How To Find & Retain "A" Players For Your Business With Tamara Kemper

Chris Ronzio (01:34):

Hey everyone. And welcome back to Organize Chaos. I'm your host, Chris Ronzio. And today we're talking with a good friend of mine, someone that I've gone back with for years, and we'll get into that background in that history, but I'm just going to introduce her to you. Her name's Tamara Kemper. Hey Tamara.

Tamara Kemper (01:49):

Hey Chris.

Chris Ronzio (01:51):

Good to see you.

Tamara Kemper (01:53):

Thanks for having me to see you. Yeah, good to see you too.

Chris Ronzio (01:55):

So we got introduced years ago because I was told you were an A player, which is the conversation we're going to have today about A players and what that means in business. But the introduction was you're into all the same things as me and you're doing the consulting and you're interested in process and operations, and maybe we can find a way to work together. And this was way before Trainual even had like a certified consultant program. You were one of the original Trainual consultants.

Tamara Kemper (02:29):

I was indeed. And as you tell that story in that way, it makes me think that really, they were like, well, you're a nerd. She's a nerd. You all need to just meet and talk about all that nerdy stuff.

Chris Ronzio (02:38):

Totally. Us nerds have to stick together.

Tamara Kemper (02:40):

Have to stick together.

Chris Ronzio (02:42):

At the time I just really wanted to hire you. I really wanted you to work with Trainual. And turned out you were just far too entrepreneurial and you were hell bent on starting your own thing, and you've done incredibly well. So we also worked together on my book really early on. You were helping me frame a lot of the principles that ended up in my book years later, but it was before our first consulting workshop that you helped me outline some of those. So thank you for that. Shout out to you for that.

Tamara Kemper (03:12):

Yeah. That was an amazing experience. I'm so super grateful that I got to partner with you on that. All good memories.

Chris Ronzio (03:21):

Great memories. So you work with tons of businesses. We're obviously involved in this, the same space, this operations, helping businesses scale and be more systematized and a big part of that is finding the right people and making sure that you've got a solid team around you. And so the conversation we're going to have today is about this idea of A players. So, what does that mean to you? What is an A player?

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What is an "A" player?

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Tamara Kemper (03:48):

Well, I always describe A players as somebody who is willing and excited to jump in and take on messy, sticky problems, like they kind of crave that they are no drama or very low drama. They are somebody who really has this can do attitude, wants to dig in, be a team member. It's just that person that you want to clone him. Like you wish he had a million of them in your business. This really got on my radar because I was working with a client and it was so clear to me that they had this A player, like they had this rockstar of a human who was just killing it and it was kind of a newer person. And they had a person who had been there for quite a while and was very resistant and was very resistant to everything this person was doing.

Tamara Kemper (04:42):

I was like throwing up red flags and being like alert, alert, you're putting this amazing person who's invested and ready and wants to come in and help you shift your business and do cool things, you're putting them at risk because you're letting this person who's kind of maybe afraid of change or doesn't want those things to come to fruition, you're letting them get in their way. This is a real risk to your business. You're going to scare away people who have that mentality that you actually want to foster.

Tamara Kemper (05:15):

I put a post about it on LinkedIn, and I got this gigantic response. Like so many people were like, oh my gosh, yes. Please tell all of the people, tell all of the managers of the world, we don't like this. Get these people out of our way that are not wanting us to do this thing and I realized that I had hit a nerve. And so it's kind of gotten me investigating this, what is this? Who are these A players? How do we find them? How do we support them? Because that's the exciting kind of energy you want to have on your team.

Chris Ronzio (05:53):

So it's sort of like that cliche one bad apple spoils the bunch or something like that is. We should definitely get into how you can ruin a culture of A players with B or C players or whatever you call them. But, when I think about A players, I think of is this a person that you would be fighting for if they put in their notice? It is somebody that you would be so disappointed or you'd be going after to say like, no, what can I do to change your mind? That's probably an A player. Whereas if it's someone that you're like, okay, oh well, then why were you tolerating that to begin with? We could get into a lot of like performance management.

Chris Ronzio (06:46):

This is a big topic, but this story you were just telling reminded me of a consulting client that I had, where they had a sales rep that was their top performing sales rep. Yet, this person would tell inappropriate jokes and they were kind of afraid to put them in front of their biggest customers. They rubbed people the wrong way but they were the top performing sales rep and the company was afraid to make the cut because they were such a top performer. But when I think of an A player, I think of someone that is an amazing performer from their numbers, but also an amazing fit for your culture. They fit your values and they are like a model citizen in terms of the type of employee you want. So I think it's not just about their performance. It's like, is this the type of person, like you said, that I want to clone over and over again.

