Why Do A-Players Leave?

Milan: [00:00:00] Hey, another episode of Carcas Jet. What did we talk about today?

Ged: Today we talked about why a players sometimes leave organizations and we talked about three different things in general. First of all, not giving a players the vision they need to, to give them the feel, the sense. That’s, they’re getting their expectations met as well. A players want to be motivated, they want to be inspired, but they, the, and moving on to the second reason, they don’t want to be held back by dead weights, by B players, by C players.

A players wanna play with other A players and to keep an A player, you need to empower them. So the, the false authority is the third topic that we talked about, the disempowerment of a players, which often makes them leave.

Milan: This episode actually stretch a bit longer, so buckle up. We actually covered so many different angles of this. I’ve been noticing that, [00:01:00] the a player topic the team. Dynamics are very popular topics, so I think that it’s worth the listen. So here we go.

Ged: Welcome back to podcast. I’m back with Milan Viveka. Let’s spin the cars and see what we’re gonna talk about today.

Milan: The hard cart. I love the hard car. It’s, it’s no pun. Know, I’m. Always kinda attending towards the you know, where our job coaching and the subject leadership meets with psychology. Right. And it’s, you know, a lot of the hard guards are about that. And I think this is a great example of it, right? When we have great people leaving, when we have what’s called the re regrettable departures, because there is also the other kind. It is, you know, ultimately to how people feel about. You know where they are at with the job and with the with the position they’re in, in our organization.

Ged: And, and we see many reasons [00:02:00] why a players leave, and we’ll talk about that in the episode today. But it, that simple quote that you often hear, you know, people don’t leave jobs, they leave bad managers. And that’s the same for leaders as well. You know, if you’re a bad leader, then there’s a good chance that the, the, the stars in your team will find alternate ways to satisfy.

What they want. And you lose your A players.

Milan: Yeah.

Ged: Why do A players leave?

Milan: A lot of reasons. But ultimately it’s. A player by definition, will have high expectations of the organization the same way as we have high expectations of everybody we hire. Right? And if there is a disappointment, if the expectations are not met with reality we have a ticking bump.

Right? It just can’t pause. So very often you are starting with. The organization presenting itself as something [00:03:00] it is not. You have that very often when you are, when you have a dis charismatic CEO who is really good salesperson, but not necessarily a great leader. And they can create a impression of culture that people buy into.

But they come and the reality is very, very different. You know, in the cart we’re talking about three main reasons, but there are actually quite a few of them. But, you know, ultimately it comes to. Are people getting of what they expected, what they, what did, what is it that they sign up for, and how does the reality measure to that?

Ged: A-players are key to this card, but we should really define what an A-player is. So how, how would you define an A-player Milan?

Milan: It’s a very, very good question. Like, you know, Shannon and her workshop did a great, great analogy that I’ve used so many times since, which is the idea that you know, if you imagine being on the trip, a players are the ones ahead of you just cheering them along. Players are the one who are walking with you and, you know, study and, and off we go. [00:04:00] And then the C players are the ones you have to come back and drag along to actually get you at least to some speed. So they’re effectively slowing you down. So A players are really the guys who are, or golf who are helping you to get where you need to go, and they’re actually adding energy to you. And if all you have to do is to support them, you’re a good and happy leader.

Ged: So A players are high performers. Who also live the core values most of the time. And we put that nine by nine grid up in front of leadership teams that we work with. And they’re often very surprised that it’s only the top right box that is where the A players are and in slightly to the left of the B players.

But the other seven boxes are C players. So we are setting a pretty high bar for A players here. And that’s because you have to.

Milan: Actually had a, oh, you know what? I won’t even go there because that’s a different card because, you know, [00:05:00] I actually have a distinction between the C players into three categories. But you know what, we’ll leave that for the for the ratings card where I think we are talking about this more specifically.

Ged: Yeah, we’ll save that for another day. So let’s look at these three reasons that a players tend to leave. Lack of vision. What, what does that mean for you? Because, you know, we’ve already talked about, and our A players have high expectations and you know, they need something to stretch them. So let’s go into the detail there.

Milan: Oh, absolutely. Like, you know, they, they want to join you because it sounds exciting. Right. And because they believe that, okay, this is going somewhere and there is a vision if they join and suddenly they see that that vision is just the veneer or just a marketing tool, but the organization’s not actually heading there. Or if they see that. You know, ultimately the, you know, the vision changed three times since they joined [00:06:00] two months ago, which also happens very often. Again, you know, Barry Chy said, who wants to follow someone who’s going nowhere? Right. You know another great.. A hero of mine, dear Gently says, you know, if you follow someone who seem like they know where they’re going, maybe you don’t get where you want to go, but you end up where you need to be. So there’s the holistic detectives approach to it. So again, the

Ged: Douglas Adams.

