We have created respectable terminology for people who succeed through political and malicious behaviour.

“You cannot solve a problem you refuse to acknowledge.”

Popular management literature and coaching services typically define a B-Player merely as a "solid, less gifted A-Player." This whitewashes the dynamic. It ignores the reality that B-Player success is actively orchestrated through destructive, non-productive politics and systemic exploitation rather than simple skill variance. The A-Player/B-Player dynamic is fundamentally parasitic, not complementary.

1. A-Players (The Performance-Driven Elite)

Definition: High-performing individuals driven by direct mastery, excellence, and passion for their work. When placed in environments alongside other A-Players, their output and momentum compound exponentially.

Core Vulnerability: A structural blind spot regarding their own relative superiority and a poor understanding of political motives. They often fail to comprehend why peers do not operate with the same intrinsic motivation or why B-Players view them as operational threats.

2. B-Players (The Power & Empire Builders)

Definition: Highly ambitious and successful individuals whose primary objective is not domain excellence, but the acquisition, expansion, and protection of organizational power and seniority.

Tactical Behavior: B-Players thrive through political maneuver, building empires of loyal underperformers, and actively targeting or suppressing A-Players whose raw competence threatens their position.

3. Un-motivated Workers (The Neutral Baseline)

Definition: Individuals who choose not to invest their personal identity or core ambitions into career advancement or organizational dominance.

Tactical Behaviour: Unlike B-Players, they display no systemic malice, political gamesmanship, or targeting of high performers. They simply perform their required duties to standard without political ambition. Consequently, they rarely occupy senior leadership positions.

The way in which we position the players is:

• An A-player has exceptional performance and high positive intent. By which we mean they are aligned with doing their job excellently, they spend their efforts in productive and positive output and go out of the way to achieve success individually and also within their teams.
• A B-player has less exceptional performance (possibly as high as an A-player) however the key aspect is that their intent is not positive. If you are an exceptional performer that invests your time in undermining colleagues, building empires and hiring low performance team members to make yourself look good, the intent is not positive.
• Sub B-players, as we explore are usually very dependent on B-players. They are attracted by a symbiotic relationship knowing that they benefit from the B-player while following whatever the B-player instructs without question (this obviously includes negative intent). Needless to say, the sub-B players also serve to make the B-player look good.
• The Un-motivated worker recognizes A-players and will not provide unfair criticism, they may not be able to differentiate between A-players and B-players (or have an interest in it). Un-motivated workers are sometimes the target of B-players as they essentially provide no value to the B-players interests. Hiring un-motivated workers is an approach the B-player can use to provide more people to “exit” in the event that they have to protect their cell.

“It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”- Winston Churchill

The key problem we are addressing with these topics isn't that organisations contain people with different levels of performance. That is normal and inevitable.

The problem is when political, malicious behaviour becomes a successful organisational strategy, and management theory retroactively invents a respectable category for the people succeeding through it. This, in turn, creates an industry of education and coaching that reinforces the respectability of the behaviour. In other words rather than challenging the faults of the system, it explains why the system is necessary.

We highlight the organisational waste caused by these behaviours and the cascading negative impact on your highest performers.