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Can anyone be an "A" player?

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Tamara Kemper (07:48):

Totally. This is something that I'm curious about what you think about it. I mean, it almost sounds like character qualities. Do you feel like anybody can be an A player or do you feel like it's just sort of you are or you aren't?

Chris Ronzio (08:04):

I think every company has their own definition of an A player. And so I think it's hard to establish what an A player is in your business if you don't have your values and the traits that you're looking for defined and the scorecards defined and the roles well defined, because if you have all that really well defined, then you can black and white say, yeah, this person's they're knocking it out of the park, they're outperforming in every area and I want to replicate them. Where, if you don't have all that clear, then you're kind of fuzzy, you sort of find out over time.

Tamara Kemper (08:42):

Totally. I love that. I love that you're coming back to kind of the culture of the business. I have a friend who's in a very... What do I want to say? They're very fancy. It's a very serious line of business. And so they have to kind of show up in a more stiff and serious kind of way. Somebody who's maybe more emotive, might be an amazing person who can do a lot of things but they wouldn't be a fit for that culture. And so for that particular person, they might not be an A player. That's interesting.

Chris Ronzio (09:24):

Yeah. I heard a presentation last week about having to make the tough decisions of letting someone go in a business and the way that this particular entrepreneur framed it is that he was helping them find a success somewhere else. This is not the place for you to succeed and thrive, but there could be a place out there. When you say can anybody be an A player, I think everyone can be an A player somewhere, but I don't think everyone can be an A player at every business in every role. What do you think?

Tamara Kemper (10:05):

I think the culture aspects for sure, so like the core values I'm with you 100%. And I think you and I could both probably stand up on our soap boxes for an hour talking about the importance of aligning like what you're asking from your team to your values. It's super important. And so I think that's the part that can vary from business to business. But I do think that there are a core set of behaviors, I'll say, that every A player has, and not everybody operates that way. So, I think it's a yes and. Unfortunately I hate being that person, but I think there's like these core behaviors that like all A players, quote, quote, we're making up things here, so whatever, that they all have. And then I think there's maybe some flavors that might be different from business to business based on the values that they share. That's my definition that I just decided as we [inaudible 00:11:04]-

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"A" player behaviors

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Chris Ronzio (11:03):

What are some of the behaviors, let's like rattle some of these off because then maybe people that are listening they can go through like a mental checklist to their people.

Tamara Kemper (11:11):

Cool. A big one for me is ownership. So it's this idea of I can give you something and I know that you have it. I don't have to come and check on it. In fact, you might even take it from me because you see that it needs to be done and so you take it. That's for sure one of mine that's like at the top of the list.

Chris Ronzio (11:32):

That's like trust and accountability, I feel like go with that. That if you've just got it I can trust you, I don't really have to hold you accountable because I know you'll hold yourself accountable. Yeah.

Tamara Kemper (11:47):

I think so.

Chris Ronzio (11:49):

What about kind of like the idea of under promising and over delivering, I think that every... What did you say? Excellence? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think every A player that I interact with surprises me with doing things that I didn't even expect. It's like over the top and that's important.

Tamara Kemper (12:23):

That reminds me of they have an ability to prioritize and use discernment. So yes, surprise you but not surprise you in a bad way with random things. They're cool but maybe not the thing that's actually the most critical mission, critical things that we need to be focused on. So, they're like really clear, they can see the big picture and they have good discernment of staying on track with the right things.

Chris Ronzio (12:50):

Right. Yeah. I think clear communication is really important. That you don't find yourselves with kind of playing this game of telephone with misunderstandings about everything and things getting done wrong. So I think the ability to clearly communicate or say things back to you and make sure that they're well understood.

Tamara Kemper (13:12):

That one makes me think of another factor I don't think we've brought into this conversation, which is the role. And how A player in one role maybe might be different from an A player in another role, because communication, for example. Let's say I want to hire another consultant. Well, yes, they need to be a general good communicator, but the way they communicate, like I need them to have this kind of presence in the room and I need them to be able to be a certain way with clients. Whereas somebody who's maybe a developer for you on your team, they still need to have great communication, but it might look different. What do you think about how roles play into this?

