
There are no B players - swombat
http://danieltenner.com/2014/09/11/there-are-no-b-players/
======
geebee
I like the einstein quote about a fish judged by its ability to clime a tree.
This happens a lot, though the mismatch can be much more subtle than that.

Almost every "senior" technical job I've seen in the last 10 years ("senior"
really just means 5-7 years of experience, if that) contains verbiage about
autonomy - choosing technologies, establishing best practices, setting
architectural direction. HR speak for "let this developer decide how to do the
job." I've also noticed, though, that as a developer, you often really have to
fight to get this kind of autonomy, even if it was right there in the very
formal job description everyone signed when you were hired.

This is because every project is different and has a history. The CIO went to
a conference and made a huge investment in a product that needs to succeed to
justify the expense. The director of technology is all about "agile", which
means setting strict deadlines and asking people if they've met them in daily
standup meetings. A chief architect who contributed many hours to an open
source project, reassuring the director of technology that it will payoff
tenfold once other people start using it, now believes that this should be the
toolbox for your project.

While I'm sure you can read some cynicism in what I've just written, sometimes
these are excellent choices - for the person who made them! Here's my analogy.

Someone studied tennis players, and concluded, based on John McEnroe's
success, that tennis players should play left handed, slice the backhand, and
get to the net as quickly as possible, avoiding rallies of more than 5
strokes.

So they hire Bjorn Borg, who appears to be a good tennis player. They hand him
his racket, and tell him that at his next French Open (played on slow clay
instead of fast grass), he will serve and volley and play left handed. Borg
will no longer appear to be a tennis genius, but he's such a good athlete that
he could probably win reasonably challenging local leagues this way. You know,
a B player.

~~~
curun1r
> They hand him his racket, and tell him that at his next French Open (played
> on slow clay instead of fast grass), he will serve and volley and play left
> handed.

This is essentially what happened with Rafael Nadal, who's uncle/coach made
him play left-handed despite being naturally right-handed. He's won the French
Open 9 of the 10 times he's played it.

That's where I disagree with the "No B Players" argument. I agree that people
need to be put in situations where they can succeed. But there are certain
people for which that set of situations where then can excel is significantly
larger than normal. And there's a lot of people who are only able to be
successful in a very narrow set of circumstances. As a business, it's very
rare that you can design a role around a candidate. But you can choose to hire
the most adaptable employees you can find. Those are the A players.

And, for me, those A players share one simple trait...the love to learn and
pursue it outside of work. Whether it's an engineer experimenting with new
technologies in side projects or someone learning a new language/skill outside
of work, that need to continually grow as a person leads to employees who can
almost always fit themselves into whatever role comes along. Those are the A
players that I look for when hiring employees and when interviewing with a
potential employer and that's the type of employee I try to be.

~~~
geebee
My understanding is that Nadal didn't really switch to being left handed. When
he was a child (was it age 8?), he had two handed strokes off both sides,
which is common for kids. Young tennis players often drop the non-dominant
hand on the forehand when they get stronger. His uncle, noticing that he was
as strong off the left as the right, encouraged him to play as a lefty. He
perfected this over countless hours for the next 11 years, winning the french
open at age 19. This is vastly different from taking a seasoned pro and
suddenly telling him to play with complete different tactics with his non-
dominant hand! In fact, if Nadal were required to play with Federer's strokes
tomorrow (ie., use his right hand, and hit a one handed backhand), my guess is
that he'd get bageled in his next pro match, and I doubt he'd ever be in the
top 100 again (that's an extremely conservative estimate, there's a good
chance he'd permanently collapse in the rankings).

That said, I do think that Nadal is an excellent example of how to be
adaptable. Take a look some time at how he approached hard courts after his
initial success on clay. Rather than staying way back, he moved much closer in
on the court, taking the ball on the rise, and taking his opponent's time
away. It was a big adjustment for the former clay court specialist, but it
worked, and it's why Nadal is now one of the few players with a career slam,
and titles on every surface.

