When our new clients begin a Scaling Up program, one of the first tools they instinctively latch onto is the A Player Agreement™ (APA), which is a detailed performance agreement. I’ve found that I barely have to explain the concept before a CEO and their leadership team begin to nod in unison and declare it a must-have. More often than not, they decide on the spot to make it a quarterly Rock—right out of the gate.

I used to call the APA a job description on steroids—because when it’s written well by the direct supervising manager, it can boost the performance of current employees by about 20%. That’s a credible, measurable win. Lately, however, I’ve landed on an even better analogy: it’s a miniature playbook because it doesn’t just describe a role, it shows people exactly how to win. It’s a performance agreement designed for top performers with results-oriented goals.

In Scaling Up, playbooks are one of our foundational tools. They capture the winning “plays”—the proven, “this is the way we do it here” processes. They’re key elements that drive consistent, repeatable results. That’s exactly what an APA does, but for a single role.

A standard job description is essentially a “person description”: it lists the desired background and qualifications, but rarely defines what success actually looks like. An APA flips that on its head. It’s a formal agreement that shows exactly how to get an “A” in the role—spelling out the lead measures, activity levels, measurable objectives, communication skills, and execution rhythms needed to deliver the outcomes the position demands.

Employees and candidates love them. They provide clarity, confidence, and proof that both the manager and the company are serious about excellence and strategic planning. More than once, I’ve had a candidate look over an APA, smile, and say, “You people know what you’re doing”—reaching for a pen to sign before we’d even made an official offer.

Clarity is the beating heart of an APA. If a supervising manager can’t follow these performance agreement templates and fill in the specific lead and lag measures, activities, and success criteria for their role with precision, fire them!

Why fire a manager who can’t do this?

• • They don’t know the job. If they can’t identify the key lead and lag measures for the role, they don’t truly understand their people’s work or how to coach for performance.
  • They can’t replicate proven patterns. If they can’t take three or four existing APAs, recognize the patterns, and produce a new one in the same structure, format, and fonts for easy cross-role comparison—they can’t follow simple directions and they’re frankly not very sharp!

And that’s just the start. Two other red flags are especially telling:

• • AI-as-a-crutch. In the era of ChatGPT, if a manager can’t produce original, role-specific content—and instead leans on AI—you’ll spot it immediately. The formatting will be off, and when you quiz them on their chosen lead and lag measures, they’ll fumble the numbers and reasoning. That’s a “Prompt Parrot,” not a leader.
  • Abdicating the work. The worst offense is when a manager hands the task to their direct report. Think about it: if they don’t know the role well enough to define it, or can’t coach the person in it, why are they in the job? This is plain old laziness and dereliction of duty. In an A Player culture, that’s a firing offense—business malpractice, plain and simple.

With those lessons learned behind us, it’s time to open the playbook and take a guided tour through each section. We’ll use the innovative Talent Coach position—our significant, operationalized upgrade to traditional Human Resources—as the example. The Talent Coach is the perfect model because it proves you can create clear, quantifiable lead and lag measures, even for roles that are “hard to measure” according to conventional wisdom.

That’s the beauty of the APA—it forces managers and leaders to think in playbook terms: the precise activities and behaviors that reliably drive bottom-line results for every position in your company.

From our experience leading large Young Presidents’ Organization (YPO) workshops and working one-on-one with clients, we’ve found that completing our APA Development Worksheet by hand—pencil on paper—is one of the most effective ways to create a high-quality performance agreement. The worksheet’s fill-in-the-blank structure naturally drives clarity in defining both the role and its key metrics.

The key insight is that these agreements are built for positions, not individual people. That means you must set aside whoever currently holds the role and focus instead on what the position truly requires—and the activities and processes needed to deliver those results. When talent levels vary among incumbents, design performance agreements around your best performers. Remember, there is no excellence in average.

This is also very freeing to you. For example, if you have 50 people on your team, you may only have five positions , and hence only five A Player Agreements to develop. You don’t customize these to the person, but only to the level of performance you require. As the great architect to quality and productivity, W. Edwards Deming proclaimed, “Winning organizations focus on process and losing organizations focus on people.” Now Deming was not being heartless about human beings here, he was just pointing out most organizations obsess over drama and averages, and not how to systematize the excellence and the best results.

