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I got hired because I was an A-Player.

I had been promoted 9 times in 10 years. I had succeeded in multiple lines of business. I had a brand-name MBA and beat out dozens of top-tier candidates for the role.

And within 3 months, one thing was obvious:

I was not an A-player.

I’ve also experienced the opposite first-hand.

I met a young executive at a social event. It was obvious to me immediately she could be an A-player. But as I learned her story, she was clearly struggling. So I did what any rationale leader would do:

I offered her a role.

And as we worked out the transfer to my team with her boss, he quietly warned me that she was "ok but didn't have A-player horsepower."

Three years later, she was running the fastest-growing division of the company.

So what's the lesson in all of this?

We're all A-players in the right context.

But truly understanding which context you have to offer, visualizing the right person who'd thrive in that setup, and then convincing them to do it is a damn-near-impossible trifecta.

So let's see if we can tilt those odds a bit more in your favor.

99.99% of companies are not A-players only.

Why not?

Being A-player only is easy to say and impractical to implement.

What's clever for branding is often bad for business.

So you have a choice:

Both strategies can win.

What doesn’t work is pretending to be one thing when you’re really the other.

The former CEO of AppSumo, Ayman Al-Abdullah, gave me this timely example yesterday.

Imagine you're running an airline. Which role do you prioritize hiring A-players for?

95% of executives will immediately answer, "Pilots."

But given there hasn't been a domestic airline incident in the US in over 20 years, are the pilots how we choose airlines? No.

It's the customer-facing roles—the people who can make the difference between an outrageously good experience and a ruinous start to your trip.

So as you think about your A-player required roles, ask:

But how do we find the A-player for that role?

While your context will define the specifics, I find that most A-players possess many of the following attributes:

Independent thinking - A-players don't accept what's given to them. They question, often from first principles. They tend to be creative and see paths or connections others miss. If they can teach you something in an area your expert, that's a good sign.

Humble & Curious - They want the best answer and know they rarely have it. They seek the company of people smarter than themselves and are grounded enough to ask for help. Look for people deeply connected.

High standards - they don't allow themselves to cut corners, nor accept their peers doing it. They have outright disdain for complacency. They own their wins and their losses equally and offer zero excuses.

Energy Raisers - A-Players tend to be givers, pouring more into others will little expectation in return. They're the type of leaders who make more leaders. They are fountains.

Focused - They are equally comfortable with the big picture as they are the details and use that to calibrate the direction they're charging. This drive is often mistaken for impatience as they're willing to exert extra effort to accelerate outcomes.

A-players who check all the boxes above are rare. Keith Rabois, while COO of Square, shared his Barrel and Ammunition analogy to show why:

"Most great people actually are ammunition. But what you need in your company are barrels. And you can only shoot through the unique barrels that you have. That's how the velocity of your company improves is having barrels. Then you stock them with ammunition, then you can do a lot.

Barrels are very difficult to find. But when you have them, give them lots of equity. Promote them. Take them to dinner every week. Because they are virtually irreplaceable because they are also very culturally specific. So a barrel at one company may not be a barrel at another company."

If you find one, and they fit your culture and context, do whatever is necessary to get them on board.

While every A-player is programmed a little differently, these tend to be hot-button items for them.

Challenge - A-players don't run from hard work. They seek it out. So you need to dare them to do great things. Being "highly demanding, with love" is a great way to think about it.

Impact - They want to do work that matters. This motivation means your mission must also be meaningful to them. And your business in a context they're uniquely suited to win.

Autonomy - A-players have choices, so they expect to have agency over their time and focus. You can demand great things as long as they feel fully empowered to decide how they’ll accomplish them. Note: This is why culture alignment will prove so vital to determine upfront.

Growth - They don’t just want to get better. They want to get better at an accelerating rate. The good news is that their desire for impact and their fierce autonomy will lead them to self-direct their learning. You just can’t impede it.

Reward - A-Players want a scoreboard to know their precious time is well spent. For some, it could be money, but it isn't always. While they are the type of characters who can fall in love with the process, it’s usually paired with a fiercely competitive streak (see also: Challange and Impact).

So my job as a leader is to ensure my team, especially my A-Players, are as aligned as possible on the above. If something is adding unnecessary friction, my job is to remove it.

This leads me to a final characteristic they value:

Decisiveness - I don’t believe A-Players reject B-Players. I think they need them. But they do reject C-Players. C-Players have neither the skill nor the will to do the job. Because their impact is so negative, the best thing you can do is addition through subtraction.

If you don’t, your A-Players will quickly remove themselves.

Just as this piece started, a Talent Factory is easy to understand and hard to implement.

But requires you to be equally competent in three ways:

Recruiting - Can you recruit more A-Players? Here are some uncommon questions I used to find one in ten thousand talent.

Development - Can you elevate your B-Players? Clear expectations paired with empowering feedback are a good start.

Discipline - Will you exit Your C-Players? These 5 questions will give you more confidence.

With each piece of your factory humming, you should be able to meet the seemingly impossible target all companies are focused on today:

Doing better with fewer.

And that’s something A-Players will all agree on.

We want the MGMT Playbook to help you win. And you’re in charge of selecting next week’s topic.

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Thank you for reading. Appreciate you!

Dave