Chris Ronzio (13:57):

Huge. It's kind of what I was saying about company to company, role to role. Everybody I think can be an A player in some specific role. You mentioned, the critical thinking and discernment, and I think that gets more and more and more important the higher up you go in seniority. But you can have A players that are interns and don't have a ton of responsibility, but they go away above and beyond your expectations of what they're doing in that role. I think the role is really important because the role is like level setting on the expectations and an A player goes above and beyond those expectations.

Tamara Kemper (14:41):

I love that. I think is proactively doing so, like they're not waiting for you to give them the specs. I mean, maybe they are depending on like how long they've been with your business or whatever point there are in the onboarding phase.

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Employee performance throughout the seasons of life

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Chris Ronzio (15:01):

There was this concept in... Have you read Radical Candor by Kim Scott?

Tamara Kemper (15:05):

No, it's like on my list and I haven't gotten to it yet and it's [inaudible 00:15:08]-

Chris Ronzio (15:08):

So I really liked that book. Actually, she spoke at one of our list-

Tamara Kemper (15:11):

Leave it up.

Chris Ronzio (15:14):

So the concept she put in there was, she used superstar and rockstar, her definition was that they're different. It's almost like an A plus and an A, or something like that. She said that people can in different stages of their life, go back and forth between. Like, I'm in a phase right now where I'm just going to be steady and I'm not going to be like a insane high performer but you can count on me and I'm going to get everything done. But then in the next season, next year or whatever, I might be just a total superstar. Have you observed that with your clients, for a single person there's like these waves of A to A plus performance?

Tamara Kemper (16:08):

I can totally see that. And I'm even reflecting on my own flows, the seasons of my own life and how being a rockstar, an A player, looks for me from one season to another. I think I'm sure this must be hard for an employee. As an owner of my business, I can make that work, I can kind of adjust my workflow based on that. But I wonder how we could support an A player with the seasons of life. I know you really value balance for your employees and it not being all about work. I see that all the time from you and your team. So, how do you see supporting someone through those seasons? Because I think that's spot on.

Chris Ronzio (17:02):

I think that when you're performing at a very high level, it's like you're making deposits into a bank account and then when something happens in your life and you need to make a withdrawal, you need a little bit of extra time off, you need to be coming in late for a few days, you've got something going on with the family. It's almost like you've earned that flexibility through your investments you've made in super high performance. That's kind of how I see it. Our philosophy is that we trust that everyone that we're hiring is operating at a high level and does have clear cut expectations. So when things pop up in life, we allow a ton of autonomy and flexibility for people to monitor that balance themselves. We just have to make sure that we're keeping performance in mind and that our managers have a good pulse on that balance. But that's kind of how I think it works. I don't think that everyone operates at the top RPMs at all times. We would all burn out. I think that you hit the gas sometimes and then you're on cruise control sometimes, but as long as you're arriving on time.

Tamara Kemper (18:33):

So this has me wondering a little bit about the balance of a team. You were just talking about our managers kind of make sure that we are performing and this obviously requires a high degree of empathy and A player-ness from managers to be able to lead in that way. So I assume I know how you feel about needing A players in management roles, but how important is it to have A players in every single role? How do you think about that for maybe different kinds of businesses, maybe the phase you're in? Is there a recipe for doing this right?

Chris Ronzio (19:16):

Let's see. I don't know the answer, but let me just share some raw thoughts. So you know probably that I'm a big basketball fan and this week is the NBA draft. And so I'm seeing all these different articles about salary caps and the contracts and how you've got superstars that are making so much and then you've got the people making the league minimum that you fill into different role positions. So I think not all A players are the same because not all A players hold the same role in your business. But the way I think about it is that I want all A players. And when there is someone that is not an A player, I think it's because you are misaligned on the expectations for the role and the skillset of the person that you put in the role.

Chris Ronzio (20:15):

So I guess to reiterate like the A players that are at like a very senior management level are going to be very different than the A players that are in your internship program. But are they meeting and exceeding the requirements of their role is how I'm measuring and thinking about the A player thing. So when we have any issues that pop up in our operations meetings when we're talking about performance, it's usually a conversation around is this person in the right role? Do we have the right expectations of them? Has the scope of their own role grown more than they have? It doesn't mean that all of a sudden their performance is really slipped, it might mean that the need of this position has really grown. So it's usually that misalignment that leads to someone being anything but an A player, but we try to keep a constant pulse on that.

