Topgrading

FIRE YOUR C PLAYERS NOW!

“Give a lot, expect a lot, and if you don’t get it, PRUNE.”    ……………. Tom Peters

Topgrading is not just about hiring but includes firing people who are not crucial, particularly in a weak economy.  Some have called this Bottomgrading, but that’s a bit tacky.

In the past few months I’ve met with over 1,000 business owners in a series of workshops, seminars, and speeches.  I’ve asked, “In this down economy, how many of you took a fresh look at your strategy, tweaked it, and laid off low performers that didn’t fit your revised strategy?”  Almost all raised their hands, indicating they did all three!  Good for them!  They are adapting to survive, and adaptation requires removing low performers.

But here is the key question we’re addressing today:

“How many of you are uncertain about whether to keep, replace, or otherwise get rid of some of your key people?”

Answer: almost all of the 1,000 business owners raised their hands.  Having been through half a dozen economic downturns, I know that managers easily remove the obvious low performers, but hesitate to remove some people who at times seem really good, but weak at other times, and … “I just don’t know if I should keep them.”

Fortunately, there are time-tested ways to get MUCH deeper insights into the talent and potentials of your key people.

How to Assess Your Top People

“Motivation is simple.  You eliminate those who are not motivated.” …  Lou Holtz

There are four recommended ways to validly and objectively assess your key people.  The tools 3 and 4 are best, but let’s start with the easiest.

1.  Rate your key people yourself.

If this is the step you have already taken, jump to #2.  If not …

Rate people A, B, or C player, and for B and C players, rate them as having A potential or not.

Ask yourself, “Are my people in the right jobs now?”  “Are there people who were A players for jobs I no longer need … so they should be redeployed into a job where they can perform at the A level or leave?”  “Who are the managers with the potential to become A players?”

This easy and commonplace method of figuring out who should go or stay unfortunately leads to doubts about some, so following are 3 better Topgrading methods to get the answer.

2.  Conduct Team Ratings.

With the deadwood pruned (to use Tom Peter’s phrase) look at the rest of your team.  If you are certain your top 3 or 4 people are A players for executing your newly considered strategy, as a team the 3 or 4 of you do the ratings of the next 20 (or whatever).  Don’t just rely on your own opinions; your A player managers can lend a bit more objectivity to your conclusions.

Talk for 30 minutes to an hour, reviewing each person – discuss their performance for the past 3 years and list their strengths and weaker points; discuss the job they must do in the next couple of years (including their accountabilities and competencies), and then decide whether they are A, B, or C players and if not A, do they show A potential?

Keep only the As and A potentials.  (I know – the title of the article says fire C players, but Topgraders also fire Bs who do not have A potentials.)

BUT WHAT IF THE TEAM CAN’T AGREE ON WHETHER SOME  HAVE A POTENTIALS OR NOT?

This is where two great, proven Topgrading methods come in, for these methods will make you very sure of whether you should keep someone or let them go.

3.  Audit the Team Using the Thorough Topgrading Method.

My first project for GE (15 years ago) was training internal managers to assess and coach internal people.  Jack Welch was frustrated that only about 25% of the people promoted turned out to be A players a year later.   Bosses can rate current performance well, but few are good at picking people to promote.

So I trained line managers and HR people to do … you guessed it! … tandem Topgrading Interviews, the same type of interview Topgraders use to hire people.  But instead of external reference checks, internal interviews with bosses (not just the current boss), peers, and subordinates are done.  GE jumped from 25% to over 90% success promoting people.

The same Topgrading methods (with tweaks) are used to audit talent in their present job, pick people for promotion, and assess external candidates for hire.

These assessments give you “missile lock” on talent – exactly who should stay, who have potential for promotion.  Only the A players and A potentials are kept, and others are redeployed (they get a job in the company where they can be an A player or leave).

This Topgrading audit approach is highly credible … so that weak people quietly go find another job.  But it requires that the audits are conducted by two A player managers, trained in Topgrading methods.

Do you have the internal managers who can do this now?  Do you have A player managers who could learn Topgrading methods and do this soon?

4.  Assessments and Coaching by a Topgrading Professional.

Sorry – this is self-serving, but if your managers can’t do Topgrading audits, maybe asking Topgrading professionals to do the audit and coaching makes sense.

In our 7-hour DVD Topgrading Tool Kit, there are quotes from successful CEO Topgraders who recommend, the first time around, using Topgrading professionals to provide the “second opinion” on whether someone should go or stay, and to coach everyone assessed.  Underperformers are coached to leave and As and A potentials are coached to contribute the most.

Usually Topgrading assessors gather so much valid information that we can say to a C player, “Pat, not only have you failed to achieve the results you said you’d achieve, but everyone around you believes you didn’t do what you should have and, on top of that, your coworkers really do NOT believe you will ever have what it takes to succeed.  Based on coaching thousands of managers I can’t see how you’ll be able to stay, so maybe we should talk about what job you can look for.  I think I know what jobs you’d do well at and enjoy and what developmental activities will really be useful to you in the next couple of years.”

Coaching the A players and A potentials is also crucial.  They love the feedback and recommendations and implement them conscientiously … and by the way, the best way to keep your A players is to develop them.

In Short, you owe it to yourself and your company to be sure about who should go or stay.  Topgrading methods will provide the answers.  And as a bonus, a down economy provides a million  A players, at all salary levels, to join your team.

FEATURED RESOURCES: Rather than fire C players, there’s the best way on the planet to not hire them to begin with!  Check out the new Topgrading Quick Start Program.  With only an hour of learning you can be using some of the most powerful Topgrading tools, and experiencing the power of Topgrading to dramatically reduce those costly mis-hies.  To learn more click here.