Defining A Players, A Potentials, B Players, and C Players

A Players create nearly all the value in your business. They deliver 2–5x the impact of B Players at the same or similar cost. When you tolerate B Players, you accept lower performance and leave real money on the table. 

• • A Players—The top 10% in your industry for the salary you have available. Employees you would enthusiastically rehire.
  • A Potentials—Up-and-comers from more junior positions or industries who you can foresee becoming full-fledged A Players in 6–9 months.
  • B Players—A mishire. Someone who you thought could be an A Player, but it didn’t pan out. They need to be coached up or out. B Players are the quiet cause of performance misses.
  • C Players—Severely underperforming or toxic employees who need to shape up or ship out immediately.  

A Players: The Only Talent Framework Embedded in a Business Operating System

One of the most important questions a CEO can ask is this: Of the team I have right now, how many would I enthusiastically rehire?

If fewer than 90% of your team are A Players or A Potentials, you’re leaving performance and money on the table. Most businesses tolerate B and C Players for far too long—quietly eroding results, culture, and success. (C Players shouldn’t even really be part of a discussion!)

Scaling Up is the only business system that doesn’t just pay lip service to talent—it operationalizes it. People is the first of Scaling Up’s Four Decisions (People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash), and the concept of A Players is at the core of it. The standard that you should strenuously defend is this: over 90% of your team must be A Players and A Potentials, with full-fledged A Players forming the majority. You can’t build a great business on potential alone.

At A Player Advantage, we lead the field in talent performance. We use the ABC Player Framework, originally developed by Topgrading™ and solely operationalized by us on behalf of our clients, to drive measurable business performance. We transformed the framework into a practical, repeatable set of tools, metrics, and coaching disciplines—available to you—that give CEOs and leadership teams shared language, clarity, and confidence to upgrade employees immediately. The goal is simple and uncompromising: maximize talent density and build toward 100% A Players across your organization.

A Players

Definition: The top 10% of talent available in the market for the compensation offered.

How to identify them:

• • You’d enthusiastically rehire them.
  • They model your core values and behaviors.
  • Deliver results that speak for themselves.
  • They’re Impact Players, creating immediate impact and producing meaningful results in their first days on the job.
  • They take full ownership of their success—they don’t need to be managed, just coached.
  • They’re force multipliers, making others around them better.
  • They raise the team’s overall standard or performance.

What they do for the business:
A Players are force multipliers. They grow revenue, improve culture, attract other A Players, and run your processes with playbooks. They don’t just meet expectations—they beat them, quietly and consistently. These are the people buyers look for when valuing your business.

A Potentials

Definition: A high-upside performer hired or promoted into a bigger role—usually from a more junior industry or position—who has already delivered A-level results in a prior seat. As the hiring manager, it’s your job to ensure your company provides the playbooks, systems, and coaching needed for this person to scale into a full A Player on your larger stage.

How to define them:

• A person who was an A Player in their last position or context, who’s new to the industry or new to the role.
• Less than 9 months into the new role.
• A “do-it-yourself” project.
• Showing clear, measurable 30-day growth trends and a current performance that indicates they will be an A Player within 6–9 months.
• Someone you’d bet your reputation on becoming an A Player within this timeframe.

We consider A Potentials your internal A Player pipeline. Many companies don’t recognize or invest in these high-ceiling performers. But if coached properly, they become your next wave of impact players—and they’re often more loyal and adaptable than outside hires.

B Players

Definition: These are employees who deliver inconsistent, baseline performance. On good days, they create optimism; on most days, they disappoint. They’re the employees your weaker competitors hire and tolerate. They do enough to stay employed, but they belong on someone else’s team, not in a company serious about results, momentum, and growth.

What to watch for:

• • Inconsistent performance—occasional flashes of competence, but mostly baseline output.
  • They recruit their own kind, preferring to hire other B Players, quietly lowering the employee gene pool.
  • Low urgency and drive, comfortable with motion over results.
  • They do not raise the bar. At best, they maintain it, but more often, they lower standards for others.
  • The “lovable slacker” trap—they may feel like cultural fits until you add results to your core values (which you should); then the truth becomes obvious—they were never true fits.

B Players are the hardest to deal with because they’re rarely a “fireable offense.” They’re not toxic, just underwhelming. But here’s the problem: They hold your company back. A Players don’t want to carry their weight, and if you don’t address it, your A Players will leave before your B Players do.

C Players

Definition: Chronic underperformers and/or toxic employees who consistently fail to meet expectations and drag down the culture.

What they do:

• • Miss deadlines, goals, and commitments.
  • Require constant oversight.
  • Often creates drama or negativity.
  • Aren’t aligned with your values—and don’t care to be.

C Players are a leadership failure. When leaders avoid hard conversations, C Players stay too long. The cost is massive: lost revenue, lost trust, and lost A Players. Every day a C Player stays is a signal to the rest of the company that low performance is acceptable.

Final Thought

Your team is either your greatest asset or your biggest bottleneck. As a CEO, you get the team you tolerate. If you want to scale, you must upgrade the team.

Scaling Up provides the discipline. A Player Advantage delivers the People power of Scaling Up. If you want to 10× your business, you must first 10× the team. The ABC Player Framework gives leaders a clear, practical way to raise talent density, strengthen culture, and accelerate execution across the organization.

If you want help implementing this across your team, we should talk. We’d like to encourage you to schedule a strategy call with us.