How to Hire the A-Player Who Can Change Your Company
The Hidden System Behind Every A Player's Success
I’ve seen a few people walk into a company and change everything.
They lift the whole room. They move fast. They set a new standard.
They’re unicorns.
When they show up, the work feels lighter and the future feels closer. Everyone senses the shift.
It’s a treat to experience first-hand.
But here’s the problem: you can’t build a company waiting for one to appear.
Most stars shine because the environment around them helps them shine.
Once I learned this, it changed how I hire, how I build teams, and how I think about leadership.
Here’s the hopeful part: You may not be able to find a unicorn on-demand, but you can build the environment where unicorn-level results happen again and again.
Let me explain.
Why Stars Shine in the First Place
A star’s success comes from the infrastructure that surrounds them.
The tools they use. The people they trust. The structure that supports their work.
This isn’t just a gut feeling. It shows up in the data.
Harvard professor Boris Groysberg studied more than 1,000 star Wall Street analysts.
Here’s what he found:
When these stars changed firms, their performance dropped immediately and stayed lower for years
Their earlier success depended heavily on their old firm’s resources, culture, networks, and colleagues, not just their own skill (ResearchGate study)
Star analysts who moved alone, or who moved to weaker firms, had the biggest and longest performance drops
Stars who moved to firms with similar strength, or who moved with their teams, recovered faster
When a star changes companies, they lose the support system that helped them perform at a high level.
That loss slows them down, even when they’re talented.
Every high performer relies on an invisible support system:
Tools they know well
People who complement their weak spots
A culture that fits how they work
Data and structure that guide decisions
Trust built over time
When they move, this infrastructure disappears instantly.
This is why A-players often need time to settle in. This is why they rarely look like stars right away in a new place.
The Question That Changes Everything
If you want a star to succeed in a new environment, ask them one simple question:
“Who are the two or three people who help you do your best work?”
These people help them:
Stay organized
Stay focused on the right work
Make decisions without delays
Do their best work
Don’t bring in a star without planning for the people who help them win.
The Questions Every Founder Should Ask
Before hiring an A-player for an important role, ask a few questions that protect the team and the budget.
1. What part of their past success came from their environment?
You want clear examples.
You want to understand what helped them win.
The Harvard study shows that much of a star’s edge lives in the firm around them.
When you know which tools, teammates, and systems mattered most, you can see what they’ll need again with you.
2. Who are the two or three people they would bring?
A true star knows who supports their best work.
This might be an operator, a key analyst, or a partner they’ve worked with for years.
Research on analyst teams and star hires in other fields shows that performance is often a group effect, not a solo act. When a small core team moves together, results recover faster because the working relationship already exists.
3. What parts of their old environment must we rebuild?
Be specific about the tools, data, and support they need to start strong.
That might mean:
Basic systems to track work
Access to the right data
A clear way to make decisions
Enough support so they’re not doing three jobs at once
4. Are we ready to invest in those parts?
An A-player can’t create results inside a weak infrastructure.
They need a working ecosystem around them.
Many CEOs struggle here. They hire a great person and expect instant change.
But expecting one person to fix everything is like asking a quarterback to play without wide receivers or an offensive line.
Even the best struggle without the right pieces around them.
Better Than a Unicorn
Don’t wait for a unicorn.
Build the infrastructure where unicorn-level results can happen.
Build the place where many stars can grow.
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Yes, this really makes sense to me. Someone who performed at a top level at a certain organization is immediately out of sorts starting at the new place. If you can take a little bit of the environment with them by also bringing some of their trusted team, that could be the key.
Plus, I think sometimes the team that they surrounded themselves with at the old organization may be a lot of the reason why they were so successful in the first place.
Referencing research on Wall Street analysts to explain leadership performance across industries isn’t insight. It borders on intellectual convenience.
Analysts operate inside hyper-specialized, infrastructure-dense ecosystems with proprietary data, established teams, and institutional advantages.
Translating that into a universal rule for hiring operators or executives in real companies is flimsy at best.
There’s a fundamental difference between leadership insight and leadership theater.
One is earned through decades of operational execution.
The other is packaged, polished, and optimized for social-media virality.
And let’s be honest: if someone’s brilliance collapses the moment the backdrop changes, they were never the catalyst.
They were the beneficiaries of a system someone else built.
Organizations don’t need unicorn mythology.
They need leaders with durable competence backed by emotionally stable owners.
Chasing the charismatic narratives of social media influencers is how companies drift.
Acting like adults with clarity, rigor, and grounded expectations is how they win.