It’s Time to Pivot: Why Every CEO Needs a Talent Coach—Not an HR Manager

For the vast majority of companies and their CEOs / executive teams, traditional HR thinking, legacy practices, and a lack of strategic initiative have failed them. It’s time to pivot from HR to talent.

• HR wasn’t built for the business you’re trying to scale.

• Building the best team money can buy and upholding the A Player Standard are key CEO roles.

• You need a coach to help you implement these. They co-own the quality of the team and the leadership team with you.

• The skills of the coach are vastly different from traditional HR, usually requiring different people.

• Traditional HR is staff-oriented, not operational, and withers at the leadership table.

• A Talent Coach will help you get the A Player density you deserve.

If you’re the CEO or an executive team member of a growing business, chances are you’ve built something that works. Your product or service solves a real problem. Customers are buying. Strategy is sound. The leadership team is strong. You’re probably experiencing solid growth. But deep down, you know something’s off.

You’re still in the weeds. You’re working too hard. You’re still following up. Execution is off, and you’re still noticing that your top performers are outnumbered—that “good enough” is starting to take hold. You wonder why people don’t “get it” and want it as much as you do.

You’re not wrong. And if you’re frustrated with your team’s inconsistent performance, you’re not alone. What you’re experiencing isn’t a leadership flaw. It’s a people system problem. You’ve likely done what most CEOs do: entrusted “people” to HR. But here’s the truth—HR wasn’t built for the business you’re trying to scale.

One of the fundamental responsibilities of a CEO is to build the best team money can buy.

Your leadership impact is ultimately measured by the quality and performance of your team. As outlined in my next book, Coaching Up: The CEO’s Guide to Building a Team of A Players, I introduce the true priorities of a leader, which I call the Trifecta of Leadership.

1. Strategy
2. Coaching: The Dissemination of Strategy and Culture
3. Upholding the A Player Standard

You can’t outsource the core of your leadership responsibility to a function that wasn’t designed for performance. HR departments were never engineered to build a team of >90% A Players.

It’s time to pivot. What you need isn’t more “adult daycare.” You need a coach, not an HR function.

Let’s call it what it is: HR in most organizations is a staff, not an operational function. They post untargeted jobs that unqualified people apply for. They administer benefits, manage policies, handle compliance, and try to keep average people from quitting. These are administrative, not strategic functions that can be easily and affordably outsourced.

For these reasons, Scaling Up founder Verne Harnish and I are completely aligned on pivoting the HR function to talent.

Traditional HR focuses on trying to make people happy rather than truly making them better—in other words, the important work. And when you bring these HR leaders to the leadership team table and hold them directly accountable for results, most crumble.

They’re staff people—not business builders.

HR staff clamor for a seat at the table, but most are not ready to carry the strategic thinking and outcomes required of this privilege. This is why CEOs feel the drag. They hand off “people” to HR, expecting transformation—and get policies and surveys instead. Your business doesn’t need personnel paperwork. It needs performance. It needs systems that attract, develop, and retain the kind of skill that fuels strategic growth.

Here’s the test:  I have yet to meet an HR leader who truly owns the quality of talent on a team. This means they would put their own compensation and bonus at risk if they missed density targets. Most do not even know the percentage of A Players on the team, and even fewer take ownership of improving this vital metric. If you happen to have a person with an HR title who is truly doing this for you, then consider yourself lucky, and I tip my cap to both of you. Well done!

Meanwhile, in most cases, the real issues persist:

• • Mediocre hires
  • Inconsistent accountability
  • B Players quietly lowering the standard for everyone

Let’s be blunt: you don’t need more policies. You need better people. And HR, as it stands in most organizations, isn’t going to get you there.

If you want to run a company where 90% or more of your team are A Players, you need someone on your executive team who is accountable for making that happen. That person isn’t your HR manager. It’s your Talent Coach.

This isn’t only a new concept—it’s a new operating system. One that treats people like the strategic asset they are, not just a function to be managed. It’s a role we have innovated at A Player Advantage with some of the best-performing growth companies on the planet, and have been rolling out to Scaling Up clients with amazing results.

A world-class coach is responsible for:

• • Owning the quality of talent across the organization—driving toward a team of 100% A Players (Our typical clients have over 80%, and many have well over 90%).
  • Rifleshot recruiting—personally ensuring that only top performers enter the pipeline by only targeting passive candidates, not job board postings.
  • Coaching the coaches—training managers on how to coach, develop, and hold their people accountable with measurable coaching systems to drive value and talent density.
  • Building playbooks—developing training, best practices, and role-specific execution standards housed in a learning management system (LMS).

Unlike HR, they don’t just fix problems—they prevent them by building capability into the system.

The best way to think about this coaching role? Think Green Beret.

These coaches are elite internal operators—skilled, adaptable, and mission-focused. Their job is to force-multiply by embedding tools, standards, and skills across the organization. They train the trainers. They build the systems. They embed the mindset. And in doing so, they transform your people from a collection of roles into a disciplined, accountable, high-performance unit.

