A, B, or C Players? How Smart Leaders Build Teams Without Destroying Culture

In Episode 36 of The Business Fix, Chrissy and Josh tackle one of the most uncomfortable (and unavoidable) realities of leadership: not every employee shows up the same way, and pretending they do is hurting your business. This episode takes a hard, honest look at A, B, and C players, why those labels are so often misunderstood, and how great leaders use them ethically to build strong teams without wrecking their culture.

With a mix of real-world stories, sharp humor, and no-BS leadership insight, they break down how to identify high performers without creating arrogance, why your “middle players” are actually the backbone of your organization, and how so-called C players often fail because they’re in the wrong seat—not because they lack capability. You’ll learn how to lead different types of employees effectively, avoid the trap of chasing only A players, and make smarter decisions around hiring, promotion, coaching, and termination.

You’ll also hear about:

• Why hiring only A players can destabilize your entire team
• How to ethically manage performance without turning people into labels
• The difference between a skills gap and a values mismatch
• When repositioning an employee makes sense—and when it doesn’t
• How clarity, consistency, and expectations drive real accountability
• Why strong leadership systems matter more than raw talent

This episode is packed with practical leadership strategies and people-management insights that will help you build a high-performing team, strengthen company culture, and lead with confidence instead of constant second-guessing without burning out your employees or yourself.

If you're looking to get help with your culture, or to help out an entire group, reach out to Josh and Chrissy today!  We would love to see how we can help you, your business, or your event. Contact us!

ClarityHR is your fractional HR team, giving you real people, real support, and real solutions. Whether it’s compliance headaches, hiring struggles, or just needing someone to take the people stuff off your plate — we’ve got your back. So if you’re ready to stop using duct-tape and hope as your HR strategy and finally get some peace of mind, head over to ClarityHR.com

If you're looking to start your own podcast or maybe you just want to add the next level of professionalism to your podcast and brand, you should be working with the producers behind The Business Fix at Pedal Stomper Productions. Click the link to learn more about how you can get your podcast to the next level. https://www.pedalstomperproductions.com

🎙 Ready to Fix What’s Holding Your Business Back?
The Business Fix podcast delivers real-world strategies to grow your business, lead your team, and reclaim your time. New episodes drop weekly—packed with insights for business owners and managers who want to do better.

🔗 Connect with Chrissy and Josh at https://www.businessfixpodcast.com/ for more tools, support, and clarity.

Enjoy the episode? Leave us a review, share it with your leadership team, and let us know your biggest takeaway in the comments!

Transcript

Josh Troche: Every single one of us has a business that is built 100% on A-players. This is what I love about what I do. The hook is to make things up. But yeah, not only that, I feel bad for the people that just listen to the podcast instead of watching it, because the look on Chrissy's face right now... there is no way around it.

Josh Troche: We are going to talk though. A, B, and C players all have a good place, correct? 

Chrissy Myers: Yes. Yeah. There is a place for them in every business. You have to figure out what it is and how to do it.

Josh Troche: She is the CEO. He is the marketing and operations guy. If it is broken, you need... 

Chrissy Myers: The Business Fix. You are navigating the holidays.

Josh Troche: Yeah, we are navigating the last holiday before we get that long stretch.

Chrissy Myers: Oh, I love that you think it is hard. It is travel season after that for me. I am out of town like every week from January to March. This is where our industries are so different because everything changes for you in December.

Josh Troche: We get busy October, November, December. There is always some big projects we are doing. People are like, "I still have some marketing budget left that I have to spend. Who can I give this to?" And I am over here like, "Us".

Chrissy Myers: Oh, yeah. Nobody wants to do anything, but they have to talk to us on the insurance side in December. They do not want to, but they do not have a choice.

Josh Troche: Yeah, we can help them spend their money. But a bunch of us video producers talk and, in January, a couple of us are like, "Hey, we should just go to Florida because the phone is not going to be there". No one is in the studio. It is that rebuild for us. What did we screw up last year? How can we fix things this year? This is when we plan because October, November, December are so busy.

