What is a Business' #1 Problem?

The Executive Blind Spot: Chasing What, Ignoring Who

As a leader, you're constantly tackling the "what" of business: product strategy, process optimization, market positioning. Yet, the single most impactful decision you make—the one that drives strategy and execution—is a "who" decision: the people you put in place to make all the other decisions.

As Jim Collins affirmed, "The most important decisions that businesspeople make are not what decisions, but who decisions". Your #1 problem is, in fact, who, not what. The right who leads to breakthroughs, and the wrong who creates chaos.

For too many organizations, the hiring process is a hidden source of massive financial and operational drag.

The $1.5 Million Mistake: Quantifying Failure

The biggest failure of all is the failure to consistently hire A Players.

The cost of a hiring mistake is staggering. Studies show that the average hiring blunder costs fifteen times an employee's base salary in hard costs and productivity loss.

Consider the math: a single bad hire for a manager making a modest $100,000 base salary can cost your company $1.5 million or more. If your enterprise makes just ten such mistakes a year, you are pouring $15 million annually down the drain. This is quantifiable, organizational leakage. For one CEO, early hiring mistakes cost his company an estimated $100 million in value.

Beyond the money, "who failures infect every aspect of our professional and personal lives". They create the crises that leave executives unable to take vacations or focus on strategic growth.

The Prevailing Problem: 50% Failure

If the costs are so high, why is the problem so prevalent? Management gurus estimate that the average manager’s hiring success rate is a dismal 50 percent. This means that half the time, your process is actively working against your business goals.

The central problem is often a lack of discipline, leading to four predictable failure points:

Unclear Job Needs: Lacking clarity on what the hire must achieve.
Weak Candidate Flow: Failing to generate a strong, proactive flow of talent.
Inaccurate Selection: Inability to reliably pick the right person from similar-looking candidates.
Poor Closing: Losing candidates you really want to join your team.

These fundamental failures are why hiring feels like a random, stressful drain on resources.

Raising the Bar: Defining the A Player

To solve this, you must define success at the highest level.

An A Player is defined with mathematical rigor: a candidate who has at least a 90 percent chance of achieving a set of outcomes that only the top 10 percent of possible candidates could achieve.

This definition is critical because it demands both confidence (90% chance) and excellence (Top 10% achievement). You don't just want a good person; you want a person capable of delivering A Performance who aligns with your culture and drives competitive advantage.

As Stephen A. Schwarzman, co-founder of the Blackstone Group, put it, having an A management team is one of the most important skills for growing the value of a company. The difference between an A and a B CEO produces an order of magnitude difference in the return.

The Path to Prevention

The good news is that these widespread who mistakes are preventable.

The A Method for Hiring is the solution, defining a simple process to reliably identify and hire the A Players who will take care of the "what" problems for you.

By committing to a repeatable, evidence-based system, your organization can move past the 50% failure rate. This decision will not only transform your company's performance but lead to "more career success, make more money, and have more time for your relationships that matter most".

Key Takeaways

The Cost is 15x Salary: The average hiring mistake costs 15 times an employee's base salary.
The Problem is the 50% Rate: Most managers have a dismal 50% success rate, proving the inadequacy of current processes.
A Player Defined: An A Player must have a 90% chance of achieving outcomes that only the top 10% of candidates could achieve.
The A Method Solves the 4 Failures: The framework addresses being unclear, having a weak flow, poor selection, and losing candidates.