Milan: Exactly. The vision is very, very important. And its consistency and follow through. And the realness, the fact that, you know, we can say, Hey, this is the vision, but the company or the organization is not actually doing, making the necessary steps to make it real order, a player will lose interest Before you know it.

Ged: Yep. Yeah, they, they gotta feel that there’s something in it for [00:07:00] them and it’s exciting, it’s motivating, you know, so that, that. Purpose, the values, you know, the big hair audacious goal. There’s something there that has to really stretch them, you know? The thing about A players is, you know, people can be an A player in one, one organization and a B or C player in another organization, you know, and that’s often because they just not aligned to the core values.

There’s nothing wrong with that. They’re just not their core values. So it’s, it’s difficult, you know, a, you know, finding a players is often a very, very complex process because it’s often. Very, very hard to hire for values. Now you can, you can, you can hire for capability. That’s easy. You can give someone a test or you can give someone an assessment.

Actually truly understanding whether someone’s values align with the companies, that’s a lot harder, and maybe there should be a separate card for that.

Milan: Actually there is.

Ged: There you go. Mm-hmm.

Milan: Yeah, I’m sure. We’ll, I’m sure we’ll get to it on another day. Which is a good reason for people to subscribe because if you don’t want to miss, you know, the other [00:08:00] ones that we are referring to, you know, there is a button for that. Anyway, moving on. Do you want to move on to that? Wait.

Ged: I think so. I think so. ’cause this is a big one, isn’t it? ’cause a players wanna play with a players.

Milan: Yeah. Yeah. Dead waste and sacred cows Such a big, such a huge issue in many organizations, right? I I was doing a team assessment, you know, that nine to nine by nine gr with a new client this morning. And just that, was such like. Are these people even here to some degree, right? But I am also working with another client who has difficulties and saying, you know, this person has been here for 15 years.

I was like, yeah, but look at the damage they’re causing to everybody else because of their entitlement, because of the culture is them Authority based, not on merit, but only on the fact that they’ve been here for so long, but the [00:09:00] company outgrew them, the needs, outgrew them. And you know, the culture evolved beyond them. And if an A player comes into an organization and suddenly they feel like there is a whole bunch of or sometimes it’s just one for whom different rules and different, expectations apply, it’s so demotivating.

Ged: Yeah.

Milan: It’s yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a terrible, it’s literally like a null of the culture of the organization because that means that we are trying to keep people to different levels of accountability and performance and, you know, like that old monkey experiment, you know, with a grape and cucumber, I’m sure you’ve seen it People are absolutely, absolutely allergic to unfairness. Like, why should I work this hard? Even though that’s, it’s a, a player, it’s a person who would actually love nothing more than works hard for the right thing. [00:10:00] But the de-motivation of saying like, but you know, the

Ged: Yep.

Milan: Of the CEO over here,

Ged: Yep.

Milan: You know, or.

Ged: So, so what, what reasons have you seen for leadership teams, CEOs keeping, you know, the sacred cows, you know, the, there’s, you know, what, what, what have you seen in, in reality in practice?

Milan: So very often it’s a co-founder who outgrew his value that happens very often is a person who is there for the wrong reason. Friend, relative, like nepotism is such deadly, right? Like, if. If you are the CEO’s nephew, you have to work three times as hard because you have to prove that you are their own merit, not because of that reason.

Ged: Hmm.

Milan: The other one again is when the. When the leadership team, or where the leader, not necessarily the CEO, but the leader, responsive for this person or, [00:11:00] that whose organization this person is in is a people pleaser. They prefer the relationship. The actual performance of the organization, so it becomes a person over the over the team.

Ged: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I think I, I’ve, I’ve seen that a few times when there’s, there is. Someone use the example of a co-founder, someone who’s been there a long time, and someone who probably feels a little bit entitled to their position and sort of know perks in their organization. And when, when, when I challenge CEOs, I often hear the, the, the response is often well.

Yeah, I owe, I owe them. I owe them, you know, so, well actually, no, you don’t. You know, you, I’m, I’m pretty sure you’ve been paying them for the last 15 years, so, you know, you’ve, you don’t owe them at all. You’ve, you’ve already discharged that loyalty. And you know, if they’re not fulfilling a, a, [00:12:00] a, a valid role in the organization and you’ve either gotta give them another role or you’ve gotta give them their freedom, now there’s no obligation to continue with someone when they are no longer the right fit for an organization, for whatever reason.

Yeah. That’s why people get a salary.

Milan: And it doesn’t mean that you have to be mean to them or that

Ged: Absolutely.

Milan: Or

Ged: Mm-hmm.

Milan: But you know, I’ve seen several CEOs who were paying people, so they had their friends,

Ged: Yep.

Milan: Right, which. To be perfectly honest, from purely psychological point of view, I understand and I empathize with because being CEO is freaking lonely, right?

