Are Your Great Danes Surrounded by Chihuahuas?

by Eric Herrenkohl on Monday, August 9th, 2010

As I relate in my new book How to Hire A-Players, I know a financial analyst who recently received the highest performance review of anyone in her 400-person department. In fact, she was the only person in the entire department to receive a “superior” rating. While this was great for this individual, it was not a good sign for the company. When only one person out of 400 receives a superior rating, it says to me that the leader of the department is really quite happy to employ average performers.  Hiring A-players happens accidentally in this group.  It made me wonder how long a high performer would want to stay in such an environment.

When I related this to this woman she smiled and said:  It’s funny you should say that, because I just decided to get my resume out on the street and see what else is available.  Six months later she was gone, even though the senior vice president tried to keep her.  It was too late for a counter offer – this young woman was now convinced that she had to move to another company in order to move to the next level in her career.

Performance Principle: If you surround a Great Dane with a lot of Chihuahuas, your big dog is at risk.  If you employ a small number of A-players surrounded by a large group of average performers, take a hard look at the following issues:

1. Is there a clear career path for your superior performer? Does he or she see light at the end of the tunnel?  Is this A-player convinced that there are more and better challenges ahead? Maybe you recently hired someone who clearly has leadership abilities – start talking with that person about how they can further employ those skills.  Whoever the person and whatever the plan, take the time to put your arm around peoples’ shoulders, tell them that you’ve been thinking about them, buy them lunch, ask them questions, listen to their goals, and talk about their careers.  You will solve a lot of retention problems just by taking these steps.
2. Are your A-players paying an undue price by being surrounded by sub-par performers? If you’re not careful, you can burn out your A-players by making them pick up too much slack for average employees.  To some degree, your A-players will always do more than others – that’s part of what makes them so good. But you risk losing your Great Danes if you continually pile on the work the little dogs can’t handle.  Remind yourself that your first priority is ensuring that your A-players love coming to work every day.  If they don’t feel that way, what steps are you going to take to make things better?
3. Are your best performers learning from and challenged by their peers? A-players in every industry want to learn, grow, find new challenges, and attain the next level in their careers.  Peers are one of the most important catalysts for this kind of development.  If your A-players are surrounded by people with less talent and ability, they are learning less than they could if they worked with more talented peers.  One of your most important roles as a leader is to get enough quality people working together that  your team takes on a positive life of its own.  If your A-players don’t have this kind of positive peer reinforcement, it’s your responsibility to find, recruit, and hire better people and add more big dogs to your team.
4. Are you dropping your standards to fit the performance of average performers – and leaving your Big Dogs resentful and unrecognized? Managers often take their A-players for granted while spending the majority of their time trying to “fix” their weak performers.  Your best performers should be the pace setters for your team.  Set standards that challenge your Great Danes – and then let your big dogs raise the standards for everyone else.

Executives often say to me that you can’t have an entire company of A-players.  What they mean is that you can’t have a building full of Type-A people who insist on special treatment for their superior abilities.  However, I would say that for every company with this problem there are 10,000 that pin their success on the abilities of a few superior performers.   Make sure that you take care of your A-players.  Meet with them regularly.  Provide them with the resources they need to excel.  Work with them to create personalized plans for accelerating their careers.

Finally, consider how you can find and hire the next big dog for your team, because no matter how hard you try, you can’t turn a Chihuahua into a Great Dane.

Thanks,

Eric