So yes, you need to adapt, but (and I know I'm stretching a sports analogy a
big far here) it demonstrates how the truly top players go about change. They
do adapt, but they're highly strategic about it, they leverage existing
strengths, and they don't do it on a whim (and they especially don't do it on
someone else's whim).

I actually think that technical leaders are also very organizationally savvy
people. They adapt and learn new things, but they don't get jerked around from
task to task - and they'll say no and fight strategically about it if need be.
They understand how to align their projects with their strengths, and what
they want to learn next. This way, they don't waste time or mental energy, and
they play from a position of strength.

------
ChuckMcM
Thanks for that, it is a good read. My first manager at Sun used to say "there
are no bad employees, just bad fits." and over the years I've seen the wisdom
of that. I have been guilty of labeling someone as being a 'B' player only to
see that person excel in a different environment later. The risk for younger
engineers and people who don't know this is to make bad decisions about
joining or hiring or leaving a situation. As a manager I've used it sometimes
as a rationalization, knowing that by letting someone go they were going to
have an opportunity to find a better match for their personality, but it
doesn't "good" knowing you're giving someone that opportunity. It feels like
you failed them.

When I interview folks I try to get a sense of what makes them excited to get
up in the morning. Do they like solitude? (not good in a open plan office) Do
they like to try lots of things in rapid succession? Are they people that like
to bend existing things to their will or people who want to create something
beautiful from whole cloth? If you can figure out the thing that energizes
them and provide it, you will get great results from them.

~~~
alwaysdoit
What should one do if they feel like they are in a B position? How does one
know if it is the environment that needs to change, or something one needs to
learn and grow about oneself?

~~~
ChuckMcM
I don't think there is one answer to that question. Over the years I've
suggested people follow their passions because my observation was that people
working on something they were passionate about, were good at it. While I
stand by that advice, I've also observed times where people were passionately
working at something, poorly. Which is to say they had the energy but not the
mental discipline associated with growth in skill and expertise.

As the author explained in his post, being a B player can have roots deep
inside your head, in Daniel's case, _" It turns out that I don’t operate at my
full potential when I believe someone else will find and fix my mistakes. I
play better without a safety net. I also have a burning need to work on stuff
that I feel I own completely."_

I'm not sure how to trigger self reflection in others, I grew up doing it and
thought it was something everyone did until I met lots and lots of people who
never asked themselves "Why did I respond that way?" or "Where did that come
from?".

In Daniel's quote, and in my own makeup, ownership is a big deal. Even
something as simple as loading the dishwasher is demotivating to me if my wife
insists I load it "like she would." So for me if I'm not doing well I ask "Am
I not taking ownership here of this outcome?" And if the answer is yes I need
to figure out if its because I've tried and been rebuffed (suggests changing
jobs) or I've not really tried (suggests changing my own behavior). I
recognize though that what works for me is probably useless for others.

~~~
lutorm
_I 'm not sure how to trigger self reflection in others, I grew up doing it
and thought it was something everyone did until I met lots and lots of people
who never asked themselves "Why did I respond that way?" or "Where did that
come from?"._

This is called "metacognition" in educator circles, and it can make a big
difference in how people react to different situations. The skill to evaluate
and monitor your own thinking is something that many people never learn. See
e.g.
[http://www.etc.edu.cn/eet/Articles/metacognition/start.htm](http://www.etc.edu.cn/eet/Articles/metacognition/start.htm)

------
jacquesm
Funny. I was writing something along the same lines but Daniel does a much
better job of wording it. The essence is spot on, it's the organization that
makes people excel or fail.

Dysfunctional organizations happen much more frequently than dysfunctional
people do.

Once upon a time I was a 'B' player too (after starting out as an 'A' one I
quickly got demotivated to the point where I didn't want to go to work at all,
this was at a big bank). I'm happy they didn't take Daniel out back and shot
him.

A good company will mentor and will teach as well as empower, maximizing the
contribution its employees make by rewarding their input and by respecting
them as human beings first and employees second. That's a very hard trick but
the most successful companies know how to do this well.

And it's that part - the corporate culture - that is the hardest to shape and
nurture. Lose it and you've lost your momentum, if not your future.

