Hiring A-Players

In an era where AI can produce infinite work at near-zero cost, the one thing that remains scarce—and infinitely valuable—is human signal. A syntropic marketing agency isn’t just fighting for market share. It’s fighting for coherence, clarity, and order in a world drowning in entropy. And that battle starts with who you hire.

For decades, Brad Smart’s Topgrading framework has been the gold standard for hiring “A-players”—the top 10% of talent available for a role at a given level of compensation. Private equity firms, consulting companies, and growth businesses adopted it to reduce hiring mistakes and create talent-rich teams. At its core, Topgrading is about eliminating mis-hires and building organizations where A-players elevate everyone around them.

But in a syntropy agency, that’s only the starting point. To thrive in the age of AI, we need to adapt Topgrading for a new reality: not just identifying high performers, but hiring people who can create order from chaos, extract signal from noise, and thrive in ambiguity.

Let’s explore how the Topgrading framework combines with syntropy principles to create a hiring system fit for this new age.

The Classic Topgrading Foundation

Before we layer on the syntropy twist, it’s worth revisiting what makes Topgrading powerful in the first place.

1. Philosophy

   • Hire only A-players: people who consistently deliver superior results, embody company values, and raise the bar for others.

   • Eliminate mis-hires: traditional interviews are prone to false positives. Topgrading’s rigor reduces hiring mistakes from industry averages (~50%) to below 10%.
     
     

2. Core Components
   
   • Chronological In-Depth Structured (CIDS) Interview: Walk through each role in a candidate’s history, probing for what they were hired to do, their accomplishments, failures, manager ratings, and reasons for leaving.
   • Reference Checks: Candidates line up reference calls with former managers, creating accountability for honesty.
   • Scoring Matrix: Rates candidates on results delivery, learning agility, growth trajectory, and cultural fit.
     
     

3. Player Ratings

   • A-players: consistently high performance, with upside potential.

   • B-players: steady contributors but without breakout trajectory.

   • C-players: underperformers who drain culture and results.

The framework works because it values evidence over impression. But as agencies evolve into syntropy-driven businesses, evidence itself needs redefinition.

The Syntropy Twist: Hiring for Signal

Where traditional Topgrading measures performance history, the Syntropy Top-Grading Interview Framework overlays a new lens: signal vs. noise discernment.

Here’s how it works.

1. What were you hired to do?
   • Traditional probe: missions and outcomes.
   • Syntropy probe: “What was unclear or chaotic when you arrived?”
2. What accomplishments are you most proud of?
   • Traditional probe: results vs. expectations.
   • Syntropy probe: “What lasting value did you create that wasn’t in your job description? What pattern did you notice that others missed?”
3. What were the low points?
   • Traditional probe: mistakes, lessons.
   • Syntropy probe: “Describe a time when you created order from chaos. What was the chaos, and how did you approach it?”
4. Who did you work with?
   • Traditional probe: peers, managers (for reference checks).
   • Syntropy probe: “Who did you teach something new to? Who taught you something that changed your work?”
5. Why did you leave?
   • Traditional probe: promotion, exit, or termination.
   • Syntropy probe: “What signal were you unable to create in that role?”

This simple overlay transforms interviews from résumé recitals into clarity tests. We’re not just asking what someone did. We’re probing how they see patterns, simplify complexity, and elevate the system around them.

A-players in syntropy agencies aren’t just executors. They’re creators of frameworks, insights, and order that outlast their tenure .

Detecting Syntropy vs. Entropy in Candidates

Topgrading already warns interviewers to dig deeper when candidates give vague answers. In a syntropy agency, those vague answers aren’t just weak—they’re entropy red flags.

• Entropy Processors (Red Flags):

  • Only describe executing others’ strategies.

  • Focus narrowly on efficiency metrics.

  • Avoid uncertainty or ambiguity.

  • Default to conventional wisdom without questioning it.
    
    

• Syntropy Creators (Green Flags):

  • Produce examples of original insights.

  • Build frameworks or practices that lived beyond them.

  • Thrive in ambiguous environments.

  • Question assumptions, notice subtle patterns.

  • Elevate others by teaching and reframing.

That distinction is existential in the AI era. Efficiency without originality is exactly what machines are built for. What’s scarce is judgment, discernment, and synthesis—the hallmarks of syntropy creators.

The 72-Hour Rule: Hire Before Signal Decays

In traditional Topgrading, hiring speed isn’t emphasized. But syntropy agencies know that signal has a half-life. If you wait too long to act on clarity, entropy reclaims it .

That’s why the Syntropy Topgrading process insists on:

• Completing interviews within 5 business days.

• Making a hiring decision within 72 hours of the final interview.