Tamara Kemper (21:18):

I almost hear a common theme among all of those levels in all those roles might be... So now we're going back to our list of shared qualities, see how we're just circle in this background. There's a hunger, right? There's like a shared hunger or there's like a desire to really learn or to kind of do more, I think. Because no matter what level you're... I don't know hunger is the word that just keeps jumping in my head based on what you said.

Chris Ronzio (21:52):

Yeah. I think hunger or ambition or something. We say high slope a lot, like there's somebody that can like really grow. But then there's also examples of people that maybe they're less ambitious in terms of their career trajectory, but they have such enthusiasm and passion for what they're doing and they just are like showing up every day and they have the best attitude. I wouldn't say those aren't A players, it's just a different expectation.

Tamara Kemper (22:23):

Yeah. It's not about moving up. Whatever up is. That's not even it. Enthusiasm's a great word for it. I'm wondering about hard to staff industries I have a handful of clients who the struggle is real. It is exceedingly hard to hire in some of the positions, low pay rates and just things that sometimes are out of control of the owners. What are your thoughts on how to balance that with the need for high performing employees?

Chris Ronzio (23:05):

I have a friend Mike that owns, well owned I guess, he just sold it, a big home building and electrical contracting kind of business, so it's the trades. And he was having a ton of trouble years ago in finding people for those entry level trades jobs and he actually built like a university to train people from scratch, from zero. That as they would go through the university, his company was one of the biggest hirers from, from this program that he built, but then his competitors could also hire people. So it wasn't like an internship program or anything like that. It was actually a independent university to help funnel new talent into that industry. And so he built quite a big business, hundreds and hundreds of employees. So that may be a more extreme example, but I do think that when you're struggling to find people to fill roles, sometimes you have to grow people to fill the roles.

Chris Ronzio (24:20):

So for us in the software space, software is a really competitive industry. It's hard to find great technical talent. So product managers and designers and engineers, these are positions that are like really hard to fill. We've had several examples of people coming in through customer support or customer success and expressing an interest in product. And then we train them, kind of cross-department train them and after some time they move over to that department. And those people have become phenomenal members of the team in product and it was because we kind of grew them in-house. And so I think that's one way to approach it.

Tamara Kemper (25:07):

That's interesting too because in offering, I guess I would call it an incentive, for somebody to learn and grow into a role, whether that's in your example of the technical university or whether it's your way that you're doing it, you are naturally attracting people who are craving that. So it's almost like a natural filter for people who do want to learn and want to be coached and are embracing that. So, that's a interesting strategy. I like that.

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How to attract "A" players

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Chris Ronzio (25:43):

So, have you seen interesting ways to attract A player? How do we create A player magnets in our companies?

Tamara Kemper (25:53):

So I will tell you my secret that I've had some success in my own little business, which it's a weird thing that we do. It's not so much that it's super competitive, but like people don't even know that documenting processes and building training is like a job they could have. A lot of the times the people who would be really great at it, maybe don't have experience doing specifically this. So, what I've had good luck with is reaching out to all of the coolest people that I know who may have absolutely nothing to do with what I do or may not even be associated with my business in any way. But, old high school friends who are just geniuses or people that I've done a program with in the past, like a workshop with in the past that we really connected and I know there's like a synergy there or like a shared set of values. Just saying, hey, can you help me?

Tamara Kemper (27:02):

There's something about very specifically, as a person to person asking for help, and this is something that's been so beautiful for me in this journey of building this business that I think I maybe lived my whole life thinking I needed to do everything by myself. And what I've come to find is that, oh, actually everyone wants to help each other. When you ask somebody, hey, will you help me with this I don't quite know what to do? People come out of the woodwork to help. So I have found the last handful of hires that I've personally made or recruited straight through, just smart people that I know who introduced me to other smart people who have introduced me to other people who it just worked out. And that has been-

Chris Ronzio (27:50):

You can [inaudible 00:27:50] great people anywhere.

Tamara Kemper (27:50):

Yes. Yes.

Chris Ronzio (27:54):

As long as you're open to that. I got a new car recently and funny, the dealership had somebody that was in charge of kind of like onboarding me into my car, showing me all the buttons and stuff. She was fantastic. And so I've been recruiting her for like the last six months and I constantly sending her messages like, oh, we've got this role opening. She's finishing up school. I know she's going to work for us someday because it's the long play. Our customer support manager actually started off as my kid's babysitter and has had an awesome trajectory in the company.