~~~
JimboOmega
I think this is the point that's really missing; that it isn't just the person
and the environment need to match, as though the environment is some immutable
thing. As a manager, you have to notice when your "A" players are falling and
change things if necessary. You can change the environment to make more "A"
players out of your team. Though, sadly, more often management winds up making
"B" players out of "A" players. Or making ex-employees out of them.

By the way, there is a counter-argument. The true "A" players are go-getters
who bring about organizational change, who seek out challenges in an
unchallenging environment, etc. The "B" players aren't demotivated by bad
management, a hostile environment, lack of freedom or respect - they're people
who are just naturally unmotivated, lazy, etc.

I hate that argument, of course. It suggests motivation and productivity is
just some innate, immutable trait. And ultimately, it exists to excuse
managerial failings.

~~~
jacquesm
> The "B" players aren't demotivated by bad management, a hostile environment,
> lack of freedom or respect - they're people who are just naturally
> unmotivated, lazy, etc.

I strongly disagree with that. In the wrong environment I could definitely be
a 'B' player, in the right environment I'm unstoppable.

------
Luc
> “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a
> tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” - Albert
> Einstein

I'm pretty sure Einstein never said this.

It's important to correct these misattributions, because they spread quite
virulently and paint a saccharine picture of Einstein. He was a great
scientist, let's understand him from his real work instead of from made-up
poster quotes.

Here's the top Google result for this quote, which quite extensively examines
it and concludes there is no connection to Einstein:
[http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-
climb/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/)

P.S. There's an easy heuristic to apply to Einstein quotes with a life lesson
in them: he didn't say it. You'll be correct 95% of the time.

~~~
swombat
Thanks for the update... added it to the article. :-)

~~~
Luc
That's very kind of you. I enjoyed reading your article.

------
kareemm
Reminds me of Bob Sutton, a Stanford prof and author who writes[1]:

"This tendency to look for individual goats – and heroes – isn’t just a
problem that permeates the world of sports. It is reflected in many misguided
ideologies and management practices, which focus excessive energy on hiring
stars and weeding-out mediocre and poor performers, and insufficient energy on
building a great system that enables most competent people to succeed.

I agree – and can show you evidence – that there are huge differences in
individual skill and ability in every occupation. BUT we’ve also got a lot of
evidence that ordinary people can perform at top levels in a well-designed
system, and even a superstar is doomed to fail in a bad system."

Sutton, you know, _researches_ these kinds of things rather than holding a
blind belief that once you hire A players, your job is done.

1 -
[http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/08/crappy_people...](http://bobsutton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/08/crappy_people_v.html)

------
faceyspacey
Very good piece. It really puts all the responsibility on the employer as it
should be. See, if you do your job of getting people good for your
environment, it doesn't matter whether their output is 1 or 100--the cost of
integrating them is proportionate. For example if u have an intern with output
1 who fits your environment and the cost is .1 and another whose output is .25
and the cost is 5, ie to train them, you have a problem. It doesn't matter the
output. It matters how frictionlessly they can join your company and not cause
problems. And that is all up to u to forecast. I contract out all of the world
all the time to developers of varying skill levels, motivation levels and
personalities. It's up to me to match the right task to the right developer.
And I don't need everyone to have 100 productivity or even have many available
work hours.

~~~
jacquesm
The most important bit for me is not to treat people as 'disposables'. The
ease with which people get hired and fired really does not sit well with me.
Employers are way too quick to hire people rather than to do a serious vetting
up front. Spending real time on a hire is definitely worth it and once you've
narrowed it down to a shortlist it's perfectly ok to spend half a day or more
with a prospective hire in order to make sure they are who you need and that
the fit is right, that you're not hiring a fish for a tree climbing job.

But once you've pulled the trigger on that the responsibilities run both ways.
Employers are quick to expect loyalty but are loathe to display loyalty in
return. This can be vastly improved upon.

The best way to judge the health of a company is a single number: employee
turnover as a fraction of the total company size.