Unfortunately, the current people on your HR team may not be the best candidates for your new coaching function. This is because the skills, philosophies, and attitudes of the coach are fundamentally different from traditional HR. 

Most people who got into the HR function came through two primary channels:

• • Employee Relations / Compliance / Administration
  • Recruiting / Talent Acquisition

Probably as no surprise, we strongly favor the latter, for three reasons:

• • Recruiting is a big part of the role, and great recruiters love to recruit great people.

  • Recruiters are just about the only ones in the HR function who are actually accountable for the quality of people they hire.

  • Most employee relations people are empathetic people pleasers who struggle to hold candidates or managers accountable.

As an example, here is an excerpt from a traditional HR business partner (and apparently, an unabashed B Player apologist) who could not envision the rigors of the role:

“While helping to build a growing company’s talent function initially seemed like a good fit, I’ve realized that my approach doesn’t align with what this role demands. I’m not comfortable with methods like Topgrading™, and I honestly can’t see putting a candidate through such an intensive process. It feels intrusive and risks alienating strong individuals who may not meet a specific definition of “top performer.”

More broadly, I believe average performers bring real value. With the right support, they can be some of the most loyal team members. Having a few steady, dependable people can help reduce burnout and create more space for top performers to drive the business.”

Besides the flawed thinking embedded in this logic (can you raise the bar by regressing to the mean?), this mindset is common. Traditional HR leaders are often more focused on protecting feelings than elevating performance—and simply aren’t wired for the demands of building a team of 90%+ A Players.

So don’t just assume your current HR team is up for the task. If they are truly passionate about making an impact by developing people, love to recruit, and can hold themselves and others accountable, they might be worth a shot. Some HR people got into this field to do just this kind of work, but were stymied by the flawed conventions of their profession. And they may recognize that top companies must hire only the best talent. Here’s a test: if your HR leader truly buys into A Players, and can hold your most grizzled manager accountable, you may have a chance.

For nearly two decades, we’ve built and implemented the A Player Performance System™ across dozens of organizations—from $5M organizations to glo bal brands. These tools are the backbone of a world-class people acquisition system.

The coach is responsible for working directly with frontline managers and leaders to embed, sustain, and scale these powerful tools across the organization. Instead of simply introducing processes, they build real capability—coaching execution, reinforcing standards, and measuring impact at every level.

Here’s what’s in the system:

A job description on steroids, this is a performance contract that shows exactly how to get an “A” in the role. It defines clear outcomes, cultural standards, and support structures, but more importantly, it spells out the lead measures—daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly behaviors—that drive success. It’s part scorecard, part playbook, and consistently delivers 20%+ performance improvements by aligning expectations and accountability from day one.

Job Scorecards are used from day one—before the hire is made. They define the outcomes, metrics, and behaviors that determine success in the role. Scorecards are used in hiring and onboarding, and they support coaching and reviews—creating a consistent, objective framework at every stage. In an A Player culture, led by a coach, they’re the foundation of performance clarity and alignment.

Still the gold standard. Topgrading™ is the most accurate hiring system in existence—the only method proven to consistently deliver 90%+ success in selecting A Players. It’s a rigorous, structured process typically carried out by members of the executive team that uncovers a candidate’s full career history, identifies patterns of high (or low) performance, and verifies claims through deep reference checks. When the cost of a mis-hire is 15x their salary—or when your next key hire can make or break the quarter—Topgrading isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a competitive necessity to ensure you’re hiring who you think you are: candidates driven to succeed.

Let’s be clear: you didn’t build a successful organization by tolerating mediocrity. And you’re not going to scale to the next level—or engineer a strategic valuation at exit—by carrying underperformers on your back. If you’re serious about the next stage of growth, you need to operationalize performance with the same discipline you bring to finance, marketing, and execution.

This means:

• • Appointing a senior, right-hand partner who owns the quality of talent across the organization.

  • Making A Player standards visible, measurable, and non-negotiable.

  • Building a repeatable, accountable system for hiring, developing, and elevating top performers.

This isn’t a rebrand of HR or giving them a louder voice. This is about doing something completely different by installing a coach who helps you build a team that can scale the company without you having to carry it.

If it feels like you’re playing too much defense with your team…you probably are.
But that’s not a leadership flaw—it’s a signal your company has outgrown traditional HR and is ready for a smarter approach. What you need now is someone who owns employee performance the way your CFO owns the numbers.

You need a Talent Coach: a strategic partner who installs the systems, builds the capabilities, and drives the human capital performance needed to scale and succeed. Because once you make the pivot, everything starts to accelerate:

• • Strategy gets executed faster.

  • Managers stop managing drama and start leading results.

  • Profits and happiness increase due to increased talent density.

  • Talent becomes your differentiator—not your Achilles’ heel.

  • And you, as CEO, finally get to focus on building the future—not backstopping the present.

We’ve seen this pivot change the trajectory of companies across industries. As you pass around 80% A Players and proceed to 100%, you’ll see your profits and happiness soar.

If you’re ready to shift from HR-as-usual to a true talent strategy, we’d be glad to explore how that could look for your business.