Professional Documents
Culture Documents
5th Edition
Introduction ....................................................................................4
About Topgrading, Inc. ................................................................6
Conclusion .................................................................................. 32
Topgrading ROI ........................................................................ 34
Resources ................................................................................... 35
Preface
by Price Pritchett, Ph.D.
That question has been answered. There is no doubt it’s the ability
to create teams of high performers. An annual Conference Board
survey shows the #1 headache of CEOs and all C-suite executives
is hiring mediocre performers. If you’re a leader, talent counts more
than anything else for your success, and you want to hire high
performers, right?
You know about the research leading to the truism that “80% of the
results come from 20% of the people.” You’d love to clone those
20% but, try as you might, most of the people you hire are
disappointments. And for the vast majority of companies, no one
seems to have the answer…except my dear friend Brad Smart. We
worked for the same firm at the beginning of our careers. I’ve
marveled at how Brad has tackled the toughest problems in hiring,
applying his drive, brilliance, and determination (marks of an A
Player, by the way), to create and implement what I’m positive is the
best hiring method, by far. Not second or third best – Topgrading is
in my opinion the very best.
Just keep this in mind: If you’re a CEO, Topgrading will get you
better results, a stronger bottom line. Hundreds of CEOs say
Topgrading improved their profits. If you’re an HR manager,
Topgrading will make your career far more successful. And if you
are a manager at any level, systematically create your A team with
Topgrading and your steadily improving results will lift your career
trajectory, for sure.
Introduction
Whether you are the owner of a 10-person company, CEO of a
Global 1000 company, a Human Resources manager or manager
of a department, here’s a scenario to which you probably can relate:
You are not alone. If it’s any consolation, the most sophisticated
Human Resources executives are disappointed in most of the
people their companies hire. We met for a full day with the #1
Human Resources executives from just Global 100 companies, the
largest 100 companies in the world. They said only 20% of the
people they hire turn out to be A Players, the high performers they
hoped for and expected; in other words, the most sophisticated
heads of HR in the world are disappointed by 80% of the people
their hiring methods produce.
If you are frustrated with bad hires, this eGuide is for you. But I’m
not impartial. I’ve devoted all my career to solving hiring problems
and you’ll be the judge of whether I’ve succeeded. With so much
hype from hiring vendors, perhaps you would prefer not to read
about Topgrading methods until you’ve been convinced that
Topgrading is indeed the best hiring method. If so, please jump to
Chapter 2.
Before reading about the cure for bad hire headaches, you might
be interested in who is writing the prescription. I’m Dr. Brad Smart,
founder of Topgrading, Inc. We’re a group of professionals
dedicated to helping clients build and maintain teams of high
performers who fit their culture. Our tools and processes have
been honed over 40 years, working with clients of all sizes, in all
industries, everywhere on the globe. We have helped Global 100
companies Topgrade, but also hundreds of small, midsize, and
growth companies. We:
What is an A Player?
A high performer
Someone in the top 10% of talent available at your target
compensation level
Someone you would enthusiastically rehire
We’ve already cited the 80-20 rule, in which 80% of the sales,
profits, or other results are created by the top 20% of the talent.
Typical stats cited by M & A experts Pritchett & Associates are:
Topgraders embrace the 90-10 rule rather than the 80-20 rule: hire
someone in the top 10% of talent for the salary range you choose.
So, if there are 10 qualified candidates knocking on your door and
eager to take the job for the pay you offer, you pick the #1 best
candidate; if there are 100 candidates, you at least hire one of the
top 10. Do this, and you are Topgrading.
whine, complain, or play the victim. They dug in, found solutions,
and we survived stronger as a company.”
Not necessarily. You have set the compensation range for the job.
If, for example, you think the marketing director’s job is worth
$100,000, you should find the A Player who is available in that salary
range. Just one warning though: If you won’t pay more than $100k
for a marketing director, but the competitors all pay closer to $150k,
you have to ask yourself, will the best candidate at $100k be good
enough? Do you have the right target salary? Should you maybe
outsource the function?
Chapter 1
Why Hiring is Your Most Frustrating Challenge
Our research from 100,000+ case studies shows that the most
common management team – everywhere – consists of about 25%
A Players, 50% B Players, and 25% C Players.
A
Players
C
Players
B
Players
Does this describe your company? If so, only 1 person in 4 you hire
turns out to be an A Player. You have a mis-hire 3 out of every 4
times. Not a very good business result…
Players
Players
Hiring can be difficult for many reasons, but three of the biggest
reasons are:
Almost all of the 6,500 executives I’ve interviewed lamented the fact
that they have been conned by candidates. The actual performance
of too many people they hired was not nearly at the level they
claimed in various jobs, and those bad hires were costly.