------
nradov
A good academic article on the topic is "Set Up to Fail: How Bosses Create
Their Own Poor Performers" by Jean-François Manzoni and Jean-Louis Barsoux.
[http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/research/doc.cfm?did=4...](http://www.insead.edu/facultyresearch/research/doc.cfm?did=46698)

Abstract: This paper explores how managers behave differently towards
perceived higher and lower performers - and how a manager's expectations of
subordinate performance tend to get acted out by the subordinates. It focuses
particularly on the way boss behavior towards "lower performers", while
_intended_ to increase performance, often ends up discouraging and alienating
these subordinates. The boss and perceived lower performer become entrapped in
a vicious circle which is costly for the bosses, the subordinates, team and
the wider organization. The paper considers how to recognize such a dynamic
and how to break out of the vicious circle.

~~~
tejon
"If you're going to be hung as a horse thief, you might as well take a nice
ride."

------
birken
I really like the post but I don't agree with the conclusion.

> don’t make the mistake to think that those who don’t fit your specific
> environment are unworthy human beings

> don’t let yourself fall into the trap of thinking you’re better than them

I think from a personal and societal perspective, both of these statements are
great. But in business, who cares? People found ambitious startups because
they think they are better than the companies/people that reside in that
space. Founding a company is inherently an arrogant exercise, the opposite of
a humble one. Business loves arrogance and confidence because business is
hard. If you spend all your time philosophizing about the humanity of it all,
some other competitor who doesn't care is just going to beat you [unless it is
a competitive advantage].

So basically, if you are firing somebody, it really doesn't matter whether you
are firing them because you think they are a B/C player or because you think
they are a great person but they aren't a fit. You are firing them. From a
humanity perspective it would be great if you spent a bunch of time helping
them find a new job and gave them a great severance package, but as nice as
that feels there is no guarantee this is good for your business at all.

~~~
jacquesm
I know a guy who operates like that. He's in fact quite successful, has exited
a company at $25M+, is _extremely_ abrasive to work with and thinks he's the
smartest guy on the planet and treats most people around him like shit. If
anybody has a god complex it's him.

If he'd been a little bit less arrogant, a little bit less abrasive and a bit
more aware of how many people it took to get there then he would have exited
at a _far_ higher valuation and would not quite possibly still lose it all due
to messing up during the lock-up period.

Why you fire people is extremely important because every time you fire someone
you should be telling yourself: I most likely made a mistake at some point in
the past, otherwise this firing would not have happened, how can I avoid this.

That way the company culture will improve rather than that you're setting
yourself up for a repetition of moves.

------
nradov
This aligns with Malcolm Gladwell's article "The Talent Myth"
[http://gladwell.com/the-talent-myth/](http://gladwell.com/the-talent-myth/)
which focuses on how Enron self destructed even though it was filled with "A
players". Gladwell asserts that anyone can be highly productive in the right
environment with appropriate supporting organization and process.

~~~
TwiztidK
I'm pretty sure lack of talent was the last thing that brought down Enron.

~~~
seanflyon
Which leads to the point that talent does not guarantee success. I don't think
talent is even the primary factor, though the article seems to go one step
further and claim that all people are equally talented.

------
otto_sf
Being an A or B player isn't something that happens at birth. Your performance
at work depends on a lot of factors.

But there are B players out there, and A players are doing better work than
them. This is irrefutable if you've ever worked on a team of significant size.
It's not supposed to be some personality-damning attribute that implies a B
player is forever doomed, or always brings less utility to the table than an A
player. It is specific to their current role, work, etc.

~~~
calinet6
"But there are B players out there, and A players are doing better work than
them."

Yes, but it turns out the correct question is _why_ , not _who._

When you ask why, you find out how to make everyone succeed. When you ask who,
you get a slew of negative cultural consequences.

~~~
otto_sf
No. There is no correct question. There are a ton of factors involved in an
individual's performance, some of which are personal, some are organizational,
some are circumstantial.