Chrissy Myers: January for us is really the apology tour because the carriers have not done the things they were supposed to do because they were backlogged because of the holidays. Our clients are upset and they are mad at us and we are like, "Oh no, no, this is who you need to be mad at".

Chrissy Myers: We are demanding apologies from all the major insurance carriers on behalf of our clients for things they did not do when we submitted their enrollments in November. It only happens every year for the last ten years since the Affordable Care Act. But, you know, someday they will perform.

Josh Troche: Would you say that those are key players? 

Chrissy Myers: Oh, C-players.

Josh Troche: So we have had this and one of our number one podcast episodes was on termination. The D and F players are the ones you terminate. Whether you want to or not, you categorize your people like this is an A-player, this is a B-player. You may not give them that name, but most people can generally come to that.

Josh Troche: The true sign of great leadership is... and I mean we all just want to hire A-players, but we also realize that that is a bad idea too. An example I want to give of that is Meta. They recently went out and they poached a bunch of other high level AI people and leader people. There was the mass hiring and the mass exodus properly.

Chrissy Myers: You have to hire the leadership that can corral those personalities. Otherwise you are going to be miserable.

Josh Troche: Correct. And they were because they had nothing but A-players. And all of those A-players were looking around at each other like, "Well, screw this if I cannot be the star. I am going to get the heck out of here".

Josh Troche: I played soccer. There is always that A-player on the team that needs that spotlight. And they deserve it in many cases. In the same sense, you have got to have those other players on your team. Because if you just have the one person on the field, it is probably not going to go well.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah, depending on what you are doing.

Josh Troche: Even if they are the superstar. If it is bowling, you need all eight players. If it is soccer or if it is football or baseball, everyone has their role. From a people first perspective, how does a leader ethically and efficiently figure out who the A, B, and C players are? And then how does your approach differ so that way you can build a good culture rather than this toxic environment screaming at C-players to be more like A-players? 

Chrissy Myers: Okay, we are going to lay a foundation first. I want to start by saying out loud, A, B, and C are not value judgments about people. They are descriptions of fit and contribution in a specific seat. We get into ethical trouble when we turn performance labels into character labels.

Josh Troche: They are not an idiot. They are just in the wrong seat.

Chrissy Myers: Good leaders can separate who someone is from where they are positioned. Everyone, A, B, and C, is a culture fit. They have to be. They understand the values. They are a purpose fit. We do not grade people. We place them.

Josh Troche: Oh yeah. So this is not like beef.

Chrissy Myers: No, this is not the USDA. We are not grading. I label A, B, and C and I give them names because we have got to make it easy. Architects design the future, those are A's. Builders execute the plan, those are B's. And Contributors make it all work day in and day out, that is C.

Chrissy Myers: Let's talk about Architects. They are the A-players. High complexity, high ambiguity. Architects can design direction and solve problems they do not have a playbook for. They are the best at strategy and innovation. They are helping write the rules.

Chrissy Myers: Here is the trap though. Not every role needs an A-player brain. And you do not need A-players all the time. They will break things when they are bored. Architects have to work on self-awareness, because most of them do not have it. I am raising my hand as someone who is an Architect who had to work a lot on self-awareness.

Chrissy Myers: Putting an A-player in a routine heavy role is a really fast way to burn them out and confuse the team. They are going to start breaking things. They are going to cause some challenges for you or opportunities for growth.

Josh Troche: Both of those were much more polite than I would have put them. To me the Architect piece... they are the designers. They are the dreamers.

Chrissy Myers: Now let's go to B-players, the Builders. They are the engine room. They turn vision into something real and repeatable. B-players are the backbone in most organizations. They execute and stabilize. They keep the trains running. High consistency and high reliability.

