There’s an old country song called Red Dirt Road by Brooks & Dunn. They sing: "Happiness on earth ain't just for high achievers."
Is that true? In the past, when executives talked about employees, they usually lumped them into two categories. There were the "strong," who are willing to sacrifice their personal lives, even morality, to get to the top. Everyone else was "weak," says management consultant Ken Siegel.
When employers weren’t busy weeding out the bottom 10% of their workforce, they were trying to steal the A players from the competition in a battle to lure the best. But some of those employers are realizing that failure and success might lie in the solid middle––the B players––the 75% of workers who aren’t perfect, but aren’t high-maintenance squeaky wheels, either.
"Ignore them at your peril," says Thomas DeLong, a Harvard management professor who co-authored an article in the Harvard Business Review called "Let's Hear It for B Players."
"B players are crucial," says Larry Bossidy, former CEO of Honeywell. "They may get directions from others, but they're the ones who execute."
There is no evidence that A players are any smarter than B players, DeLong says. The difference is in temperament.
B players come in all shapes and sizes
There are many types of B players, but most are:
Loyal (to a point)
Don't live and die for the next promotion (but want challenging work
Don't need coddling (but can whither from neglect)
Are honest (if not diplomatic)
Are not as driven by power, status and money (but want balance)
Demand but a fraction of the boss' time compared with A-players those who need constant stroking or C-players who need reprimanding.
B players can save a company from disaster. They don't weigh the political repercussions of exposing the truth that may lead to a lawsuit, DeLong says.
The most valuable B players, DeLong says, are recovered A players. They have "breathed the rarefied air" but rejected the demands of an A life. Recovered A players know how other A players maneuver.
A players admit to being maddened by the B players' seeming indifference to personal success. “Achievers don't understand why I'm not trying to get their job," says Todd Walter, who has coached his sons' basketball and baseball teams and spent a week canoeing on the Green River in Utah with Boy Scouts.
"B players are happy living in Dubuque," says former McKesson CEO John Hammergren. McKesson, a pharmaceutical wholesaler, calls B players "performers in place. "I had more time and admiration for them than the A player who is at my desk every six months asking for the next promotion."
The sports world has long know the importance of B players
"During my coaching days, the most dysfunctional teams were the ones who had no respect for the B players," says Karen Freeman, former head coach of women's basketball at Wake Forest University and now chief operating officer at Biologics,Inc..
Coaches who attempt to forge a team of stars are asking for disaster, Freeman says. If every player needs 15 to 20 shots a game to be happy, there is going to be disgruntlement because each game has but one ball and 40 minutes. In basketball or business, when the team goes into a slump, stars are the first to whine, Freeman says.
Bossidy says some talented employees are afraid that getting too high in the organization will rob them of freedom. "They come packaged differently. The job as a leader is to get the most out of them."
Leadership expert Del Leonard Jones wrote the historical novel, The Cremation of Sam McGee built upon the poem of Robert W. Service. The novel is set in the 1898 heyday of yellow journalism and travels from Cuba to the Yukon. The narrator is a fabricating newspaper reporter working for William Randolph Hearst during the Spanish-American War and Gold Rush. The first chapter is here.
Jones has also edited Advice from the Top: 1001 Bits of Business Wisdom. The book focuses on the leadership advice of Fortune 500 CEO's such as Fred Smith of FedEx, but also gets advice from athletes, coaches, entertainers and artists like Wynton Marsalis.
Comments