Don't oversimplify it. Asking why does not allow you to find out how to make
everyone succeed. It might help. It might not. But in general, I don't put
much stock in notions of everybody succeeding. That's rhetoric, not real
world.

~~~
jacquesm
It is true that not everybody can be brought to succeed in every environment,
but I think that's exactly what the article tries to convey. That if you feel
that you are surrounded by 'B' players that the problem does not lie with the
players but with the way the game is played.

And that is fixable. Adapting the game to the players will go a very long way
to making 'B' players perform better, in some cases by relocating them to
different roles or maybe sending them out to training.

Trying to ram square pegs through round holes will not work, that's _the_ way
to create 'B' players. And a very large amount of this is the result of poor
hiring practices, hiring people that do not fit their roles or the corporate
culture or the level of management they need (vs the degree of independence
they crave).

Fitting the company to the people isn't always possible, we usually don't run
armies where piles of conscripts ('soldiers') are being run through the mill
to see who can be promoted to a role of more responsibility.

So oversimplifying it definitely is not the road, but simply saying person 'x'
is a 'B' player and is beyond help is probably not the truth either.

~~~
calinet6
In 99% of cases, the problem is not with the people within a company, but with
the motivational, management, and work systems which surround them. That is
the point.

It is important to realize subtleties in how people operate, but it's more
important to realize that most problems are attributable to the _system_ and
not the _individuals._

Critically important, in fact. That's why it's the right way to look at the
problem.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming)

------
lnanek2
He claims no one is bad and some just don't fit and will thrive elsewhere, but
this is nonsense to anyone with big corporation experience. I've met many
people who never did any work, only jumped to the next easiest excuse for why
they turned nothing in, and just got their pay check because it was too much
of a pain to fire them.

~~~
bakareika
Exactly. I had a co-worker once, who was a JavaScript programmer — with zero
knowledge of JavaScript. Could not tell function call from variable
definition, and wasn't willing to learn, because why do that.

The scary part: he worked there for 2-3 years. Doing absolutely nothing. Like
that dude from Dilbert, only in real life.

~~~
fleitz
I learned an excellent lesson in management from this, got in serious shit for
trying to get a guy like that fired.

Give them glowing reviews and a transfer somewhere else, in the same way that
a null can be cast to any class, someone who can do nothing can work in any
field.

~~~
general_failure
The second line is the quote of the day for me :)

------
neilellis
Nice article, enjoyed that.

We humans seem to have an intrinsically elitist point of view which leads to
the idea that people are _intrinsically_ better or worse. Hence class/caste
systems institutional racism etc... oh and A/B players ;-)

However there is a plenty of evidence to the contrary.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmalion_effect)

[http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/09/18/161159263/teacher...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2012/09/18/161159263/teachers-
expectations-can-influence-how-students-perform)

------
TheMagicHorsey
Basically if you read between the lines of OP's story, he was a B player, but
then the fear of no safety net made him an A player.

Anyone touring the halls of Google, HP, Microsoft, or Intel, knows for a fact
that large, years-old organizations gather lots of dead weight. That is just
the nature of human organizations.

The alternative is either start-ups where the fear of death is ever present.
Or companies like Facebook (where allegedly you get fired in 12 months if you
don't deliver tangible value).

There are many people that deliver A level work without the fear of death. But
you can't assume you can fill your large organization with such people. They
are rare. Its hard enough to fill a small start up with such people, but at
least that is in the realm of possibility.

Google is never going to find 5000 self-motivated stars. Just look at how far
behind AWS Google Cloud is. Google is the nice, comfortable work environment
we all want to be in. Amazon is the scary environment with the sword of
damocles over our shoulder at all times.

~~~
adamc
I would put it differently. I agree with the author's point that people are
not A or B players -- but you can meaningfully rate them so in particular
roles. The author is an A player in the right role. I don't think this should
be news; you can see it in coaching of sports teams. Success often comes from
matching people to the right role.

The whole "A's hire A's" thing is a bit trite, but it's probably true that if
you are not a good fit to your current role, it's even less likely that you
will be able to determine whether someone else is a good fit. (There are
exceptions. There are non-technical people who are good at hiring technical
people. They're just rare.)

As far as organizations gathering dead weight -- while mis-hires are propbably
a big cause, people aren't immutably A, B, or C players. Life happens,
priorities change, people sometimes shift roles over time as well.

~~~
TheMagicHorsey
I agree with everything you say.

BTW, A's hire A's is bullshit. A's hire B's all the time. Hiring is a specific
skillset, and A managers suck at being A recruiters.

