.
They have experience.
Nothing obviously scares us away.
And the question slowly becomes, “Could this person do the job?”
Probably.
But that isn’t the standard.
If we want to build stronger organizations, the question has to become:
Is this person an A player at this level, at this salary, for this role?
That is a much harder question.
Which is probably why it is useful.
Most hiring decisions are built around whether somebody clears the minimum bar. The A-player framework asks us to think about the available talent market instead.
We’re no longer asking whether someone is acceptable.
We’re asking how they compare with the people we could realistically hire.
Those are two very different hiring standards.
Your Talent Mix Becomes Your Culture
There is a compounding effect here.
When we bring in strong people, they raise expectations.
Those expectations affect who fits.
Strong people tend to want to work around other strong people.
Over time, A players in business can help create an organization where high performance becomes normal instead of exceptional.
The opposite compounds too.
Allow enough weak performance to remain inside the company and eventually the bar starts moving down.
Capable people notice.
Management spends more time managing.
The entire organization begins absorbing the cost.
This is why the A/B/C framework isn’t really about walking around labeling everybody.
That misses the point.
It gives us a way to think clearly about what our talent decisions are producing.
The Hiring Question Worth Keeping
We don’t need every employee walking around with an A, B, or C attached to their name.
We do need a better calibration for hiring.
For every role, define the outcomes.
Define the behaviors and values required.
Understand what excellent talent actually looks like at the compensation you’re offering.
Then ask the harder question.
Is this one of the best people we could realistically attract and retain for this job?
Because over enough hiring decisions, that question starts shaping the entire company.
The standard we tolerate becomes the standard everyone works around.
And eventually, the people we hire don’t just fill the organization.
They become it.
Justin D Maxwell provides family office and investment bank services to the lower midmarket to founders who want 8 or 9 figure net worths. You can learn more here: www.justindmaxwell.com or take our free assessment here: https://fielding.global/articles/diagnostic.html