How to Spot A-Players

One of the stars of the first season, Troy McClain, the Idaho mortgage broker with only a high school education, made the show and thrived long into the series because of what LaPlante describes as McClain's "authentic presence," which he knew would play well. "Troy may not have had a lot of polish," says LaPlante, "but he certainly displayed -- in the auditions and on the show -- what kind of drive he has."

High School Confidential

Stan Richards founded the Richards Group, a Dallas-based advertising agency, 25 years ago and has built it into one of the largest independent shops, with annual billings of $950 million. To do so, Richards has built a dedicated team by looking to . . . high school? "I start every interview by asking a person what they were like in high school," Richards says. "People who tended to be outstanding in high school are likely to be outstanding for the rest of their lives." Both chess-club presidents and quarterbacks are welcome, but not anyone who identifies a little too much with the movie Dazed and Confused.

Richards also places extra emphasis on a person's writing ability to get a keen insight into her talents. "With TV reels, it's impossible to tell who had the primary responsibility for a spot," he says, discounting them even though TV spots are about half of his agency's work for clients such as Corona beer, Home Depot, and Fruit of the Loom. "With print, and especially with radio, the writer controls the process from top to bottom."

He has even hired people based on their cover letters. "The work may have been somewhat pedestrian, but if the cover letter was brilliant, then I'm willing to take a risk. All I'm looking for is one, maybe two absolute gems somewhere." The idea is that if someone can perform consistently at a level that initially shows up only as a faint glimmer, he's certainly willing to invest the time, money, and patience needed to draw out that person's talent.

Richards's style has paid off in loyalty in the notoriously mobile advertising workforce. The average tenure among the higher-ups at the Richards Group is 12 years.

Finding A-players goes beyond making someone cook or shout or relive high school. What's important about these techniques is that they uncover what really drives a person. And, in turn, what qualities make you perform better. To find the team that's going to help make you great, you've got to figure that out first. Talent in its own right is useless. If credentials were all that mattered, Enron would still be going strong today.