Chris Ronzio (28:39):

So, I think the lesson there is be on the lookout for people in any area of your life, in a retail store that you're shopping in, the barista at the coffee place. If you have someone that just feels like, wow, this person gets it, maybe they're looking for their next big opportunity. I think it's just having your eyes open for that.

Tamara Kemper (29:00):

I mean, you and I have such a really amazing perspective of all of the different opportunities that there are in business. I feel like I drive my friends crazy because I'm like, oh my gosh, you could do so many things. Without the exposure to all of the opportunities, it's easy to, I think, as an individual person working in a job that maybe they don't like so much right now, it's easy to look out and go like, well, I don't even know what else I would do. I don't think I'm qualified to do anything else. And those people, if you tap them on the shoulder and go, well, do you want to do this? It's like, you blow their mind because they didn't see that for themselves. They didn't see that was a possibility for them.

Tamara Kemper (29:42):

So, I think it's also just getting the word out that like, no, you don't have to have a degree. You don't have to have had three years experience in X, Y, Z. And there's all these studies, in particular about women that like women in particular tend to not apply for things if they don't meet the minimum criteria. It's like, no, forget about all that. Can you do this job? I can train you if you have the right skills, talents, and point of view to come on and do it. You can tell, I get really fired up about this. I want everybody to find their dream job. I want everybody to be in a role that they feel alive and they feel like they are thriving. There's so many people who are just miserable in what they're doing. There's so many people out there looking for that awesome person to come and wave their magic wand and make it all better and we got to get those people together.

Chris Ronzio (30:38):

All right. So, let's say we attract all the A players. Now how do we keep them? Because everybody wants these A players. So if I'm running the coffee shop and somebody's trying to recruit my awesome baristas. How do I keep these people?

Tamara Kemper (30:52):

Well, Chris, I mean, I'll answer the question but I really want to know your answer to this because you are killing it in this area. I know your team is awesome and every single person I interact with there is ridiculous and they don't seem to go anywhere. So, I want to hear your answer to this too, but. I think for me the thing I see again and again, is like clarity and transparency. I don't mean telling people all of the woes of your business or everything that's going wrong. But like really being clear about where you're headed. Really being clear about what you need that person to come into being a part of that mission and what success looks like. And then having an environment where everyone can be transparent with how things are.

Tamara Kemper (31:50):

Actually just got off a workshop with a team where we were just for the very first time going to start tracking their quarterly goals. They've never done it as a team before and it was like big stuff. I said, if there's one thing that you need to remember, the only thing that I want you all to commit to it's that every single week, even if you just sucked this week and you didn't get your thing done, you put that number or you put that update on the tracker. Every week I just want you to say where you're at and say where you're stuck. Because if we can do that, something is going to shift and we'll build that habit of we share where we're at and we share what's real. All the rest of it will come. But we have to be real with each other about what's going on so that we can fix it and move forward. So I would say that would be two things for sure. What do you think?

Chris Ronzio (32:40):

I agree with you. I think communication, transparency. We've tried to instill that from the very beginning in our all hands meetings, just constantly sharing here's what's going on, here's what we're working on, here's our successes, here's our failures. Because everybody wants to know like a pulse check on are we making progress as a company? And so I think that's really important. The external are we making progress as a company is important.

Chris Ronzio (33:05):

But then I think back to this book, one of the first management kind of books I read was Drive by Daniel Pink. And there's three things in that book and hopefully I'm remembering this correctly. Number one was purpose. So making sure that people know why they're showing up and it's something that they care about and that there's a mission that they care about and they see what they're actually trying to impact in the world. So purpose was the first. Autonomy was the next one. So do people feel like they're being micromanaged or do they feel like they're treated like adults? Do you trust them? Do you give them space to make decisions, to think creatively? And then the third one is recognition. Are you recognizing people appropriately? Are treating people fairly? Are you giving credit where credit is due? Do they feel like they get the applause from their peers and their coworkers? Do they have a great relationship with their manager?

Chris Ronzio (34:05):

I think so much of retaining people comes down to those three things. Do I feel connected to the company's purpose? Do I like what we're doing here and do I want to see this through? Do I feel like the company trusts me, gives me the autonomy to grow and learn and make decisions and then am I appreciated? Am I appreciated financially? Am I appreciated with praise? It's those things and then it's their relationships with their peers, with their managers to know that I've got a path here.

