Are you developing a culture of teamwork and accountability? Let’s ask that differently, would you enthusiastically rehire all the employees that you currently have? If you want to scale up your business, you need to have the right people.
Great coaches recruit the right players, and then they develop those individual players into a winning team. One of the ways they do that is by picking the right person for each position. It requires different players’ unique strengths to then develop and combine those strengths into a winning team. You can do the same thing in your business. A-Players are the ones who 1) Do not need to be managed, 2) Wow the team and 3) live your values. Ask yourself, “how can I attract, develop and retain A-players and make them a competitive advantage for my company?”
Implementing an A-player strategy is a constant and never-ending improvement process. But there are five key components you can follow in developing A-Players, starting with the Job Scoreboard.
Why You Need a Job Scorecard
“Do I have the best talent in the market for the pay I provide?” Developing the best employees starts with hiring. In his book WHO, Geoff Smart talks extensively about creating a job scorecard.
Check out a template on Geoff’s website, or find the sample I created for my clients.
In sports, you rank players based on their stats, things like completed passes, free-throw percentage, or strikeouts. In business, you need different parameters, things like skills, competencies, and core values. The scorecard is your playbook. It will be how you hire, manage, and develop your A-Player strategy.
1. Hire And Manage Against The Job Scorecard
Your playbook, the job scorecard, comes first. Knowing the purpose of the job you are hiring for makes it easier to hire the right person from the start. Once the job scorecard is developed you can design interview questions and approaches which enable you to develop a confidence score for each functional accountability, competency and value.
2. Onboard With The Job Scorecard
They say that the most stressful day in an adult’s life is when they start a new job. The job scorecard brings clarity to the new employee and aligns the new employee with their manager. Communication is crucial and the onboarding process is often overlooked, but it’s a critical component of developing A-Players.
Create an intentional strategy to get new hires comfortable and engaged with your culture as quickly as possible. Give them the tools they need to succeed so they can begin to ramp up and start performing.
3. Measure New Hires Performance
Every 90 days, measure your new hires against the job scorecard.
- Does their performance match the confidence grades and on-boarding plan?
- Is this person meeting or exceeding expectations?
- Do you have an A-Player?
You must measure, measure, measure, and use the measurements to refine the scorecard.
4. Refine the Job Scorecard and Hiring Approach as Necessary
Refine and tweak the job scorecard to get it right.
Refine your interview approach. The best way you can do it is to measure and get feedback about what’s working and what’s not working. Pinpoint where you need to raise the bar to get better.
Remember, the A-Players have options; you’re not the last job out there. It’s essential to be proactive in how you can convince the person to take your offer enthusiastically.
Challenge: Keep your Scorecard to one Page
Don’t list every possible job responsibility an employee might encounter. Instead, focus on what is most important. Hone in on exactly what you want that a specific employee to accomplish. Rather than think of it as a job description, view it as a set of outcomes and competencies that define a job well done. Limit to the most important three to five in each area.
Creating a Job Scorecard
Now that you understand why you need a job scorecard, you can start creating one for your business.
It Starts With the Purpose
So what’s the primary purpose of the job? Why does the job exist? The answer should be a sentence or two. Remember, to focus on the vital few versus the trivial many.
Functional Accountabilities
What are the outcomes that you need this person to deliver? Here is where you list the three to five most critical accountabilities. For example, if you were hiring a new VP of sales, you might expect this employee to build the sales team, deliver new clients, and meet a multi-million-dollar annual sales goal. Of course, there will be other things this VP will do and tasks, but these three are the most critical. When you are writing your outcomes, limit them to the most important three to five.
Also, remember to include the key performance indicators (KPI’s) so you can set expectations and monitor results. The goals should be high, yet reasonable. Bold goals will weed out lower level, C-players. C-players won’t win you a championship. For your A-Player employees, setting high outcomes provides them a goal they can work toward, and the goal will bring them clarity and accountability.
Skills, Traits & Competencies
Ask yourself, what are the five most important competencies that are needed to do the job? A sales leader needs to recruit, motivate, and have excellent skills in handling people. They also need executive presence and the ability to think strategically. Those are the vital competencies for the job. Different jobs will require different competencies.
Focusing on the most important competencies will require tradeoffs. The art is in identifying the five competencies that separate the A-Players from the rest. It isn’t that the other players don’t have any good traits, but they don’t have the exact ones you need for that specific job. When you have clarity about the most important skills required, it will become easier to weed out the candidates who aren’t the right fit.
Core Values
Last but not least, you want to think about your company’s core values. When you are building your team of A-Players, it’s essential to hire candidates who share values similar to yours.
Key Concepts Of A-Players Development Process
Clarity is power. The job scorecard gives you the steps and the clarity to attract A-players right from the beginning. By being specific in the hiring process, you set yourself up for future success in every additional step.
When you’ve hired the right employees, onboarding becomes easier. When onboarding goes more smoothly, the employee can start performing for you better and more quickly. When employees perform better, you see better results for your business.
By implementing WHO, the A-Player Strategy, you’ll be ready to hire the right team that can help you scale up your business. Employees, peers, customers, and shareholders will be happy and engaged. And you’ll be able to create a system in which you can consistently attract and hire A-level Players. It’s not overly complicated; it just requires that you get clear on what you are looking for. When you do that, you’re going to have a higher probability of finding those people.
Webinar – New Approaches To Uncover Your Organization’s Core Purpose