I know you guys are probably tired
of hearing me say this, but I truly value my work as a coach and trainer due to
the sphere of people I get to do it with. The main reason is that they challenge
me to always be thinking and learning based on their requests and questions they
ask of me. Recently I was co-facilitating with my supervisor a Gallup
StrengthsFinder workshop for a group of executive students and at the end,
one of the participants asked us “Who is this content directed to or for?” WOW,
what a great question so that got me thinking out loud about an answer!
I mean seriously, I (and I bet
a number of leadership thought leaders and authors) have never considered that
question before. We have more leadership speakers, coaches, books, videos,
pod/vid casts, and curriculums than any other time in history yet I believe not
many of us have considered who or for what audience is all this content
directed toward or for what purpose.
As I was pondering the answer
it occurred to me that the 20-60-20 Rule of organizations may apply
here. This concept is loosely based on the Italian economist Pareto’s Principal
of the 20-80 rule that postulates that 80% of our results are derived from the first
20% of our efforts. Such an idea has been extended to the idea that 20% of a
workforce produces 80% of the results, revenue, etc. Therefore, in any given
organization:
- The Top 20% of a team are the joiners, true believers, early adopters, and motivated.
- The Bottom 20% of a workforce are what I call C.A.V.E. Dwellers (colleagues against virtually everything!) and are negative, complacent, and non-productive.
- The Middle 60% constitutes the muddled-middle and are the untapped potential of an organization. They are ABLE but need to be well led in order to be WILLING!
This concept of the 20-60-20
rule has had some research validation and if you review Gallup’s research on
workplace engagement, it aligns accordingly with 15% of employees very engaged,
15% of employees actively disengaged, and the remainder not as engaged.
With all the preceding being
said, I believe most leadership content and training content for leaders
and managers is directed toward helping them lead the middle 60%. If you look
at the more recent leadership literature with its emphasis on vision,
connecting, persuasion, including, coaching, and other high-touch management
techniques and strategies, it is about moving the undecideds that have
huge potential to the engaged or true believer side of the bell curve.
As leaders, we must be
strategic in terms of where and how we direct our efforts in terms of our
teams. If you think about it, such efforts such as motivation, work
enhancement, and persuasion are not needed for your top 20%. We just need to maintain
those relationships, because that group is so self-motivated that they do not
need to be “supervised”. Inversely such high-tough leadership efforts are often
wasted on the bottom 20% of team members since it does not matter what you do
since they will still be unhappy and unproductive. This is where we need to
bring resolution to the relationship by[WF1] candid
conversations focused on fit, attitude, and if the right person in wrong role scenario
is at work.
This leaves the middle 60% to
direct our efforts and such relationships need to be nurtured. In tech
industry leader Kim Scott’s book Radical Candor, she classifies this
large group of middle performers in two groups:
- Higher Growth/Lower Performance Trajectory
- Higher Performance/Lower Growth Trajectory
In other words, they are
either performing very well but are not as deliberate in seeking growth or work
enhancing opportunities OR they are focusing on high growth efforts, but
their performance is not quite up to par. In either case, this is the sweet
spot of most leadership content since the vast majority of it presents so many
great strategies, mindsets, and techniques to address. Again, this is where “radical
candor” becomes so important in helping move the middle to the positive side of
the bell curve.
Let’s face it, as a leader you
only have so much bandwidth to spend on leading. If you have read any of my previous
blogs, I make it clear that effective, next level leadership is tough and
requires an enormous amount of emotional and physical energy as well as time.
Again, that is why we need to become more strategic in terms of how we spend
it.
As leadership author and athletic
performance expert Jim Loehr states, leadership success is more about energy
management than time management. I truly want all people to be
successful but the squeaky wheels in the bottom 20% can, if we let them,
overwhelm our time and energy. Often, it is not that they are incompetent or
ill intentioned, they are just not in the right field or role. We should do what
we can to help them but eventually they have to make a choice as their fit and
satisfaction in their current role. On the other hand, we need to make sure we
are giving the top performers what they need but often they do not need much
from us. They are so equipped and aligned in their roles they will continue to
flourish where they are (if they are happy there then leave them there!) or
they will eventually move on to other roles and challenges (and help them do
that!).
The bottom line is this,
decide who you need to invest in and use all the great advice, tools,
strategies and your own great judgement available to you! I encourage to complete
an “audit” of everyone on your team and decide where they line-up in the 20-60-20
categories. Then decide what action steps you need to take to maximize your
team.
As always if I can help you and
the people you associate with Get Better, Be Ready and LEAD OUT LOUD, I invite
you to contact me.
Yours in leadership,
Bill Faulkner
Independent Coach, Speaker,
and Trainer with the John Maxwell Team TM
Email
= bill@outloudinc.com
For more information on the
John Maxwell Team, please visit
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