Therefore, if the role spans a wide range of experience or complexity, create tiered versions of the APA by position level. For example: Talent Coach, Senior Talent Coach, Director of Talent—or Talent Coach I, II, and III. This ensures each version is ambitious, clear, and tailored to the expectations for that specific level.

Then use the A Player Agreement not only to define current expectations but to chart a compelling path forward. As you coach your people, share the next-level performance standards and partner with them to build a clear plan to achieve those goals—watching their effectiveness, and your profits, grow in the process

Many of our clients embrace the mantra “pay chases performance”—meaning base pay only increases once the employee achieves the next level outlined in these performance agreements. This keeps compensation tied directly to measurable results and sustained excellence.

To craft a powerful Strategic Importance statement, start by answering one fundamental question: What is the job to be done for this role? Think of this section as the internal job requisition you’d submit to justify the position. Ask yourself:

• • Why is this role critical to the company’s success?

  • What does winning look like in this position?

  • Which key metrics will define success?

  • How is this role unique compared to similar positions at other companies?

Write your thoughts in plain language—by hand or on your keyboard—until you have a clear, authentic description of the role’s mission and its key measures of success. Only after you’ve captured it in your own words should you consider using an AI tool to elevate the tone, tighten the structure, or make it more inspiring.

Here’s the bonus: This section of the APA is fully modular with other Scaling Up people tools—like the Job Scorecard and the Performance Profile. Once you’ve dialed it in for one position, you can copy it directly into those tools, ensuring consistency and alignment across your talent systems.

Think of this as the “Why do I get paid?” section of the APA. These are the lag measures—the five high-holy results that prove the role is delivering a strong ROI. When defining these results, we recommend including both base pay and total compensation (OTE = On Target Earnings) during the KPI development process. Why? It forces you to think critically about the value-for-money the role delivers. Also, done well, this step strengthens the business case for the position.

• • Keep the two-column format—one for the desired result, one for the numerical metric.

  • Whenever possible, use whole numbers instead of percentages—they’re often easier to measure and feel more tangible.

  • Percentages are fine for certain measures (e.g., % of A Players on the team, or % of on-time shipments). But avoid listing everything as “100%.” It becomes meaningless.

  • Ask yourself: Do you want to get paid in whole numbers or percentages? That mindset will keep this section sharp and relevant.

Once you’ve aligned metrics with compensation, you can choose to delete the pay information or keep it in, depending on your culture and transparency norms. Keep in mind that these actual numbers may vary person to person within the position.

#1: ____________________________________________________

#2: ____________________________________________________

#3: ____________________________________________________

#4: ____________________________________________________

#5: ____________________________________________________

For the Talent Coach position, key duties and responsibilities include things like recruiting, employee development, and running the corporate university. For many positions, less is more, as more can dilute the tasks too much. Notice that for the Talent Coach position, traditional HR “administrivia” jobs like compliance are intentionally omitted to not interfere with the critical work of building a team of >90% A Players.

1. Recruiting

2. Employee Development: APA and Personal Performance Promise (PPP)™

3. Employee Development: Corporate University-Learning & Learning Management System (LMS)

1. Daily
2. Weekly
3. Quarterly 
4. Semi-annual or annual (if necessary)

The lead measures and activities are the backbone of this section. Each one should define the specific amount of activity required to reliably achieve the lag measures. Think in terms of the precise volume, frequency, or intensity of effort that, if maintained, will all but guarantee the desired results.

Here is a well-developed daily activities example for the Talent Coach position. Notice each line contains specific numbers:

• >3 hours of active search per day when open placements exist.
• >12 viable candidates added to the project per hour of search. 
• <2 hours candidate to hiring manager initial contact once resume received.
• >30 minutes per day with the hiring manager to review candidates before contact.

The more quantifiable measures with numbers you include, the better. A manager’s ability to define these lead metrics, with clear quantities attached, is a direct reflection of their skill, strategic thinking, and overall value as a leader. Using the Talent Coach position as an example, here is the level of detail for the duties and responsibilities section that the APAs developed by your managers should contain:

Daily:

• • >3 hours of active search per day when open placements exist.

