Topgrading

 

Many people view Topgrading largely as a highly effective hiring process (which it is!), but are not quite sure how to Topgrade existing employees.  Can Topgrading be used for people who are currently on your team?  Absolutely!

 

The process to determine whether or not incumbents are A players is similar to the Topgrading hiring process, with some notable differences.  Here are the steps.

 

1. If you do not already have one, create a Job Scorecard.

A good Job Scorecard contains two sections, specific and measurable Accountabilities (the results you expect an A player in the position to deliver) and a list of Competencies that are key to delivering expected results.

 

If you already have a list of goals and objectives for the position, you already have a good start on the Accountabilities.  However, you have to be sure that the Accountabilities are measurable and sufficient.  Sufficient means that if a person were to deliver those results, and only those results, you would consider him or her an A player. 

 

People sometimes get hung up on describing Key Competencies.  Most companies have a list of values (integrity, teamwork, etc.), which is a good place to start.  Chances are, your organization’s values will be key competencies for most positions.  If you get stuck, use our list of 50 Topgrading Competencies to come up with additional areas that an A player must exhibit to deliver the expected results.

 

2. Conduct a Tandem Topgrading Interview with the individual.

If your organization is large enough, it is best if the individual is interviewed by two Topgrading-trained A players from another area of the company.  If the interviewers have a lot of interaction and history with the candidate, there is a tendency to not dig deeply enough to get at the important details of accomplishments and mistakes.

 

If your organization is not big enough to do that, recognize that interviewers may not probe enough into areas they have experience with to mitigate bias as much as possible.  At a minimum, the person’s current supervisor should not be one of the interview partners.  Their insights and opinions will be included in the assessment (verbal 360º interview)

 

3. Conduct 360º interviews with 5-10 coworkers.

These 360º interviews could also be described as “internal reference checks.”  You should speak with a person’s supervisor, several peers, several direct reports, and internal customers.  We recommend favoring A player coworkers for these interviews, mainly because their motives are less questionable than those of non-As.  A non-A player subordinate could paint a glowing picture of her boss because the supervisor does not hold people accountable and weak performers love that. Or, that non-A player subordinate could view the 360º interview as an opportunity to really “stick it to him” because he recently put her on a Performance Improvement Plan.  Favoring A players will not eliminate those types of situations, but will reduce the likelihood of occurrence.

 

Ask coworkers about the individual’s Strengths, Weaknesses, Recent Accomplishments, Recent Mistakes, their best Suggestions for the individual to perform and grow, and about any specific areas you are interested in.  For instance, if Communication is a key competency, you could ask, “On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the effectiveness of Jason’s communications, and why?”

 

4. Write a short summary report and rate the Job Scorecard.

After you and your interview partner complete the Topgrading Interview and 360º interviews, write a short summary report outlining the individual’s strengths (about 20), weaker areas (4-5) and any developmental recommendations you have for him or her. 

 

Then rate the Job Scorecard to determine whether or not the person is an A player.

 

5. Give the person feedback.

Be sure to “close the loop” on the process by giving the person feedback on your conclusions.  If you determined the person is an A player, the feedback will help that person remain at an A level and your developmental recommendations may help him or her reach their career goals more efficiently.

 

If the person has A potential, the feedback will help them get to the A player-level as quickly as possible.

 

If the person is a non-A player and does not have the potential to become an A, the feedback can help you convince the person that they are in the wrong position and open the conversation about what they could do in the organization or elsewhere to perform at an A level.

(Note:  In this article is a chart with 50 competencies color coded by Easy to Change, Hard to Change, and In-Between.)

Managers have told us that one of their most recurring frustrations, a daily challenge, is trying to figure out if an employee can improve in one or more competencies – if training or coaching will actually make a difference.  Or, if the person is “hard-wired” and simply not capable of changing, even if they are a super coach.

Ditto for hiring.  After conducting tandem Topgrading interviews, there is almost always a conversation that goes something like this:  “We agree, candidate X has a lot of strengths, but like all candidates, she has some weaker points.  She is no better than average in several competencies, such as political savvy, personal organization, and public speaking.  Do you suppose that training events and coaching can significantly improve her in these three competencies?”