~~~
judk
Its not "As hire As". It's "Bs hire Cs, so As must be careful to not hire Bs"
Anyway it's a trite face not supported by research.

------
api
... or alternately: _everyone_ becomes a "B player" when they don't really
care.

As the post correctly states, people are not cogs. We are sentient beings with
complex, conceptual motivational structures. Companies with a sense of mission
and purpose can get A work out of most of their people, but if the mission and
purpose isn't _real_ \-- if it's a put-on or if it fades or gets distorted
with time -- then the effect fades as well. You can't really fake it, at least
not for very long.

------
bostik
This article reminded me of perhaps the most striking science fiction short
story ever written: _In Case Of Fire_ by Randall Garrett. It's a story I try
to keep in mind every time I have to shuffle tasks, or when I review my
interview notes.

Looks like it's available online too:
[http://gutenberg.readingroo.ms/2/4/5/2/24521/24521-h/24521-h...](http://gutenberg.readingroo.ms/2/4/5/2/24521/24521-h/24521-h.htm)

~~~
_deh
Great read

------
avivo
It is true that environment (and other non-intrinsic factors) have a huge
effect on how much value a person adds to a company (or community, or
friendship). I've definitely experienced this variance personally.

That said, if I had my perfect environment, and you had your perfect
environment...we would not be equally good at doing particular tasks. For some
values of me and you, the difference in effectiveness would be tremendous. We
can argue all day if that is due to nature or nurture - but the end result is
that some people are just _better_ at doing particular tasks than most other
people, by a very wide margin.

Also, some people are more consistent in their value add in spite of
particular forms of external variance. For a concrete example, there are some
people who will very productively stay with a company as it grows from 20 to
2000 people while others will prefer to hop around to stay in smaller
companies.

------
Peroni
Like most advice, it's not literal.

 _Only hire A players! Fire the B players!_

The subtext that you seem to be overlooking here is that you shouldn't settle
for 'good enough' and instead, raise your hiring standards.

>There are no B players, only people whose potential is not being brought to
life, fish which are made to climb trees and then told they suck.

As uncouth as it may be, there are plenty of people who just simply aren't
good enough to do a particular job. I'm sure you've worked with more than one
engineer who, despite any help provided, was just not cut out to be a good
programmer.

Your overall message will help someone to be a better person. I don't
necessarily believe it will make them a better employer.

~~~
api
> As uncouth as it may be, there are plenty of people who just simply aren't
> good enough to do a particular job.

Sure. In reality I think both are true, and this makes the problem of building
a great company even more challenging.

No organization can make someone who isn't good at something be good at it,
but _a dysfunctional organization can turn a genius into a B or C player_. So
as the builder of an organization, you are powerless to improve your people
but very capable of demotivating and destroying them.

Tough breaks.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
That's not quite right. You can certainly inspire folks to do their best.
Different from 'improving' them I suppose; but with the same result?

~~~
api
No, it's harder than that.

If you don't inspire people, you get B (or worse) work out of everyone. Being
inspiring is the only way to get A work out of anyone, ever. Nobody works at
their full potential for a "bullshit job."

------
jonmc12
I read the book Topgrading a few years back, defined A-player relative to the
position: "An ‘A’ player as defined by Topgraders is one who qualifies among
the top 10% of talent for the compensation available for a position (any
position)."

I think this concept has been understood for many years in industry. However,
In startup land, its been ego-cized a bit through logic like "people are the
most important assets of startups, therefor there are good people and bad
people, only hire the good people". But this logic alone is open for
misinterpretation because whether talking about "A-player" or "10xer", good is
much for a function of ability of an organization to empower a person in a
position.

On the other hand, there is a reality that certain individuals will be an
"A-player" more consistently in more positions than other individuals.. so I
believe there is some value to understanding how an individual's general
behaviors would, or would not, make them an A-player in specific positions. At
the same time, its likely very difficult to deduce this kind of statement
meaningfully unless the same person has worked with someone in multiple
positions.