Ged: Yeah, it is. Mm-hmm.

Milan: But it’s a trap. It’s a trap, like because it’s easy for a c player to pretend that they like you, right?

Ged: Mm-hmm.

Milan: As soon as you actually start putting right accountabilities

Ged: Yes.

Milan: Play, things happen. And often good [00:13:00] things. Often when, you know, we come in and you start putting Metronomics in place, you start putting the accountability mechanism.

You, you get scorecards in place, you start working on reviews. You know the C players, no matter whatever reason they’re for, they do have a very strong tendency to realize eventually that the loyalty itself is not enough and it sucks for them, and they select themselves out, which is then the best for everybody, right?

Ged: Yep. They, they either select themselves out or they realign. With the culture of the organization and start moving up towards the top. Right. And they’re only C players because they haven’t been told the expectations, they haven’t been told the core values, the expectations of what’s what’s needed, needed to be right in the organization, hasn’t been made clear to them.

So I often see C players who, ah, okay, that’s what you mean. That’s what you want. Those are the behavioral [00:14:00] expectations. That’s fine with me. I didn’t know that. And it is, it’s often very unfair classing people to see players when the expectations haven’t made be made. Super, super clear.

Milan: And going back to your, you know, three by three, I think that is really, there is a big difference between the upward and the rightward direction

Ged: Yeah.

Milan: It, right? If we are on the top, as far as values go, and again, do we actually have the values? Do we actually live by them? Are they clear? Are they are they just words on the wall or are they actual core values of the organization?

Right?

Ged: Mm-hmm.

Milan: Aside, once we are, once we are on the top. Often it’s about the expectations of performance that might not be clear. The scorecard is wrong. There might be another really, really good role for that person within that organization where they would thrive and their organization would as well.

Now, I am not suggesting to build [00:15:00] roles and scorecards around people. What you need to do is to define of what the organization needs, and then hire for that. But you can hire internally, right? You say, Hey, we really need this role. And John, who was really, really not cutting it, you know, in, in their current role, would actually be a superstar here because it lines up with with whatever.

So you would be, you would be fool not to, you know, fish in that pool as well.

Ged: Yep, you choose the most appropriate person for the role.

Milan: Yeah. You know, when I come to an organization that has a lot of misalignment like that, I am trying to encourage the leader to look at their current staff, their current team, as the pool from which they hire into the roles as they are newly defined them. It’s just a mental switch. It’s just a mental exercise.

I’m not telling them, fire everybody and then start again. But really what you say, define what you need. [00:16:00] What you have, right? And then start pairing of, Hey, oh, actually this would be great for Mark. This would be great for Susan. Like, you know, I can totally imagine them being there. Then have the conversation with them, and you might find out that you have more A players than you thought you did.

Ged: Yep. Yep. There’s, there’s often a, I mean, just continuing on the conversation around dead weights, there’s often a very sudden realization where you’re talking to a CEO or a leadership team, and they realize that if they remove some of their C players. Two things happen. First of all, they’ve cut a whole load of cost outta the organization, and secondly, they start to see the organization go far, go faster because they’re no longer being held back by the dead weights.

And that’s is often, yeah.

Milan: Nobody. Nobody ever said, I wish I kept them for three more months. Right.

Ged: That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. No CEO ever, ever said that. I wish I’d delayed that firing decision. [00:17:00] Yeah. No one ever, ever said that. So, I mean, dead weights, this may be an unfortunate term, but it does happen. It does happen. And now it’s like leadership. Sometimes you need to make tough decisions, but you do it with, with, you have to do it with dignity.

Milan: Exactly.

Ged: Yep.

Milan: And the humanity and empathy and all, and all of those things. About it this way, if you are. True to your intention of changing the organization, person that we are defining like that is never going to be happy in that organization.

Ged: Right. Mm-hmm.

Milan: So I do like the, I do like the term of freeing up somebody’s future,

Ged: Yes.

Milan: And again, and you can help them in that future and you can show your loyalty and potentially friendship if you developed in the way of helping them in what the next step is. But why wouldn’t you want them to be somewhere where they can thrive and be happy? Right?

Ged: Yep, you are. You are liberating them so they can fulfill their own future.

Milan: As you’re saying, by keeping them, because you [00:18:00] have the, you know, false people pleaser tendency, you are actually doing disservice to the A players and the better ones that in, in your organization that you already have, and you are just dragging everybody down.

Ged: And you’re doing a disservice to those people as well, because you’re not making a tough decision that will allow them to liberate. Yep. Okay. Is that a good time to move on to the third point?

Milan: We

Ged: Authority.

Milan: Yeah. This this episode is getting a bit longer, so I guess this is a juicy topic. Let’s move on.

Ged: Yeah, so,

Milan: What, what do you, what do you read? When or what do, what comes to mind when you read that?