Chris Ronzio (34:41):

We do this engagement survey twice a year where we ask like 80 questions of people and they fill it out and it's all confidential just based on the team that they're on. And one of the questions we ask that's tucked in there is do you still see yourself here in two years? I find that's a really interesting question because two years is enough time that maybe they're starting to think about their next role in the company. If you said you still see yourselves here in three months or six months, the answer's probably yes. Maybe some crazy opportunity comes along, they hadn't anticipated. But, when you start to think about two years, three years, it's like, do I have a growth opportunity in this company? And I think that's really important for people. If you start seeing a lot of people that say no on that box, they can't see their themselves there, then you can expect a tsunami of turnover coming your way.

Tamara Kemper (35:44):

See, I'm stealing that question. That's wonderful. That's a wonderful question and it's so it's so good. It's asking. You're asking the questions, you're not assuming. Even in this idea, the third thing that you said, the appreciation or the recognition, man, everybody likes to be appreciated and recognized differently. I have somebody on my team who hates surprises, hates them. Well, we're not going to have like a singing telegram show up on her doorstep because it's not going to go well. Making sure you know what your employees want and where their mind's at. I love that. How often do you say you send out that survey?

Chris Ronzio (36:31):

Twice a year.

Tamara Kemper (36:33):

Twice a year. So besides that survey, are there any other strategies that you use to kind of take the pulse of your team and like kind of ask them and check in?

Chris Ronzio (36:44):

Yeah, I mean, there's a ton of check in opportunities. So those are the two big ones where it's company wide. We process the 1,000 comments that come in. We distill it down to a few themes and then we have quarterly, all hands meetings. And so at the quarterly all hands meetings that follow those engagement surveys, we will put feedback, quotes up on the screen. Someone said this, and you know what? You're right. You're totally right, this is a problem and we're going to work on this, this quarter. So we acknowledge the kind of feedback that we get and then we take action on it. And throughout the subsequent meetings, we're reporting on, here's what we said we were going to do and look, here's what we did. And that again goes to the progress and the accountability of people saying, oh, I give feedback and they listen and they take action. That makes people want to give more feedback. And so then the next round, it's even better.

Chris Ronzio (37:41):

There's a question in the survey that says, do you think the company takes action based on this survey? And you can just see their responses in there. Well, yeah, I guess last quarter I saw you reported on this, this and this, and that's so cool. My last company never did that. So, those are the like capstone kind of surveys that we do.

Chris Ronzio (38:01):

And then, we've got manager 180s. We've got 360s that get sent out. We've got self reflections that are quarterly on everybody's progress. We have our biweekly all hands meeting. We have open office hours with Sasha, our head of people, he's kind of like a career counselor. So there are so many opportunities for people to give confidential feedback, feedback to their direct manager, feedback to their manager's manager. I think collecting all that raw material is gold in a business. It's what I used to do consulting. And so getting all of that information from people is like, all right, now you just gave me all the cheat codes to be able to run the business better.

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Chris’ secret sauce: Ask, Acknowledge, Action, Announce

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Tamara Kemper (38:59):

You just gave me this framework that is currently blowing my mind. I get very excited about ideas. So go with me for a minute. Okay? So this is like your secret sauce, Chris, because all of my clients, I'm like, yep, you need to ask, you need to be serving, you need to be having these one on ones. All those things that you just said. But then you gave me a four part framework. You ask, you acknowledge, you take action and you report. Most of the businesses that I talk to do not do those last three things they ask, maybe. Not all of them ask. So that's a good first step. If you're not asking, let's all make the commitment that we're going to ask our employees, whether that's through a survey, one-on-one, hopefully both, the all hands meetings. That's amazing. That infrastructure you have to make sure all those things happen is awesome.

Tamara Kemper (39:55):

But then, to actually acknowledge the things that you're sucking at and then like take action on them, and then go back and report it. That requires vulnerability. That requires transparency. That requires actually having a team that can get stuff done and execute on big projects that move you forward with your culture. Like my mind is blowing right now. That is amazing.

Chris Ronzio (40:19):

Well, thank you. We need to change report to like announce so that we've got four As.

Tamara Kemper (40:24):

Oh, okay. See, that's your part of it is making it sound nice. That's not my forte.

