A, B and C Team Members

 

Potential or current team members can be categorized as A, B, or C Team players. This is not about being a good or bad person but about being able to play well on your team.

A-team players are self-directed, highly competent, committed to the team, and hard-working. They are committed to your values and mission, require little management, and are results-oriented. A Team players have high EQs, work well with others, and have good self-awareness. They live and breathe the culture and the mission.

B-Team players are committed to the team, work hard, buy into your values and mission, are results-oriented, and have high EQ, but may require more direction. Generally, B-team players are less creative or entrepreneurial than A-team players, but given concrete direction, they will do their work diligently and faithfully.

C-Team players may or may not be competent (some are very competent and may even be  'stars'). But they have a fatal flaw that disqualifies them from serving on your team. Disqualifiers include lack of tangible results, laziness, lack of buy-in or adherence to your mission or values, low EQ that disrupts relationships on the team or elsewhere, inability to work productively as a team player, or immaturity requiring constant management. 

Let me say what many in the Christian world are unwilling to say: C Team players do not belong on our teams, no matter how 'nice' they are or how long they have been with you. To allow them to stay is to condemn the rest of the team to frustration and to compromise the organization's mission. Remember, we are using God's resources to further God's Kingdom. We are responsible to our donors, the Kingdom, and the organization's mission to ensure that we deliver on the mission.

The question one needs to ask about C-Team players is whether the fatal flaw can be dealt with so the individual can move from a C-Team player to a B-Team player. People operating at a C-Team level in terms of results are in the wrong job (wrong seat), so you may want to do some testing and try an alternate job if one is available. What is not wise is to leave an incompetent person in place. Your credibility as a leader will be legitimately tarnished with the rest of your team if you do not deal with performance issues - or other fatal flaws.

No matter how competent an individual is, if they don't live your values or believe in your mission, they don't belong on your team. Your culture and mission are sacred, and those who don't live both do not belong on your team. Culture is fragile and critical. Those who don't live the culture are hurting you no matter how smart and competent they are. This is evidenced in many ways, especially in how they treat others. No one who violates others should be on the team. They will destroy your team. Anyone who uses people like objects rather than appreciating them as people will help you build a healthy culture.

Before deciding whether someone is a C-Team player, ask whether they have ever been coached or mentored. And whether anyone has ever been honest with them regarding problematic issues. If not, you owe it to them to put them through a process to see if they can be retooled and brought up to a B-team level.

A and B Team folks are the heart of any good team and organization. In some higher-level jobs, you will need A-Team players. In many jobs, a solid, faithful B Team player is precisely what you need. Know that you need and work to fill positions based on that need.

One of the realities of organizations is that someone who is an A or B Team player at one phase of an organization's life can slip to a B or a C at another. Most people have a built-in "capacity ceiling" where they cease to be effective. Thus, a youth worker who was a star when she had 20 youth in her group (she could personally relate to 20) starts to slip when she has 60 (she cannot relate to 60 and is not able to build a team to help her).

It may be a case of being unable to multiply themselves to lead a larger number of people, or they have just quit growing (an all too common scenario). If coaching and mentoring do not solve the issue, you may have to move them to another seat on your bus or help them, redemptively, find a seat on another bus. What you cannot do is allow someone to function at a sub-standard level without directly impacting the rest of your team and the results of your ministry. At any stage of your ministry's life, having the right people in the right seat is critical if the ministry is going to develop to the next level of effectiveness.

Your first responsibility as a leader is to ensure the health of your organization while always acting redemptively when a change is needed. People who are not doing well are usually not in their sweet spot, and they often know it. Leaving them there is not fair to the organization and others on your team, and in the end, it is not in the best interests of the one who cannot play at the level they need to play at.

Five ways a calendar can revolutionize your life

A critical principle each of us must learn is the value of time. Time is far more valuable than money because you can never get it back. Money comes and goes, but time just goes. Every time we place an obligation on our calendar, we write a "time check" that we cash on the day and time it is written for. What we often forget is that our calendar is a fabulous tool to help us use our time most wisely.

Here is something to think about. A calendar is not just a "time to do list" to remind us of everything we have committed to. But that is how we often use it. We dutifully put our obligations on our calendars so that we don't forget them, but that is not the primary purpose of a calendar. That is simply a to-do list with a time and place attached to it.

A Calendar, rightly used, is far more than this. It can be a fabulous tool to help us achieve our calling in life, our responsibilities at work, our marriage and family commitments, and all of those things that are of importance to us. It is not a "time to-do list." It is a sophisticated tool to help us achieve our goals in life. Let me explain.

Organizing our time
At its most simple, calendars help us organize the elements of our lives that are all time-constrained. Like the filing system for our email, a calendar helps us to organize our time because we believe that time is valuable. Anything of value is handled with care and stewarded. If time is valuable, we need to handle it with care and organization.

Prioritizing our activities
Not all activities are of equal value. But how do we ensure that we are focused on those activities of the greatest value? Here is a simple principle: Those things that are most important always go on our calendar before other things are added. This is true in our work, our family, our marriage or any other part of our life. This is far different than a "time to-do list." It actually helps us schedule our priorities first because we want to live intentionally rather than accidentally.

Evaluating our spending
Not monetary spending but "time" spending. Think of your financial decisions. An analysis of our bank statement can tell us not only where our money is going but also whether we are using our finances to achieve our financial priorities. If retirement is important, but we are putting only a small amount into our fund, our spending does not reflect our priorities. In the same way, our calendars tell us in real-time if we are actually spending time in a way that reflects our priorities. Thus, our calendar helps us to evaluate our lives and commitments.

One way to use your calendar to determine your "time" spending is to color code your commitments so that you have a visual picture of where you are spending your time. It is visual management for your life.

Aligning our time with our values
Values represent what is important to us. My marriage, for instance, is important to me. That means that my time commitments to my wife and the health of my marriage should be reflected on my calendar. If it is not, I need to realign my time priorities to align with my values.

Because our time commitments should reflect our values, wise people read their calendars often, and as they do, they ask themselves the question, "Am I spending my time in ways that reflect my values?" And "Where do I need to realign my "time" spending? It is helpful to take scheduled time each month to examine one's calendar and ask these important questions.

Choosing to say yes or no
How often do we have a problem saying no? When we should! Your calendar can help you determine whether you ought to say yes or no to commitments that come your way. A great way to do this is to develop the habit of saying, "Let me check my calendar and see if it fits" when asked to add something to your calendar. Don't answer on the fly. Rather, take a day or two, look at the time commitments you have, and give yourself the freedom to agree or say no on the basis of how it fits into your priorities. Don't cash time checks you don't want to!

One final thought. There is a video from Bill Gates making the rounds entitled "Busyness is the new stupid." I agree. Yet we fill our schedules to overflowing and, in the end, get too little rest, think time family time, and live with fatigue and frustration. Use your calendar to manage your time so that you don't live in the tyranny of the urgent - at least most of the time!