Let’s Hear it for B Players

Professor Thomas DeLong and Vineeta Vijayaraghavan in their article 'Let’s hear it for the B players' succinctly explain that though organizations downplay average performers because they lack the luster and ambition of stars, they may be the best supporting actors in times of need.

I was pleased to hear that as a B player who always attempts to hire A players.

The argument that companies do not notice the importance of the B players and their roles in counter balancing the ambitions of the company’s high performing visionaries whose esteemed strengths when carried to an extreme can lead to volatile behavior did make sense.

With the abundance of literature on STARS, it was refreshing to read this article. The truth is that companies need to recognize their B players are not necessarily less intelligent than the STARS. While A players maybe demonstrate an achievement oriented behavior much more, the B player clearly demonstrates an aversion to calling attention to themselves. B players often have a great temperament - Emotional Intelligence.

Join the Accredited EQ programme run by David Cory from the Emotional Intelligence Company and learn more about shaping your B players. For more details, email lily@smrhrd.com.

Are Leaders Portable?

Another question ‘Are Leaders Portable?’ is raised in the article by Boris Groysberg, McLean and Nohria. Their argument that best management talent will not necessarily transfer their talent into results in newer companies that they go to unless the talent maps to the challenges of the new environment made a lot of sense to me.

They argue that success comes from a FIT between the talent’s human capital and the organization. They identify four key areas for a FIT:

	Strategic Human Capital		Relationship Human Capital
	Industry Human Capital		Company specific Human Capital

Come to our International Accreditation programmes to learn more about this FIT and IMPACT. The two programmes on Accredited Competency Professional and Accredited Evaluation Professional will address the areas of building a FIT and ensuring the right training takes place for leaders to create and deliver value. For more details, email lily@smrhrd.com.

The Asia HRD Congress & the Accredited Programmes

We are just a month away from Asia HRD Congress - make sure you are there to learn from the incredibly talented speakers. The Conference will help you learn, share, network and shape.

We have also lined up international accreditation programmes in the areas of:

	Training		EQ
	Evaluation		Competency

Email lily@smrhrd.com or inoka@hrdcongress.com for more information.

Hope to see you at the Asia HRD Congress. I will be in touch closer to the Asia HRD Congress.