It's always easy to simply categorise people in an organisation into 2 distinct types: A Players and B Players. A players are the star players who always try to outperform expectations and are proactive in every opportunity possible. B players are the ones who are satisfied with meeting the standard and what's expected of them without extending themselves.

While some can argue that this is true and it's how things work in the professional world, recent events have made me realise that this is an oversimplified way of looking at things.

In the book Radical Candor, there's a concept explaining that everyone in an organisation (assuming they have proven to be a good fit) is simply either in "superstar" mode or "rockstar" mode. Note that it's not one better than the other, but these are two different modes that an employee can be in.

According to Scott, the easiest way to distinguish between the two is by trajectory. Superstars are the ones who are restless and always curious about new growth opportunities (may it be personal growth or organisational growth). These superstars need new challenges from time to time and get bored by settling down doing repetitive tasks. They always try to exceed the goal handsomely and challenge themselves with increasingly difficult tasks. They are:

"in a period in their career where they want to change things very quickly. They want to learn a lot of new things. They're sort of in a step-function growth mode."

On the other hand, rockstars are perfectly fine with hitting the goal and being on a steady but slower trajectory. These are the people who:

"are the source of stability on your team. And it's really important to balance growth and stability."

Let's imagine a young sales man with humble beginnings aggressively climbing the career ladder. Being in this superstar mode brought the young man to middle management position in the company with very good compensation for his years of hard work.

Then by the age of 32, he decides to get married and have children.

Because of this new life event, he's not as aggressive with career opportunities anymore. Previously, he wouldn't mind getting out of the way to visit a big potential client in another city. Now, he'd rather pass the opportunity to younger sales teammates in exchange for more time spent with family.

Is he really slouching off and just being lazy because he achieved seniority and established credentials with the company? Maybe.

The other more probable explanation is that the man is simply in another career trajectory mode. He has turned from a superstar to a rockstar wherein stability and security is the priority. If the man is a good cultural fit and is still meeting the expectations for the role, there will always be a role that can fit him.

Based on the superstar vs rockstar concept, it is then a must for team leaders to determine and be constantly aware of the modes of each team member.

Reflecting on past experiences, it's evident that I have a very strong bias about work being done by teammates. Judging people by the mode they're in is unfair and will negatively affect the working relationship.