We Topgraders have what should be a very clean, definitive answer.  I’ve interviewed over 6,000 executives, each with an average of 10 jobs, and I heard for each and every job their description of successes, failures, boss appraisals of their competencies and whether those competencies were strengths or weaker points.  That’s over 60,000 “case studies” that shed light on whether or not competencies can be improved upon.  Multiply that times 40 Topgrading professionals, and we really should know if competencies can be changed and if so, how managers can coach people to change.  (The “how” is a future Topgrading Tips.)

For now, let’s make some generalizations.  As Topgrading professionals, we’ll share our experience with you, categorizing 50 competencies according to whether those competencies are Easy to Change, Hard to Change, or In-Between.

Are there exceptions?  Of course.  Integrity, intelligence, and passion are hard-wired, but occasionally someone does “re-wire” their brain.  For example I worked with a man who truly authored his own “integrity transplant.”  He was fired from a brokerage firm for dishonesty, and prohibited from selling stocks and bonds, ever!  He characterized himself as a “slimeball,” and a few years later compared himself, or rather his FORMER self to the wheeler-dealer in the movie Wall Street (‘greed is good’).  He was so shattered at how he had disappointed his parents, wife, kids, and friends, that he did in fact transform himself.  Ten years later I interviewed him and he insisted that my client call all bosses he’d had since the debacle, for he said, “They will rate me a 10 on a 10-point scale of honesty, and describe my ethics as rock solid.”

Indeed the references were that positive.  Flash forward 20 years and the man retired as CEO of a famous company, and his reputation was (and is) stellar.

Another example:  I’ve seen many “obviously” C player managers, lacking in resourcefulness, drive, energy, passion, and initiative, “come alive” and perform at the A player level when something crucial happened:  the company Topgraded, fired C player bosses and replaced them with A players.  In most of those cases the Topgrading Interview showed that the “C players” had been As in the past, and when they again reported to A players who encouraged their ideas and inspired them, they returned to A player status.

But generally don’t expect dramatic improvements in people who are intellectually limited, lazy, dishonest, or uninspiring.  Or, to say it more accurately, only bet on people improving competencies when they have a history of improving competencies.

People who, in job after job, overcome weaker points are usually high potential people with accurate self-awareness, self-objectivity, and a high level of ambition and energy.  They show a pattern of soliciting feedback, welcoming coaching, and actually turning weaker points into strong points.  Aah – these are the A players you want, the high performers who will welcome your coaching and actually improve!

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE: The new Topgrading Workbook, the one used in all our workshops, is organized around the Topgrading Vision.  Each of the 12 steps is explained, the problem it solves is clarified, and then fun exercises teach the Topgrading skill.  You have to actually use it to get the favorable results!  For more information and to invest in the Topgrading Workbook, click here.

Do you have difficulty figuring out whether someone in the company, or a candidate for selection, is an A, B, or C player?  If so, you’re in good company, for frankly only the companies with the most sophisticated human resources methods have it “nailed.”  But this article should help, since it shares the experience of Topgrading professionals who are constantly helping clients accurately put people in the right categories.

Actually, Topgraders have three slightly different categories – A Player, A Potential, and Non-A.  We define A player as someone in the top 10% of talent for the pay, in your location, in the industry, and reporting to you.

When companies are Topgrading and more than 75% of the people they hire turn out to be A players, they don’t care if someone is a B without A potential or a C without A potential, for both are not good enough.  The only good categories are those who are already the high performers, the A players, and those with the potential to become the high performers, within a reasonable amount of time.

Okay, but when people are just learning Topgrading, it’s easiest to use the A, B, and C categories, to show the dramatic differences.  Following are 5 of the best ways I know of to judge people in a fair, objective, legally defensible way:

1.  How A, B, and C players differ on key competencies. The following chart is a bit simplistic because not all A players are that great on all competencies and not all C players are that bad on all the competencies. Indeed, in real life C players usually are A players on some competencies.

2.  Look for patterns of success. The “magic” of Topgrading comes from understanding, bottom line, how successful a person was in job 1, job 2, job 3, etc., with the greatest weight given to the most recent jobs.

Last year I interviewed a smooth talking executive who had clearly been a superstar in the industry, but the guy had not worked hard for years.  He had peaked years ago, was on a decline and frankly the pattern showed he was “over the hill,” someone who had lost his energy, drive, resourcefulness, and passion.

3.  Recruit a replacement. This really is the best way to see if your employee is truly among the top 10% of talent available.

