Topgrading

HOW TO TOPGRADE A NOT-FOR-PROFIT

One of my favorite clients has been the American Heart Association, and anyone serving on boards of nonprofits will be impressed with longtime CEO Cass Wheeler’s recently released book, You’ve Got to Have Heart.  As Bill Clinton put it, this book is “… a useful and insightful guide for how to transform hard work and dedication into change for those most in need.”

When AHA was introduced to Topgrading it was a slumbering nonprofit, and Cass Wheeler felt AHA had far too many low performers.  The traditional justification in nonprofits has been – “marginal performance is acceptable because my work is a noble mission and I receive modest pay.”  Nonsense!

Fortunately AHA had Cass at the helm, and he’s too modest to say it, but he’s an A Player and therein lies Principle #1 for board members of nonprofits:  Hire an A Player CEO.

Cass Topgraded, doubled fund raising from $400 million to $800 million, and launched highly successful programs such as Go Red for Women.  As Executive Vice President Almarie Wagner put it, “Topgrading saves lives.”

Chapter 6 of You’ve Got to Have Heart, Building the Best Staff, is loaded with Topgrading advice.  Here are just a few of Cass’ principles, supplemented with some of my insights from working with AHA:

1. (as stated) Hire an A Player CEO.  If you’re on a board, face up to the possibility that your well-meaning CEO is never going to be an A Player, and therefore the organization will underperform.  Any organization led by a weak CEO will never be able to successfully implement Cass’ principles. As you know, C Player CEOs cannot attract teams of A Players.

2.  Assess internal talent.  The 15 regional executives at AHA volunteered to be assessed by me and agreed in advance that if I did not consider them an A Player or at least A potential, they’d step down.  Several, anticipating what I’d conclude, did just that – offering to take a lesser job, retire, or whatever.

Why such nobility?  Because – they have a mission they consider more important than personal career status.  How refreshing is that?

The tandem Topgrading Interview, supplemented with confidential interviews with coworkers, was the method I used.  And then I passed the baton to AHA.  A Player managers, trained in Topgrading methods, did Topgrading interviews and 360 interviews of coworkers after I was no longer needed.  It’s the best method I know of to assess internal talent.

3.  Replace chronic low performers (AHA calls them Low-Potentials).  Here’s where Cass’ A Player status was shown:  just like Jack Welch, Cass led meetings in which managers were held accountable for results, and non-performers were given training and another chance to achieve goals, and then if they didn’t perform, they were redeployed.  “Redeploy” means they either get a different job in the organization and perform at the A Player level, or they leave.

In my experience, these meetings are where B and C Player CEOs and other managers wimp out … giving third and fourth chances to chronic underperformers.  Only A Player CEOs truly hold everyone accountable for high levels of performance.

4.  Use Topgrading methods to hire A Players.  Cass and I found plenty of people affected by heart disease who were willing to take less pay to join AHA.  Nonprofits need NOT lower expectations, just because the pay is lower than in the for-profit world.

Also, if you replace three C Players with one A Player, you save so much money that maybe your pay can be competitive with the for-profits. Cass notes that it’s worth keeping jobs open longer to be sure to hire an A Player.

5. As Cass puts it, “Make everyone in your organization a recruiter.” Why pay external recruiters or run ads when A Players in the organization can recruit A Players they’ve worked with in the past?

6.  Use Topgrading methods to assess candidates – create job scorecards, conduct tandem Topgrading Interviews, and conduct reference checks with bosses, arranged by candidates.  Amen!

So, did AHA’s talent improve?  Cass documents that among the top 250 managers, AHA tripled the number of A Players (they call them High-Potentials).

Final thoughts:  If you are on one or more nonprofit boards, your motivation is no doubt to “give back.”  (With those sentiments, Smart & Associates offers a 50% discount to nonprofits.)  Neither you nor we like giving our time and money to organizations that don’t accomplish much.

That’s why You’ve Gotta Have Heart is so inspiring.  And the bottom line message is simple:  pack your nonprofits with A Players and two things are sure to happen:  1. The organization will be a lot more successful, and 2. You’ll get a lot more satisfaction from your contributions.

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES: If you are on a nonprofit board, get Cass’ book for all the board members!
If you’d like to learn more about how to Topgrade a for-profit or nonprofit, consider attending the September 1 - 2 quarterly Topgrading workshop, where other nonprofits will attend along with for-profit companies.  Click here for information.