~~~
bradsmart
Good points. In the 3rd edition of Topgrading I offer definitions of A, B, C
across many competencies, but early in the book I say that the simplest way to
think of A, B, C Players is high performer, adequate, low performer. I've
asked 6,500 executives (in Topgrading Interviews) to characterize the teams
they inherited and ended up with and they easily relate to high perfumer,
adequate, low performer ... and the long explanation of "top 10%% can be
avoided. These 3 categories work for executives or part time stockers. That
said, over time companies get better and better "calibrated" and the
requirements become stiffer; therefore, in 2014 clients think back to their
designations 3 years ago and now put a higher percentage in the lower
categories ... because is does take time/experience to accurately rate
someone. Hope this helps!

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nyan_sandwich
I don't get it. The author rails through the whole essay that there are no A
players and B players, but the conclusion concedes that some people are
stronger and smarter, and some people are going to fit into your company
better, which from the perspective of the employer, is fully equivalent to the
A/B thing. The only difference is in what you think they might accomplish
elsewhere, and vague notions of their value as a human being.

More interesting is the point that a given person may thrive in one
environment and falter in another. This is totally true, and very important to
keep in mind when evaluating what to do with people who are faltering, but
it's not a dichotomy between that and the "fully general robust innate talent"
theory. Both are true. Some people are simply stronger and smarter, but on top
of that, environment plays a large role. Act accordingly.

------
programminggeek
I'll be a contrarian and say that there ARE B players out there and C players
and so on. That part is true.

The part about a great organization or team has a structure that fosters
excellence is true.

Where this falls down for me is that there IS a synergy between the two where
you get the right process with the right team and magic can happen that
wouldn't so much come from a bunch of average to terrible people.

For example, look at the New York Yankees vs the Oakland A's. Every so often
Billy Beane is able to get a team together that makes an amazing run, but at
some point a team with great process and top tier talent wins if only for the
fact that they are more skilled AND they have the right organization as a team
that allows them to excel.

When you have BOTH great players and a great organization/process, then you
reach the top levels.

------
ctdean
He's just misinterpreting the quote, and then setting up a strawman to make an
slightly related point.

"A" players make an outsized impact on a rapidly growing organization.
Successful startups aren't like other activities - it's built into the model
that the early team has to be truly, deeply, amazing. If you don't think that
"A" players exists in startup land, you're just not paying attention. Just
like there are "B" players who join a startup and then just coast along and
don't make a giant impact.

I've never heard Jobs (or anyone else for that matter), claim that all people
could be permanently categorized as "A", "B", or "C" players.

You want to be Apple? eject the "B" players.

------
lifeisstillgood
I have only recently found a position where I feel I might be a A minus fit.
Being a B player sucks - especially if like most other b players you are
trying to hide it.

In fact I would say hiding B player dom is the thing most likely to prevent
getting to A. The problem is very very few environments allow one to make as
brave an announcement as OP and survive with salary intact.

I think probably the best means to build a team of A players is to allow
people to admit they are B players.

Scientific method is a great example of this

------
dredmorbius
The article poses a false equivalence.

First off, there are absolutely people with greater skills, many of them made
at birth, though I'll get back to that. You cannot take a B (or a Z) and make
them an A.

But you can _make_ an A into a B (or Z). Give them poor nutrition, childhood
diseases, knocks on the head, environmental toxins, poor education. Or a toxic
workplace, bad task fit, or other workplace issues. You can really easily take
someone with a ton of talent and squelch it.

That's the real lesson here.

~~~
free2rhyme214
Agreed

------
stevewepay
I come from a different generation where people aren't all assumed to be
equally smart and equally talented. So I very much subscribe to the idea that
some people are clearly smarter and more talented than others.

There are definitely A players who are demotivated and become B players. But
the point of "Only hire A players! Fire B players!" is simply due to the fact
that most startups can't afford to sit around and move demotivated employees
around until they find a good fit. It's also the same reason why many startups
don't train people for jobs and instead expect them to be already experienced.
The number 1 currency for startups is time, and if they don't get traction
quickly, the entire company will falter. Wasting time and money on an employee
that isn't a good fit, regardless of how intrinsically talented they are
doesn't make sense, because the entire survival of the company demands that
everyone is performing at top levels for a relatively short period of time.

As the company grows and turns a profit, and if it can afford to invest in
employees, it might make more sense to try to elevate the performance of their
B players by moving them around, etc. But that requires a more mature company.