Chrissy Myers: B-players can turn into A-players with the right type of development. They want clarity, consistency, and direction. Those three C's of leadership we keep talking about: clarity, consistency, and care. B-players love them. Culturally, B-players matter even more than your Architects because they model what good looks like every day.

Josh Troche: I totally agree with that one. Yeah, that is like the Chiefs and Indians thing.

Chrissy Myers: If you neglect your B-players because you are constantly searching for that A-player unicorn, your culture is going to collapse. These individuals are so stabilizing to your organization because they can help you continue to move in the right direction. And they are really good at corralling those C-players, which are your contributors.

Chrissy Myers: Contributor or C-player is a right seat opportunity, not a failure. Contributors make sure the work actually gets done every single time. They are perfectly happy with a repeatable task. They are extremely consistent.

Chrissy Myers: Leaders get this wrong. They look at a C-player as being a low capability person, and that is not even close to what it is. Often they are in the wrong seat or they have not been given enough clarification or clarity. They can be in high routine, low risk, detail driven work. Compliance, administrative follow up, and data accuracy. Those roles really need consistency.

Chrissy Myers: If the role is clearly defined, that contributor is going to do A-level work all of the time in the right seat.

Josh Troche: Correct. They will do A-level work but not A-style work. Because it is a different thing.

Chrissy Myers: Completely agree. I am labeling the roles, not grading.

Josh Troche: I am going to just stay on that issue because that is what I do. Unlike a dog, when I get a hold of it, I am not letting go.

Chrissy Myers: That is totally fine. How do we practically ensure we are putting those ABC players in the right seats? 

Josh Troche: You said it. Role clarity. What is your job and what are you trying to accomplish? That is the biggest thing where people get off track. People do not audit the skills that people have. They give it this gut feeling like they are not good at the thing. Well, they may not be good at the thing the way you have it set up.

Chrissy Myers: Did you explain the thing? 

Josh Troche: Yeah. I have seen so many times where someone says they are not good with Excel. No, they did not do Excel the way you would do it. They switched five columns around, so when you looked at the sheet it looked totally foreign to you. That is not a skill issue. That is probably a clarity issue.

Josh Troche: If there is a C-player that is becoming a C-minus or D-plus, I try and look at a three move rule. Are they in the wrong spot and what are two or three other places that I could put them in where they may be a better fit? I do not move someone three times. But you have to be honest about it.

Josh Troche: When they are not good in accounting, you have to look at what skills they have and what role can you develop for them. I have had C-players turn straight to A-players right away just because they were moved to the right spot.

Josh Troche: With A's, for me, I tell them the "what" and let them figure out the "how". Just go do the thing. I try and make sure they have got some free time. You are going to get some great problem solving out of them. They want to find a better way to do it because they want to get onto something else.

Chrissy Myers: Exactly. "Can I fix this so I can move on?" 

Josh Troche: Right. "You have done it this way for so long, and I realize it can take half the time if I do it this other way". The thing with them is removing those bottlenecks. One of my favorite bottlenecks to remove is meetings.

Chrissy Myers: We talked about your hatred of meetings.

Josh Troche: I had a meeting today that was a half hour meeting. We had 15 minutes left because I sent everything they needed ahead of time. They looked at it and said it was wonderful.

Chrissy Myers: Do you want time back or do you want us to just write books? Because we can do either.

Josh Troche: Either one. When it comes to the B's, it is typically just a quick scheduled one on one. In many cases it is a message: "Hey, what are some issues you are having? What are some ways that I can help?" Those types of things do amazing for keeping B's on track.

Josh Troche: We use Google Chat. It is personal and directed to them. I do not want to interrupt what they are doing. It is slightly more important than an email, but it is not going to get buried.

Josh Troche: The other thing is I make sure that we look at the data from B-players to make sure that they are on track. Sometimes you will realize a B-player is off track before they will. It is good to approach them and say, "Hey, I am seeing something here, let's talk about this". They do not always have that broad vision.