Chris Ronzio (40:30):

Ask, Acknowledge, Act, Announce. I love it.

Tamara Kemper (40:32):

There's your next blog post, Chris. You're welcome.

Chris Ronzio (40:35):

Can we like co trademark that one?

Tamara Kemper (40:37):

Yes. Yes, we can. Please.

Chris Ronzio (40:39):

Very cool. All right. Last topic here is, can you clone A players? How can you clone A players? Is it possible?

Tamara Kemper (40:51):

So this is another part of, I think the burden of the a player. Because the, A player often is the one that you got lucky early on in your business, maybe, and like you brought on this rockstar and they just figured all the stuff out and they took care of a whole arm of your business and like, yay. Now you want to grow or you want to scale and you need to get that person to spread their goal to the next person who needs to come in and help. But of course, that person's stretched to the max, they're at their limit. And this is another problem I see in a lot of my clients where it's like, there is no time for that person to train everyone. And in fact, they get really burned out having to be the trainer over and over and over again.

Tamara Kemper (41:36):

So, that is of course why I love Trainual. We help our clients all the time. Like, okay, let's invest a very short period of time in getting all this stuff out of your A player's head, even if it's not perfect, even if it's just messy and kind of feels chaotic to the perfectionist that may be trying to do this work. Getting it out allows them to then move to the next place they want to go. Because like you said, a lot of times A players, they're trying to learn more, they're trying to go to the next thing or trying to grow into the next piece. So you have to free them. You have to allow that growth. But you can't do it if they're the only one that can do the thing that's so critical to your business.

Tamara Kemper (42:22):

So I think that was a beautiful layup because I think documenting your training, obviously that's the way to do it. But I also want to always say like, it doesn't have to look like a fancy thing. It might just literally let's get it out and create a framework to where everybody's doing the same thing.

Chris Ronzio (42:43):

Did you ever see, it was one of the first ads we ever did and it was me and Jonathan walking down the street and me talking about him like, I've always wanted to clone him. Did you ever see that ad?

Chris Ronzio (42:57):

All right. So, it was me and Jonathan, we're walking down the street and for anyone listening, Jonathan's my brother, he's also our CMO, but he worked in my last couple businesses. And I would always tell him like, oh, we worked together so well. Like how do I find more of you? And so I would literally have him do the personality tests and surveys and all these things because I wanted to hire people that had the same scores as him. I thought if I hire the people at the same scores they'll be the same. And over and over again, I failed at that.

Chris Ronzio (43:31):

So the ad of us walking down the street is him saying, Chris always said he wanted to clone me and he can't clone me but he can clone what I do. And that is what the training is all about, is figuring, how do you do what you do, and let's write that down and let's train that. So I appreciate the plug there.

Chris Ronzio (43:51):

I also think the idea of your early employees being some of those rock stars for anyone listening, if you haven't developed out yet your core values and that kind of criteria for your business, those early amazing employees are your prototypes, the DNA, for a lot of that core valued content. Because once you figure out that recipe, now all of your recruiting and hiring can be against that criteria and you give yourself that much better a chance of bringing in people that are high performers.

Tamara Kemper (44:28):

I always tell people too, it's not that person needs to write a script for every word that they say or every little step that they do, but absolutely have that person write the standards that they would never violate when they do that work, because that will be the guidance. Those are the rules, that's the black and white that then the next person can go, okay, well I know that no matter what I need to make sure there's not like crazy stuff behind me on my Zoom meeting, whatever, that's a random example. But whatever those standards are, that is critical because that's actually the secret sauce you're looking for, you just haven't named it. I think those are the pieces that your A players can really help you get out of their brains of like, okay, well, how will you know that this was good enough and what would someone do if they weren't doing it quite the right way? And you can usually tease those things out.

Chris Ronzio (45:25):

Yeah, no, I love that. Tamara, this has been great. What a good conversation. Hopefully everyone listening has been able to think about A players and maybe consider some of their own people and what kind of criteria they're being measured against and learn from some of the nuggets that we've shared. I mentioned the lady in the car dealership that I'm long kind of recruiting. I feel the same about you, I just hope we work together eventually.

Tamara Kemper (45:52):

She's listening.

Chris Ronzio (45:53):

You're definitely an A player. So thank you for being here and thanks for sharing.

Tamara Kemper (45:59):

This was so fun, Chris. Thank you so much. I love chatting with you as you know, so this is great.