Ged: So false authority for, for me, is all about disempowerment. It’s when someone is in a role and for whatever reason. They feel rightly or wrongly that they, they are no longer empowered to actually achieve the outcome that they have either been asked to achieve or they’ve set themselves. And you know, this, this happens insidiously sometimes where, you know, there’s not good [00:19:00] conversation between a CEO or a leader and the individual where maybe trust has been lost.

And, you know, gradually the abil the ability to be successful in the role is gradually pulled away from them. Gradually disempowering them from actually being able to achieve the outcome they’re looking for. And it’s so destroying, I mean, I’ve, I’ve seen it in organizations where for whatever reason, and it’s not in functional organizations, in dysfunctional organizations, where gradually people get disempowered and.

Eventually they’re gonna say, you know what? I’m done here. I’m done here. You clearly don’t want me here. But all of that could have been cut short by probably a, an expectation conversation early on in that process. But this, this does happen. Where, where, where have you seen it happen? Milam? Because there’s, there’s a reason why this is a point in this.

Milan: Oh, you know, there are so many examples, right?. I can’t go into too much detail because it would be so [00:20:00] hard not to name the people in the companies and some of them dear friends, that were the, that were subject to this. You know, since I wrote this card, which been while ago, I think that there are two elements of the dis empowerment. One is you were actually never given the authority that we agreed on. As in, of course, you know, just get us the lead and you’ll get the budget and you’ll get the support. And they, they sign and they show up and what budget, what support, it’s, you make it happen, right? So it’s sort of one direction, and the second direction is. Or the second dimension of it, if you will, is if they are put into a dysfunctional organization.

So, and if their work in their success depends on other pieces, but you don’t have the right leaders in those positions, but then somehow, you know, this player in the role that is not enabled. [00:21:00] Not just power empowered, but enabled to succeed is the one who seems to like, you know, if you bring the best painter in the world at the end of a delayed construction process, they’re going to be late. By definition. No matter what they’re going to do, right? But they’re the ones who are. The last ones leaving the house. So they’re the one who will be blamed they’re, they’re the ones who will have to deal with the fact that the job is not done on time. And you know, the framers who were two weeks late in the beginning and everybody else was trying to catch up ever since they’re long gone on different job. So just and this works in so many different ways, like the usual, you know, sales and marketing tension and so on and so on. I think we could come up with million examples.

Ged: Yep. This, this reminds me of a conversation I had. Yes. Just yesterday evening. It’s it’s quite ironic and [00:22:00] this isn’t a client, this is just someone I know who’s in a senior leadership role in an organization, and, and they were brought in. To effect change. Now that’s what they do. They, that, that’s, that’s what they’ve built their career on, and they are very, very good at it.

I’ve worked with them before. And the conversation last night went around. Yeah, I just fired myself today. And I said, really? What, what, what, what happened? He said. Look, been there a while. The rest of the leadership team do not want to change for whatever they say in the leadership team meetings.

They do not want to change. And I was brought in to effect change. And if they don’t want to change, then I can’t affect the change that I want, that the CEO has tasked me to do. So. It’s just not gonna work. So yeah, I fired myself today. So yeah, these things, this, this happens. This absolutely happens now.

He’s an absolute a player. He is an absolute a player, but he has now moved on to [00:23:00] another opportunity where an organization can take advantage of his really, really good skills and experience.

Milan: When you ask, for example, I had, I had like, it’s a mirror story to this one, With that edit flavor that the leadership team. When they meet are full of support and saying, oh, this is great. Let’s do that, da da da. But as soon as they leave the room, they just slow walk everything because again, the resistance to change is so massive.

And, and, and, you know, you know, I grew up behind the Iron Curtain, right? And we had the. You know, unions were basically very strong. They were partially, partially running the country, and the issue was that were motivated to produce or be only productive at a level that. Improve the you know, gave them the maximum reward, [00:24:00] but did not increase the expectations going forward.

Right? Because if you were like 10% over the expectation, you would get a bonus and it would be good if you would be 20% over, for example, you would get a bonus, but then the expectations would be 20% higher the next year, right? So it was a really, really balancing game and really just path to mediocrity. And if somebody would come in into a team and suddenly they would start. Performing at a different scale. That was nearly a death sentence, right? Because they were not messing with everybody else’s livelihood. And, know, since I left that space, you know, I live in very, very different environment. Works the same way. It is just even without a different system.

Ged: Yeah. Yeah. And ultimately you’ve gotta give people the, the tools and the ability to be successful.

Milan: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

Ged: Yep. [00:25:00] So why do a players leave? Well, the corollary to that is you know how to keep a players. And if you set an inspiring vision and you give people the opportunity to be successful, you know, and you give them the opportunity to play with other A players, then they’ll probably stay.

It’s not hard.

Milan: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Just be strict, be fair, honest, and you are on the good way.