History of How Topgrading Triples Hiring Success

About Us

History of Topgrading

“Topgrading is the definitive method for identifying top talent.”

Larry Bossidy, author of Execution, and retired CEO of Honeywell.

Brad Smart

Topgrading Today

Before relating a brief history, here is Topgrading, Inc. today: Our vision is simple: Topgrade the World (no kidding!). To realize that vision we:

1. Help organizations Topgrade. With the release of the third edition – Topgrading: The Most Proven Hiring and Promoting Method to Turbocharge Company Performance, Topgrading moves beyond showing that it is the best method for hiring. Forty case studies have CEOs of large and small companies all over the world stating clearly that Topgrading improved talent so much that they are certain the company is more successful. Indeed, the average improvement in hiring high performers for the 40 companies has been from 26% to 85%. The 3rd edition of Topgrading is dedicated to clients who ask for or launched Topgrading innovations: For example:

Topgrading entry levels can produce dramatic results in performance of the business.
The Topgrading Snapshot enables Human Resources or any manager to initiate Topgrading today - literally. Go to www.TopgradingSnapshot.com for free trials.
Topgrading affiliates are being certified all over the world.
TopgradingCaseStudies.com has dozens of case studies with enough detail that you can copy their proven approach without even talking with them. The case study library will grow to hundreds, and the case studies will always be fresh - as long as the company updates them and I approve the changes.

We're full steam ahead with the development of online Topgrading tools and systems to help organizations of all sizes, all over the world, dramatically improve their success hiring for every job. By the way, the 3rd Edition of Topgrading made all the best seller lists and for a brief time was the #1 best selling book in America, of over 16 million books sold by Barnes & Noble. The Topgrading "word" is spreading.

2. Help Not-For-Profits Topgrade. As Cass Wheeler said, when he was CEO of American Heart Association, "Topgrading saves lives." Royalties from Topgrading books (and other sources) help us contribute Topgrading tools to not-for-profits (NFPs) such as American Heart Association, Arthritis Foundation, Feed the Children, World Vision, Jane Goodall Foundation, Foodbank, Heritage Foundation, 600 schools in China, and National Academies. If you know of any NFPs with talent-oriented, A Player CEOs, encourage them to get in touch with us!

How Topgrading Evolved: A Brief History

The history of Topgrading is pretty simple. In college Brad worked in what were called personnel departments, administering hiring tests, and two things struck him – one, how shallow and superficial hiring methods were, and two, how bad the hiring results were. For most managers their worst headache was … talent!

In Brad's Ph.D. work, he read thousands of studies and was disappointed – most companies had terrible results hiring people and practically no studies focused on how to hire high performers.

After graduate school he joined a group of psychologists and was disappointed that about two-thirds of the candidates recommended for hire turned out to be adequate but not the high performers expected.

Ph.D. Grind

1970s Brad

From his first month on the job Brad was passionately committed to doing better, so he worked hard to get more clarity in job descriptions, to ask questions about every job the candidate had held – every success, failure, key relationship, and key decision, and he insisted that clients talk with past supervisors.

Thus Topgrading methods were born. Almost all candidates recommended for hire or promotion using these initial Topgrading methods turned out to be A players; clients were so appreciative, Brad launched his own firm.

Jack Welch

Fifteen years later Brad met Jack Welch and over a period of many years consulted with GE and figured out how all managers, not just Topgrading professionals, can achieve 80% and even 90% high performers hired. Since GE was the most respected company in the world and Jack Welch the most respected CEO, Brad got a lot of requests and still do: Companies large and small say, “You taught hundreds of managers at GE to pick high performers over 90% of the time – please teach us.”

Smart & Associates Team

So today, clients ask our Team to provide those second opinion assessments of candidates for selection and promotion. And since 2000 we have worked with Global 1000 companies and hundreds of small companies, teaching them the Topgrading methods so that they can pack their teams with high performers.

During the 1990s Brad and son Geoff (ghSmart, Inc.) spent long hours changing the image of the methods, which previously sounded like an interviewing book or course, into a major organizational change - a set of best practice to be driven by CEOs. The word Topgrading came into being and Geoff and Brad authored the first article on Topgrading.

Brad led a conference just for the #1 Human Resources executives of the world's largest 100 companies. These executives admitted that only about 25% of the people they hire and promote turn out to be the high performers they expected. But 75% turn out to be small to catastrophic mis-hires. The Topgraders in the room confidently reported that Topgrading methods helped them double and triple their success hiring and promoting people.

You can learn the commonsense Topgrading methods. You really can be like Jack Welch, Cass Wheeler, and thousands of managers who cured their biggest headache – talent – using Topgrading methods.

That’s what Topgrading is all about – substituting talent headaches with that glorious feeling of achieving success because you have a team 80%-90% of high performers!