Great candidates, especially syntropy creators, get snapped up quickly. And clarity about them decays with time. If you hesitate, you lose both the person and the insight.

Beyond Skills: Hiring for the Syntropy Roles

At Kalungi, we’ve redefined marketing roles around syntropy creation. Instead of copywriters, designers, and campaign managers, we hire into four archetypes:

• Scribe: investigative journalist meets storyteller, uncovering truths AI can’t.

• Sculptor: designer of coherence, subtracting until clarity remains across all visual art forms.

• Engineer: systems architect, preserving signal as it scales.

• Navigator: strategist and leader, aligning the whole team around purpose.

Topgrading, through the syntropy lens, helps us identify candidates who can step into these roles with all the ambiguity that the current evolution of AI and Humans calibrating their partnership entails. Instead of portfolios and case studies, we test for curiosity, observational acuity, and originality under constraint. For example:

• Give candidates 7 minutes to generate 10 customer questions competitors wouldn’t think to ask.

• Ask them to spot three non-obvious insights from a short company briefing.

• Challenge them to describe a time they simplified something complex until others could finally act on it .

These aren’t trick tests. They simulate the actual work of syntropy creation.

Meritocracy, Not Mediocracy

Hiring A-players is only half the work. You must also reward them syntropically. Pay is one of the strongest signals an organization sends.

Traditional agencies pay for time and effort. Syntropy agencies pay for signal and value created. That’s why our compensation model has three layers:

1. Base Pay: Time as Irreplaceable Signal

   • Time is non-renewable. Base pay honors that.

   • Includes not just technical skill, but contextual value: cultural fluency, communication clarity, adaptability.

1. Variable Pay: Outcomes Without Entropy

   • Bonuses tied only to captured results—what’s already in the bank.

   • No pipeline optimism, no fuzzy KPIs. If value wasn’t created, variable pay isn’t triggered.

1. Equity: Lasting Signal Beyond a Paycheck

   • For contributions that outlive a quarter: culture, systems, recruiting, or frameworks that compound over time.

   • A vote of confidence that someone’s impact will echo.

This ensures meritocracy: effort, risk-taking, and real results are rewarded. Slackers don’t hold back the team.

Leadership: Noblesse Oblige in the AI Era

Hiring A-players into a syntropy agency requires a different kind of leadership. At Kalungi, our principles are clear:

• Lead by example: Never ask your team to do work you wouldn’t do yourself.

• Level up together: Teach, mentor, and share knowledge freely.

• Always be hiring: Constantly seek people who raise the bar—even if it means parting ways with those who can’t keep up.

• Give people more responsibility than they think they can handle: Growth comes from being stretched.

This isn’t just management philosophy. It’s syntropy in practice. A-players thrive when they’re trusted, challenged, and recognized. B-players can level up in the right environment. C-players drag everyone into entropy.

Why This Matters Now

Marketing agencies are at an inflection point. AI has already automated much of what was once considered “high skill.” Copywriting, campaign builds, reporting—machines do these faster, cheaper, and at scale.

Agencies that cling to old hiring and compensation models will find themselves overstaffed with entropy processors—people optimized for work that AI now eats for breakfast.

Agencies that embrace syntropy will build teams of navigators, scribes, sculptors, and engineers who feed AI with insights it could never generate. Their competitive advantage won’t be speed or volume, but coherence and originality.

That’s the real “talent revolution” unfolding: the divide between entropy processors and syntropy creators.

The Call to Action: Your 72-Hour Hiring Challenge

If you’re leading a marketing agency—or any knowledge-based business—here’s how to start shifting your hiring to syntropy:

1. Audit Your Last Three Hires

   • Did they create new clarity, or just process existing chaos?

   • What signal do you have today that you wouldn’t have without them?
     
     

2. Run One Syntropy-Overlaid Interview

   • Take your next candidate through the five core Topgrading questions, but add the syntropy probes. Watch how they respond to ambiguity.
     
     

3. Reframe One Job Description

   • Instead of listing outputs, define the role by the kind of signal it must create: insights, frameworks, clarity in ambiguity.

Do this within 72 hours. Don’t wait for perfection. Signal decays quickly.

Closing: Hiring for the Age of Syntropy

Topgrading gave us a framework to reduce hiring mistakes and fill teams with A-players. But in the age of AI, performance alone is not enough. Agencies must hire for syntropy—judgment, originality, and the ability to create clarity where machines only create noise.

A-players in this new era are not just high performers. They are signal creators. They are the difference between an agency that drowns in AI-driven entropy and one that thrives by amplifying uniquely human value.

Hire them. Reward them. Lead them. Your agency’s survival depends on it.