Most CEOs don’t know that a better hiring mousetrap exists, so they
look the other way. SHRM reports that only 5% of companies
And why not? – every CEO wants Quality of Hire to be much, much
better, and Topgrading HR managers deliver it.
Chapter 2
Proof Topgrading is the Best Hiring Method
Anonymous
Pharmaceutical Company 33% 75% (sales reps)
Before
Company Topgrading After Topgrading
Before
Company Topgrading After Topgrading
Triton 2% 80%
*Lorence, M.S. (2014). The Impact of Systematically Hiring Top Talent: A Study of
Topgrading as a Rigorous Employee Selection Bundle (Doctoral dissertation).
Retrieved from https://scholarworks.gsu.edu
Chapter 3
6 Key Hiring Steps: Topgrading Lite
There is an art to this science; just doing the following steps will not
get you the level of success you can achieve with a full immersion
in Topgrading.
Over the years, clients have reported that in exit interviews, people
complain that they really did not know what the job was that they
were hired for. This confusion is too common, and it leads to bad
hires. Decades ago, we sought – and found – a solution.
A key benefit of the Job Scorecard is that leaders can interview for
the metrics that will be expected if the candidate is hired, better
ensuring that you’re hiring someone who can achieve the goals.
Go to PrescreenSnapshot.com
for a FREE TRIAL of 10 Snapshots
You’ll get:
You’ve seen the Smith and Doe 2-Job Snapshots. Here are their full
career Snapshots:
I’ve written entire books on how to conduct this interview and the
majority of the time in our 2-day Topgrading Workshops is devoted
to this crucial skill.
Your very first Tandem Topgrading Interview will convince you what
at this moment you find hard to believe – you really CAN learn
everything you need to about a candidate.
You are probably thinking, “Isn’t it too time consuming for two
interviewers to take all that time for one interview?” Not when almost
all your hires are high performers. The benefits dwarf the additional
time spent finding and hiring the A Players, and you save hundreds
of hours alone not having to fix mistakes low performers caused.
And what about the current manager? In the phone screen you
would have said:
This is your chance to verify everything the candidate said and every
(tentative) conclusion you and your tandem interviewer have made.
The in-depth Topgrading Reference Check Guide walks you through
building rapport, asking for an appraisal, explaining the job, and
asking the reference to assess the candidate in relation to that job.
You’re done with Topgrading Lite (except for the job offer) and
the odds of hiring an A Player are better than before, but not as high
as if you had used all 12 Topgrading steps. All 12 steps are too in-
depth to cover in a brief guide but are covered in our public and
company-specific workshops.
Conclusion
This guide began with a typical hiring scenario. Let’s revisit it, but
show how key parts of Topgrading transform “typical” to a much
more effective process, with much better results:
Too often the person hired The Job Scorecard ensures you
disappoints you; only 25% High hire someone who can do the job
Performers hired well; 80%+ High Performers Hired
What would Acme save in money and time by Topgrading just the
mid-manager level if hiring success only doubled, to 60%?
Acme would cut the likely mis-hires from 22 to 11 and savings would
be:
11 x $250k = $2,750,000
11 x 200 hours = 2,200 hours
Resources
Tools to Get You and Your Organization
Topgrading
“At Mint.com I had 40 people.
I Topgraded and 36 out of 40 (90%) were
A Players. I sold the company for
$170 million. Any less than 90% and we
would have gone out of business.”
- Aaron Patzer
Founder, Mint.com
“In the fight against cardiovascular disease
and stroke, Topgrading helped us raise an
additional $50 million over the previous year.
Topgrading has saved lives.”
- Cass Wheeler
CEO, American Heart Association (retired)
“Nothing matters more in winning than
getting the right people on the field. All the
clever strategies and advanced technologies
in the world are nowhere near as effective
without great people to put them to work.
Brad’s Topgrading methods helped us
maximize talent at GE.”
- Jack Welch
Author of Winning & CEO, General Electric (retired)
“Brad and [his President, Chris Mursau]
have conducted Topgrading workshops for
our managers and received top ratings.”
- Kevin Silva
Former SVP Human Resources, Argo
“Topgrading has been an invaluable tool for
DenTek in hiring and retaining high-level
performers. Over the past six years we
have blossomed into a world-class
consumer goods company with explosive
growth and great opportunities, due largely
to the hard work of A Players recruited
through the Topgrading process.”
- David Fox
President, DenTek Oral Care