Topgrading

Why People Don’t Support Topgrading

This morning a client HR executive, widely respected for driving the Topgrading vision in an 8,000 person division said to me:

“If people don’t support Topgrading they’re
a C player or they don’t get it.”

She’s right. So, she is the educator, cheerleader, and general emissary, constantly sensing skepticism and addressing it through one-on-one conversations, mini workshops for small groups, handing out Topgrading handbooks, and encouraging the sharpest managers to use Topgrading methods (so that they experience the positive results and they help sell Topgrading to laggards). The high performers are direct and up front with their concerns — all they need is some more education. In the past skeptics had to wait for a Topgrading workshop or read Topgrading, but it’s easier to educate sharp managers these days. If you don’t have the time my client has to personally educate people, just hand them the small Topgrading handbook or suggest they watch the 1-hour Topgrading video.

But watch out! The C players are passive–aggressive, pretending to support Topgrading but secretly trying to derail it. They fear Topgrading will cause them to be replaced by a high performer. Hmm — maybe they’re not so dumb.

That’s why all sharp managers must pay attention to excuses and confront them:

C player: “I couldn’t find a tandem partner so I interviewed her alone and want to offer her a job.”
You: “Nope — I’ll choose a tandem pair (of high performers) to interview her.”
C player: “I’m desperate so I’ll just hire this C player.”
You: “Nope. Plan ahead next time and now do the full court press in recruitment, but no way will you hire a C player.”

Recommendation: When launching Topgrading, ask high performers to help sell the changes by educating and positively challenging skeptics.