  • >12 viable candidates added to the project per hour of search.

  • <2 hours candidate to hiring manager initial contact once resume received.

  • >30 minutes per day with the hiring manager to review candidates before contact.

Weekly:

• • Conduct initial phone screens with 7 candidates per week.

Monthly:

• • Average 1.33 placements per month (4 per quarter).

  • Lead 4 Topgrading interviews.

Daily:

• • Contact 5 managers to ensure their APA Coaching Sessions are scheduled with their team. Log progress metrics by name in Scoreboard-Align/Metronome KPIs/Priorities.

Weekly:

• • (Co)develop 1 new or updated APA with managers.

  • Work with 4 managers on PPP development.

  • Find 4 new resources (books, videos, training) to support employee development through the PPPs.

Monthly:

• • 110 APA coaching sessions (led by manager) conducted.

  • 50 PPPs drafted and signed by employee and manager.

  • Develop 4 new training matrices.

Daily:

• • 2 hours developing LMS curriculum and content.

Weekly:

• • Report employee LMS usage at the weekly management meeting in Scoreboard-Align/Metronome.

Monthly:

• • Strategic report-out of employee development actions to my manager at the monthly management team meeting.
  • 1 new small training module with knowledge check quizzes added to LMS.

Quarterly:

• • One new large enterprise training module launched.
  • Present the results of the LMS and book learning program to input into the bonus program.

I tell leaders to think of this section as a concise summary of the lead (“do this”) and lag (“get this”) key measures. If the rest of the document got waterlogged, this page alone should tell the employee the most important activities to perform and the results to achieve. Like the other sections, it should be bristling with specific, quantifiable numbers. Here’s an example from the Talent Coach APA:

It’s ironic—amateur executives focus on hiring educated people, while the best CEOs focus on hiring lifelong learners. The most successful entrepreneurs and CEOs read two to three books per month.

We don’t just recommend implementing a formal learning program for your organization—we encourage you to steal ours, exactly as we run it. At A Player Advantage, LLC, our weekly book club has been transformative—building strategies and critical thinking skills, while aligning the team on key initiatives like business development, professional skills, and artificial intelligence. Your executive team should be reading at least one book a month, with your middle managers on a similar pace.

It’s one of the most powerful things we do to strengthen culture, alignment, and results—and you can plug it straight into your business tomorrow. We also suggest paying a reward for each book that is not only completed, but where the learnings have been validated and applied—turning reading into measurable business impact. Please, don’t let a short-sighted CFO talk you out of this program. You’ll never lose with engaged learners on your team. Just copy and paste this!

Always state your core values in the APA so they’re unmistakably tied to performance. Link each value to the specific behaviors that demonstrate it in action, making it clear that living the values is just as important as delivering results. The examples we show are ours—designed for our culture—so don’t copy and paste them. Create your own so they authentically reflect what being an A Player means in your organization. Here are some example core values with linked behaviors:

To show you’re serious about talent—and not just filling seats with status quo employees who are happy to warm a chair—this step seals the deal. End every APA with a clear, written commitment from the employee that they understand what being an A Player means and pledge to live up to it. This solidifies a formal agreement that A Players will respect. Use this proven positioning:

I understand that an A Player is top 10% in the industry for his or her position as defined by this agreement, and I commit to being an A Player.

Reviewed and agreed to by: _____________________________________

Signature:      ______________________ Date:____________

Leader’s Name: _______________________________________________

There you have it—your complete playbook for building APAs. When assigning your supervising managers the task of creating these performance agreements for their direct reports, simply provide this step-by-step guide. As noted earlier, these must be developed by the direct supervising managers for their own teams to ensure both quality and consistency across the organization.

If your organization employs a Talent Coach, they should act as the subject matter expert and quality curator for all APAs—coaching managers and working alongside them to ensure each one is consistent, high-quality, and aligned with results.

This A Player Agreement playbook is linked to a library of sample APAs you can use as templates to speed, strengthen, and standardize your development of this powerful Scaling Up people tool. Start now—every day without performance agreements is a day you’re leaving performance on the table.