A-Players

Defining Exceptional Talent and Hiring for the New World

by Anish Batlaw, Jessica Neal, and Ram Charan

The world that created yesterday’s A-Players no longer exists.

AI now does work that once required whole teams. Geopolitical shocks, new technologies, and a higher cost of capital can upend a sound business model almost overnight. The demands on leaders have changed.

So has the definition of an A-Player.

For years, companies assumed a candidate's past successes would repeat across roles, but triumphs in one context do not guarantee them in another. In today's age, what matters is whether a leader can frame a problem, make decisions under uncertainty, adapt to new and complex challenges, and deliver against the mandate ahead. Get a hire wrong, and the cost compounds across every decision, team, and year.

A-Players: Defining Exceptional Talent and Hiring for the New World is built on that conviction and decades of experience. It sets a new standard for outstanding leadership and a clear architecture for hiring for it, by assessing how A-Players think, how they work, and what they consistently produce. 

The strategy outlined in A-Players helps organizations and leaders define what their next chapter requires, decide whom to hire and promote, assess whether the people already in place are right for their roles, and identify skills they themselves need to further develop.

Based on real-world experience, the concepts in this book stem from thousands of executive assessments and hundreds of leadership appointments, all measured against the one thing that matters: whether the leader went on to create extraordinary value.

Read this book to make better calls about talent. Put it in the hands of everyone who makes those calls, and raise the ceiling of the entire organization.