Josh Troche: I typically like bringing in people as a bit more of a B-player. There is the old Henry Ford example of the steak. Henry Ford took two engineers out to dinner and ordered both of them steaks. One guy salted his steak and then the other guy tasted his steak and then salted it. The guy that tasted his steak first is the one Henry Ford hired. The other guy changed it before he knew what it actually was.

Josh Troche: C-people need high structure and frequent similar tasks. Those are the engines of my business. C-players have the SOPs so that way they know exactly what they are doing. There is no ambiguity to it.

Josh Troche: If you just tell C-players to do the thing and not and just shut up, you are losing out on some of your best ideas. So I always warn people about taking the C-player and just shoving them in the dark corner like Milton. If you just shove Milton in the basement, you are going to lose out on a lot of great ideas.

Josh Troche: For those A's, 90% of the time just let them run. The B's, give them guardrails. The C's should have a lane. Make sure they know there are intersections up ahead that they should be paying attention to. This is where so many people drop the ball.

Chrissy Myers: Because they forget that they have to manage people.

Josh Troche: Correct. "Go to your end of the building. I am going to be crying under my desk. Leave me alone".

Chrissy Myers: "I want to work on my projects. You go to work on the things that I do not want to work on, but I am not going to tell you how to do them".

Josh Troche: Not that we have ever done that before! We have seen these things in other businesses and in our own business.

Chrissy Myers: We can identify it because we have lived experience.

Josh Troche: Correct. Sometimes I am like, "Yeah, I was the idiot. I screwed up". That is why we feel smart enough to have a podcast. It is because we have screwed this up.

Chrissy Myers: Don't make the same mistakes or make them faster.

Josh Troche: If you see that you have put a C-player into an A-seat overall, that is a mistake. Own that and have that awkward conversation. If you moved a B-player into an A-role too soon, realize that is not on them. That is on you.

Josh Troche: I have seen so many times where people promote someone mistakenly and leave them there to flounder. The Peter Principle. You promote someone until they cannot do the job anymore. You have to figure out how to have that sweaty ten minute conversation.

Chrissy Myers: When you are migrating someone, there is a time component to leading them. Now you have to train them to do a new job. You assume they know what to do.

Josh Troche: It is a new hire.

Chrissy Myers: It is a new hire. It is absolutely unfair for you to think they are just going to get it. That is less than 1%. Just do the work.

Josh Troche: Like you and I, in some ways it was just get there and figure it out. Most people do not want to do that. If they did, they would start their own business.

Chrissy Myers: That is why we are entrepreneurs. Most people are intrapreneurs because they want to be led within an organization by someone else. Suck it up if you want to grow and have employees. Don't be a jerk and don't leave them to flounder.

Josh Troche: When is it a values mismatch or when is it a skills mismatch? 

Chrissy Myers: Such an important distinction. A values mismatch is almost always a fire for me. It is 99.9%. If you have someone and they are like, "I do not believe in your core values," they are not going to work here.

Chrissy Myers: I do not think moving them to another department is going to help. I made that mistake early in my career. Let's just exit them. You can train for skills, but we cannot train values. I cannot coach integrity. I cannot coach respect.

Chrissy Myers: If they are like, "I do not believe in service and excellence"—those are two of our core values—I go, "Oh, today will be your last day being here. We are done".

Josh Troche: There was a place that I exited where the employee literally was screaming at me in the corner. The CEO asked me what happens if we fire this person. He said they had moved this person four times and it had not worked out. I said, "I cannot work for you. That is it".

Chrissy Myers: Exactly. Your A-players will exit when you have toxic values. It does not matter where you move that person, they are going to be a cancer to your culture. Family businesses do this all the time because they cannot fire the family member. I have had to personally fire family members.

Josh Troche: It is difficult.

Chrissy Myers: Well, it is. And then you are like, "Oh, but they are so sweet at home".

Josh Troche: Thanksgiving's going to suck.