After you have argued with your employee, complained about unsatisfactory performance, and heard 1,000 excuses, the simplest way to see if there are better people is to actively recruit them.  This can be done secretly, but go through all the Topgrading hiring steps including talking with former bosses.

Over the years I’ve heard it hundreds of times: “It became very easy to replace my employee after going through the Topgrading hiring steps, because I became absolutely certain my excuse-making employee was a C player, and I had three A players very willing to join me at exactly the same salary as my C player.”

4.  Never stop building your recruitment networks. As a Topgrader, you know the best way to recruit is by staying in touch with 40 A players you’ve worked with and also stay in touch with 20 “connectors,” people who know a lot of A players.

But in addition to using your networks to recruit, staying in touch helps you figure out if your team consists of A, B, or C players. As you chat from time to time with A players you’ve worked with in the past you hear about their accomplishments, what they pay people, the standards they set, and when you share your frustrations with a certain employee, your network will give you feedback that your expectations are too high or too low.

5.  Assess employees using Topgrading methods. You might already know that my first consulting engagement with General Electric was to improve their success promoting people.  They improved from 25% to well over 90% success, and the internal assessment methods are almost identical to Topgrading hiring methods.  Two trained interviewers conduct the tandem Topgrading interview and instead of talking with outside references (for hiring) they talk with bosses, peers, and subordinates in the company.

Summary: Use all of these methods to, as Jack Welch calls it, “differentiate” among high and low performers.  Needless to say, when you have concluded you have one or more Non-As, it’s time to coach them to get into the A player category or find another job, and it’s time for you to use the 12 Topgrading hiring steps to replace them.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE: The new Topgrading Workbook, the one used in all our workshops, is organized around the Topgrading Vision.  Each of the 12 steps is explained, the problem it solves is clarified, and then fun exercises teach the Topgrading skill.  You have to actually use it to get the favorable results!  For more information and to invest in the Topgrading Workbook, click here.

I had the chance to talk to a fantastic Topgrader last week, Travis Isaacson of Access Development Corporation. We were talking about Job Scorecards, and Travis had some fantastic advice about them. Here are five points worth considering:

1. To relieve stress, tell people, especially the Hiring Managers who are responsible for creating them, that the Job Scorecard is a living document that will change. You don’t have to get it perfect the first time. When you realize that it’s not quite right, you can change it. Hiring Managers are more willing to do a first draft if they know they can change it later if situations change.

2. Look at what you already have in your systems, culture, and processes. You have people who are receiving bonuses, you have lists of responsibilities. Start from where you are. How do you get bonuses? That should be on the scorecard. Turn responsibilities into accountabilities.

3. You can build scorecards the way you build budgets. If a company wants to make $50M, you have to figure out how much revenue is going to come from each department. The same sort of process can work all the way down to individual contributors. A Sales Manager has to generate a certain amount of revenue, and then that’s broken down to individual sales people.

4. Start at the top. Build the CEO/President scorecard and work your way down.

5. Scorecards aren’t just used for hiring. They are central to our entire talent management process because they are the center piece of our performance management system.

Note:  A (free) download comes with this article!

Here is the simplest, clearest outline of all 12 Topgrading hiring steps, including what problem they solve, what skill must be learned, and the results that are typically achieved with using each Topgrading tool.

Thirty (plus) years of experience have clearly demonstrated that each and every one of these 12 Topgrading hiring steps is not just desirable, but necessary, in order to achieve 90% hiring success.  Cut corners by ignoring any one of the steps and it’s been well documented that costly mis-hires go up, and up, and up!

The download, the Topgrading Vision document, came from, of all places, a request from Tony Robbins.  He’s asked me two years in a row to be the “hiring guru” at his Summit for entrepreneurs, and while preparing for it Tony asked for a template, dashboard, something to clearly show how, where, and why all the Topgrading hiring parts fit together.  Good idea, Tony, thanks for the suggestion.  Hundreds of beginning Topgraders have bookmarked the Topgrading Vision, so all the steps are clear.

Enough introduction.  Just click here and immediately download the Topgrading Vision!

RECOMMENDED RESOURCE: The new Topgrading Workbook, the one used in all our workshops, is organized around the Topgrading Vision.  Each of the 12 steps is explained, the problem it solves is clarified, and then fun exercises teach the Topgrading skill.  You have to actually use it to get the favorable results!  For more information and to invest in the Topgrading Workbook, click here.