After we completed the interviews, I was convinced that the new PM we were about to hire was an “A Player”; he had all the traits we were looking for. And so 6 months later, when things weren’t going well, I was shocked. Was I wrong during the hiring process? Did he not really have the skills we needed? Maybe our environment was just different, and his skills couldn’t show up there? Had I failed him? When I finally figured it out, it surprised me, and it changed my view on “A Players” ever since.
The Pattern We Keep Repeating
Everyone talks about the need to hire “A Players,” and they have come up with various definitions of the term. It usually is something related to specific traits and characteristics: “MBA,” “Consulting background,” “Is action-oriented,” “takes ownership,” etc. And this is because we need a way to talk about this broader idea of excellence, so we create a particular image of it as a stand-in. Talking about a universal idea without some sort of particular definition is impossible, but the definitions we choose can reshape how we think about that universal idea.
If we look at politics, Reagan tried to cast those who received welfare as welfare queens, a notion of someone taking advantage of the system, and Reagan was able to make that rare individual seem universal. Or more recently, Trump, casting undocumented immigrants as violent criminals, seeks to create a view that undocumented immigrants are dangerous.
There is always a fight over what a universal category means. This is the very definition of political struggle. In the US, there is a very large political divide over what it means to be an American. And that happens in the workplace, too. There is a person who comes to mind for you when you think of an “A Player,” and that is due to the conditions, structures, and power dynamics that exist in your workplace.
What these definitions hide
The very specific examples we use to define these universal ideas are controlled by those with real power. Who gets called an “A Player” is controlled by those who control hiring, promotions, and compensation. While alternative definitions exist, changing what counts as excellence requires challenging those very power structures. So the examples that win are those that serve existing interests.
When you see people who are called “A Players” at work, what do you notice? I remember being an “A Player” at one company. I took ownership of everything I did. I saw it through to the end, working 70-80 hours a week and always being available to ensure the project I was on was successful. What does seeing me as an ‘A Player’ in that situation reinforce? Who did it support? It wasn’t me, I was burning myself out trying to reach an even higher standard. Not those on my team for whom I created expectations that were damaging? I was exploiting myself for the company’s benefit. I didn’t have a family at the time or external responsibilities, so what I did was an easier tradeoff for me, but I was also helping reinforce a standard that made things much harder for others with families or other responsibilities.
While these definitions serve the interests of some at the expense of many, there is no way around the fact that universal ideas need to have particular examples for us to be able to talk about them meaningfully. And so what do we do?
Approaches
The most common approach is the one I started with. It is the problematic notion that “things are different here,” “this context is special,” “we just need to celebrate all the different ways people are excellent,” or “what it means to be excellent will vary from place to place.”
These notions abandon the universal idea of excellence altogether, which means you can’t make any claims about what excellence means or why it matters. You end up with pure relativism, and as a result, you haven’t done anything to shift the power dynamic and who gets to define what matters.
The best move is to engage in the fight over what it means to be an “A Player” and to see an “A Player” as the very conditions that make excellence possible. You may think, “How can a ‘player’ be the conditions?” And here we see the issue: it seems awkward for the term “A Player” to refer to anything other than an individual. And this is the ideology at work. So part of the effort is to shift from “A Players” to “A Conditions.”
This is what I finally figured out about that PM I hired. He wasn’t missing traits. Our team lacked the conditions needed for him to succeed. And the assumption that he was an “A Player” meant I hadn’t thought about how I supported those conditions. I was evaluating him as if excellence lived in him, when it actually lived in his relation to the system he had been in and the people who were there.
What Changes
Here’s what shifting from Players to Conditions means practically:
We stop asking, “Does this person have the right traits or characteristics?” and instead ask, “What conditions would help this team produce excellent work?”
When someone underperforms, we don’t assume they aren’t an “A Player”; instead, we look at the conditions that make it harder for them to succeed and find ways to make the support they need available.
When hiring, we stop looking for people with ‘proven A Player traits’ and start asking: can this person enhance the conditions that create everyone’s success?
In performance reviews, we stop evaluating individuals against competence checklists and instead engage in team conversations about how we support each other’s work.
This isn’t about lowering standards. It’s about recognizing that excellence emerges from systems, not individuals. When you build A Conditions, you get A-level work from people who would have been “B players” in worse conditions.
But Don’t We Need Standards?
Now you may be wondering, “If we don’t evaluate individuals, how do we maintain standards? Don’t some people just work harder or think better?”
We’re not abandoning evaluation. We’re recognizing what we’re actually evaluating. When you judge someone as an “A player,” you’re observing outcomes produced by the relationship between that person, the people around them, and the conditions they are in.
The “A player” who thrived at Google might struggle at your 10-person startup, not because they lost their excellence, but because the conditions changed. The conditions ARE part of what produces the performance.
“A conditions” cannot be imposed by fiat. They require that the team collectively examine and transform the conditions of their work together.
This is a new way to organize work, and it requires managers to give up control over defining excellence. If you’re ready to support collective transformation rather than impose conditions, click the link below.