Chrissy Myers: Yeah, it is. Too bad. Do you want a business? 

Josh Troche: That company had a very toxic culture. These people were B's and C's. They had no A-players because every A-player was like, "I am not dealing with this". All B's or C's. They had some extremely high performing what I would label as C-players. Execute, execute, execute. Zero ideas.

Chrissy Myers: "Don't ask me to have any ideas because you are going to be threatening to me".

Josh Troche: Correct. You cannot label those on just KPIs. That A-player visionary idea thing is not something that you are going to get a chart on at the end of the month.

Chrissy Myers: One of the best ways to stay ethical as a leader is to make performance visible. When you have got metrics that are clear and shared, it removes a lot of the emotion and the subjective. People do not feel labeled, they feel measured, and measurement feels fair.

Chrissy Myers: It protects the leader from favoritism and the employee from guessing games. As a leader, you also need to measure your own performance. 360 feedback can be really uncomfortable but powerful in helping you see where your gaps are. I am a huge proponent of professional development. Measuring your own performance is just as important as being transparent in the measurement for other people. Share your performance with your team.

Josh Troche: Yes. And do not just be like, "Hey, I am rock star".

Chrissy Myers: No, "Here is where I screwed up this year".

Josh Troche: Kind of the last one: when you say it for a C-player turning into a C-minus or D-plus... 

Chrissy Myers: You cut ties when you have done the hard leadership work: clarified expectations, tried repositioning, and offered support. If you have done those three things and they are still not meeting that standard, you let things go.

Josh Troche: Yeah. If it is not a fit, it is not a fit.

Chrissy Myers: Because you are hostages, both of you.

Josh Troche: Correct. Nothing's more awkward than being in the room with a bunch of hostages. All the rest of your employees are looking around like, "Are those two ever going to finally just kill each other"? 

Chrissy Myers: Exactly right. You exit them with dignity. That is the most honest thing you can do for them. "This is not a fit. We appreciate the work that you've done. It's just not working out".

Josh Troche: Actionable stuff? Yes. Audit the roles. Define every single job in your company. Give it some measurable outputs.

Chrissy Myers: Determine what the task needs and place people accordingly. Having a good job description is really important because it can clarify expectations before someone even walks in the door.

Josh Troche: If you do not have those skills, there is the three move rule. What are three other spots in the company that they may be an asset in? Find a spot for them. If you do not have that spot, make that spot or make the door open.

Chrissy Myers: Documenting those wins. When a key player succeeds in something routine, you need to celebrate that and document why. It is just as important to celebrate the sea level work as it is to celebrate the architect work.

Josh Troche: Coach the upside. Coaching your B-players will get you far more than spending all day kissing your A-player's ass. Spend the time with the B-players, working on developing them and growing them. Probably 50% on your B's, 30% on your C's, and 20% on your A's.

Josh Troche: What is one question leaders should ask themselves before they tell a C-player, "The door is open for you"? 

Chrissy Myers: "Have I truly put this person in the right seat with clear expectations and support? Did I do my job?" Because if I have not clarified the role, defined success, and given them a fair chance, firing's premature.

Chrissy Myers: What is the single biggest risk in operations leader takes when they try to put an A-player into a highly routine, predictable role? 

Josh Troche: They just say, "Nope, I am out". They start turning knobs and flipping switches because they are like, "Hey, I can tinker here". No, this is not the tinkering spot. They either exit or they start turning knobs and your business is imploding.

Josh Troche: Someone that wants to build an A-team, it is just not going to work. Clarity HR helps with that.

Chrissy Myers: Human resource.

Josh Troche: If you want more information, https://www.businessfixpodcast.com/. Follow us on all the social medias. Instagram still killing it.

Chrissy Myers: I am a big deal on Instagram.

Josh Troche: Next week we will be talking about growth and loneliness. Take care of yourself. If you cannot, take care of someone else too. We will see you very soon.