Wolfgang Keller Konigsbrau-Hellas (A) HBS
A R T I C L E www.hbr.org A New Game Plan for
C Players by Beth Axelrod, Helen Handfield-Jones, and
Ed Michaels
Included with this full-text Harvard Business Review article:
1 Article Summary
The Idea in Brief—the core idea
The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work
2 A New Game Plan for C Players
10 Further Reading
A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further exploration of the article’s ideas and applications
Product 8598
A New Game Plan for C Players
The Idea in Brief
The Idea in Practice
How to sustain a 23% annual shareholder return? Push your growth rate from 4% to
10% in one year? Triple your market capitalization in three years?
THE IRON HAND
THE VELVET GLOVE
Use this disciplined process (conducted at least annually during division talent-review meetings) to regularly remove low performers from leadership positions:
Treat C players with fairness and respect:
Clothing retailer The Limited, SunTrust
Banks, and high-tech firm PerkinElmer, respectively, accomplished these feats by aggressively replacing their C players— people delivering barely acceptable results— with A and B performers.
C players’ mediocre performance pulls down their company’s performance by:
• blocking talented employees’ advancement,
• calling their bosses’ judgment into question, • encouraging a C-player mentality in others, and
COPYRIGHT © 2002 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
• repelling valuable people.
Confronting these folks is painful. Fear of litigation, or the belief that an organization should invest indefinitely in people, can further stymie the process.
But to continuously strengthen your firm’s talent pool, you must confront them. By improving—or removing—C performers, you boost company morale and performance. And since letting people languish in a job where they’re not respected only hurts them, moving C players up or out may even help them.
C Players by Beth Axelrod, Helen Handfield-Jones, and
Ed Michaels
Included with this full-text Harvard Business Review article:
1 Article Summary
The Idea in Brief—the core idea
The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work
2 A New Game Plan for C Players
10 Further Reading
A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further exploration of the article’s ideas and applications
Product 8598
A New Game Plan for C Players
The Idea in Brief
The Idea in Practice
How to sustain a 23% annual shareholder return? Push your growth rate from 4% to
10% in one year? Triple your market capitalization in three years?
THE IRON HAND
THE VELVET GLOVE
Use this disciplined process (conducted at least annually during division talent-review meetings) to regularly remove low performers from leadership positions:
Treat C players with fairness and respect:
Clothing retailer The Limited, SunTrust
Banks, and high-tech firm PerkinElmer, respectively, accomplished these feats by aggressively replacing their C players— people delivering barely acceptable results— with A and B performers.
C players’ mediocre performance pulls down their company’s performance by:
• blocking talented employees’ advancement,
• calling their bosses’ judgment into question, • encouraging a C-player mentality in others, and
COPYRIGHT © 2002 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PUBLISHING CORPORATION. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
• repelling valuable people.
Confronting these folks is painful. Fear of litigation, or the belief that an organization should invest indefinitely in people, can further stymie the process.
But to continuously strengthen your firm’s talent pool, you must confront them. By improving—or removing—C performers, you boost company morale and performance. And since letting people languish in a job where they’re not respected only hurts them, moving C players up or out may even help them.