~~~
vonmoltke
> But the point of "Only hire A players! Fire B players!" is simply due to the
> fact that most startups can't afford to sit around and move demotivated
> employees around until they find a good fit.

I think that is very much correct. However, a central point of Daniel's post,
modified for this example, is that one startup's "A-player" is another
startup's "B-player", and vice versa. Additionally, its kinda hard to figure
out who is going to be an "A-player" _for you_ in the hiring process.

> It's also the same reason why many startups don't train people for jobs and
> instead expect them to be already experienced.

I'd argue that many startups don't have a handle on what they actually need,
and depending on how fluid their execution is at a given time such a handle
may not be possible.

~~~
jacquesm
> one startup's "A-player" is another startup's "B-player", and vice versa.

Or even within the same company, just different roles.

------
ownagefool
Personally, I think we're all pretty much A players until we're demotivated.
It's dangerous to spend too long demotivated though, lest you fall behind and
stick with the rut.

------
dpeck
There are plenty of B players, some of them lifers and some of them just there
for a time due to other circumstances (young child, old parents, etc), but
they(we) very much do exist.

~~~
mhurron
Seriously, not everyone is a genius, and not everyone will work to stretch out
what they can.

The vast majority of people are just middle of the road.

------
hartator
I don't really get the point of article... Find your own A player tailored to
the environement you are building? How is this different than to hire A
players?

------
rdlecler1
Tiger Woods would be a b-player on the worst basketball team in the NBA. The
question you need to ask is whether a person will be an A-player on your team.

------
hawleyal
So all you said was there are B players for specific companies, but they might
be A players in a different one.

Fucking brilliant.

~~~
jacquesm
What a low level comment.

No, that's entirely not what he said. But if that's all that you got out of it
then I guess that's better than nothing.

------
michaelochurch
Correct, and courageous. A- and B-playership are mostly about context. People
who are engaged and secure at work behave like A-players, trying to achieve
more every day. People who are worried about political changes and protecting
an income or status turn into B players.

"B players hire C players" isn't always true, and I use the name "insurance
incompetent" for that (put someone awful on the team so no one half-good ever
gets fired when you have to take a lump during layoff season). It's only one
of many ways that people make suboptimal decisions out of insecurity.

A lot of terrible software is built when people with A-player talent turn into
"B players" due to environmental insecurity.

------
finishingmove
Bravo, Daniel, my fellow humanist.

------
thanatropism
First world problem, this "too much meritocracy" thing.

It's a good thing. First world problems are good to have, discuss and
overcome. "Third world problems" in the internetspeak are those for which the
solution is known, but the general culture isn't ready for.

------
groby_b
> "A few of us are lucky to be able to find or fashion an environment which
> enables us to give our best day after day after day."

That's not what A players are - at least in my book. An A player is productive
and brilliant regardless the environment. A better environment allows them to
be more productive, but they always stand out from the mass.

Maybe that means the A players I encountered were simply skillful enough to
always pick the right environment - that's certainly possible. (If so, there's
an obvious lesson in there)

But yes, there are B and C players. And they _do_ drag down teams. If you have
a good manager, they're able to coach the B players, and they'll shed the C
players. If you have a bad manager, they try "A only", or they don't care.

"A only" doesn't work. There are not enough A players to make that possible.
"Don't care" results in your typical dysfunctional corporate environment.

~~~
jackmaney
> An A player is productive and brilliant regardless the environment.

So, you're telling me that at least one person exists who can be productive in
_any_ environment? I don't believe that for a nanosecond.

~~~
groby_b
I'm telling you that this person will be, on average, _more_ productive than
other people in any given environment.

If the system keeps the output net-negative, no, you can't change that. "A
player" or not.

And of course, environment as related to the chosen profession. It's not like
somebody who's good in one field is automatically good in another.

