"A Players" or "A Positions"?
The Strategic Logic of Workforce Management
A single-minded focus on finding and developing A players misses the point. A better approach is first to identify the strategically critical jobs, then to invest disproportionately to ensure that the right people - doing the right things - are in those positions.
A great workforce is made up of great people. What could be more intuitively obvious? Is it any wonder, then, that so many companies have devoted so much energy in recent years to identifying, developing, and retaining what have come to be known as “A players”? Firms like GE, IBM, and Microsoft all have well-developed systems for managing and motivating their highperformance and high-potential employees - and for getting rid of their mediocre ones. Management thinkers have widely endorsed this approach: Larry Bossidy, in the best-selling book Execution , for example, calls this sort of differentiation among employees "the mother's milk of building a performance culture.”
But focusing exclusively on A players puts, well, the horse before the cart. High performers aren't going to add much value to an organization if they're smoothly and rapidly pulling carts that aren't going to market. They're going to be effective only when they're harnessed to the right cart - that is, engaged in work that's essential to company strategy. This, too, may seem obvious. But it's surprising how few companies systematically identify their strategically important A positions - and then focus on the A players who should fill them. Even fewer companies manage their A positions in such a way that the A players are able to deliver the A performance needed in these crucial roles.
While conventional wisdom might argue that the firms with the most talent win, we believe that, given the financial and managerial resources needed to attract, select, develop, and retain high performers, companies simply can't afford to have A players in all positions. Rather, we believe that the firms with the right talent win. Businesses need to adopt a portfolio approach to workforce management, placing the very best employees in strategic positions, good performers in support positions, and eliminating nonperforming employees and jobs that don't add value.
We offer here a method for doing just that, drawing on the experience of several companies that are successfully adopting this approach to workforce management, some of which we have worked with in our research or as consultants. One thing to keep in mind: Effective management of your A positions requires intelligent management of your B and C positions, as well.
Identifying Your A Positions
People traditionally have assessed the relative value of jobs in an organization in one of two ways. Human resource professionals typically focus on the level of skill, effort, and responsibility a job entails, together with working conditions. From this point of view, the most important positions are those held by the most highly skilled, hardest-working employees, exercising the most responsibility and operating in the most challenging environments.
Economists, by contrast, generally believe that people's wages reflect the value they create for the company and the relative scarcity of their skills in the labor market. Thus, the most important jobs are those held by the most highly paid employees. The trouble with both of these approaches is that they merely identify which jobs the company is currently treating as most important, not the ones that actually are. To do that, one must not work backward from organization charts or compensation systems but forward from strategy.
That's why we believe the two defining characteristics of an A position are first, as you might expect, its disproportionate importance to a company's ability to execute some part of its strategy, and second - and this is not nearly as obvious - the wide variability in the quality of the work displayed among the employees in the position.
Such positions are as variable as the strategies they promote. Please click here to continue reading "A Players" or "A Positions"?
Reprinted from Harvard Business Review |
 Note from Kevin
Greetings!
As we slow down in preparation for the holidays, I want to take one last stab at giving all of you something to think about for the New Year. After careful consideration, I decided that the most important message I could share with you is an expansion of “Right Person/Right Job.” “A Players” or “A Positions”? is a WHOLE LOT more than just another discussion of Right Person/Right Job, so don't make a mistake of letting this article lay unread in your office. In fact, I will go as far to say that implementing your tailored version of “A Players” or “A Positions?” may have more impact on 2007 business outcomes than anything else you could choose to commit to.
Here is my version of the key concepts:
1. It's not only critical to identify your A Positions; it's equally critical to get clear on the qualities required for superior performance in those positions. Benchmarking A Positions throughout your organization should be at the top of your wish list!
2. Sure, we've all gotten better at using the assessments to hire people with potential for superior performance. The challenge is a big one so listen carefully; “People who have potential for superior performance will underachieve in the wrong jobs!” Way too often we think we've hired the wrong person when in fact we've (key word “we've”) put them in the wrong job.
3. Your business cannot afford anything less than A Players in your A Positions. Yes, I know it often involves some very difficult decisions, but having the courage to make those tough decisions is exactly what great leaders get paid to do. I encourage you to be as swift at making these decisions as you are when it comes to replacing equipment and upgrading technology.
4. The B Players must be positioned to get the training and the career planning that they need to “backfill” positions left by A Players who continue their journey in your organization.
I hope you enjoy the article and seriously consider letting LeadersWay help you implement this new strategy for 2007.
From all of us at LeadersWay, have a safe, warm and, most importantly, rich holiday season!
• Gretchen
• Charlotte
• Hollie
• Kevin
Life is good...
KW |
