Stop Hiring Only A Players

Craig Wahl learned that hiring only A players is a fool's errand when you are scaling. The CEO advisor and fractional COO on why a CEO's job is to make sure decisions get made, why a process nobody follows does not count, and the question to ask anyone selling you AI: have you ever run a business?

Craig Wahl coaches CEOs and founders whose companies got bigger, faster than they expected. He runs Njorth, works as a fractional COO for tech companies, and is finishing his first book, The Walk.

His core reframe for CEOs: your job isn't to make all the decisions. It's to make sure they get made, by the right people, and that someone is accountable for them.

He learned most of it scaling a team fast. He chased A players and found a team of solid B and C players was just as strong. He watched long documented processes go unused and swapped them for simple checklists the team actually ran, then tracked everything and kept iterating.

In this episode

• Why CEOs need a safe place to talk, and who they can't talk to inside the company
• Your job isn't to make the decisions, it's to make sure they get made
• What founders refuse to hand off, and what the CEO should be doing instead
• Why hiring only A players is a fool's errand when you're scaling
• The Sherpa on Everest: stop yelling down the mountain
• A process nobody follows isn't a process
• Trust is boring, and how leaders shortcut it
• The Walk, his practical guide to the long middle of leading people
• Why "use AI more" is one of the most dangerous things an executive can say
• The question to ask anyone selling you AI: have you ever run a business?

Timestamps

1. 00:00The show open
2. 00:30Meet Craig Wahl
3. 01:14The three things Njorth does
4. 02:20You don't call an electrician for a leak
5. 02:55Why CEOs need a safe place to talk
6. 06:30Make sure the decisions get made
7. 07:33What founders refuse to hand off
8. 08:55The leadership triangle
9. 10:25Can anyone sell as well as the CEO?
10. 12:45What breaks when the team gets big
11. 13:23Why hiring only A players is a fool's errand
12. 14:49The Sherpa on Everest
13. 17:25A process nobody follows isn't a process
14. 18:36Simple checklists, track everything
15. 20:45Trust is boring
16. 23:10How leaders shortcut trust
17. 25:06The Walk
18. 27:14A master's in leadership and a junior manager
19. 29:38What do you want people to remember about you?
20. 30:20How he uses AI in his own business
21. 32:25Why "use AI more" is dangerous
22. 34:24Have you ever run a business?
23. 35:10The four zones of AI
24. 35:46What error rate will you accept from AI?
25. 38:43Ten salespeople, selling 80% of the time
26. 39:36Who should hire Craig
27. 39:59What's next for Njorth
28. 40:39Where to find Craig

About Craig Wahl

Craig Wahl is a leadership architect and CEO advisor at Njorth. He coaches founders and CEOs, runs leadership alignment workshops, and works as a fractional COO, mostly for tech companies scaling from Series A to Series C. His first book, The Walk, comes out in spring 2027.

Website njorth.ai