10-80-10 Principle

I'm in the process of typing up My Favorite Lines from Above the Line by Urban Meyer and decided to give this concept it's own post. The following is an excerpt from pages 161 - 164. 

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There is a theory about human behavior called the 10-80-10 principle. I speak of it often when I talk to corporate groups or business leaders. It is the best strategy I know for getting the most out of your team. Think of your team or your organization as a big circle. At the very center of it, the nucleus, are the top 10 percenters, people who give all they’ve got all the time, who are the essence of self-discipline, self-respect, and the relentless pursuit of improvement.

They are the elite--the most powerful component of any organization.

They are the people I love to coach.

Outside the nucleus are the 80 percenters. They are the majority --people who go to work, do a good job, and are relatively reliable. The 80 percenters are for the most part trustworthy and dutiful, but they simply don’t have the drive and the unbending will that the nucleus guys do. They just don’t burn as hot.

The final 10 percenters are uninterested or defiant. They are on the periphery, mostly just coasting through life, not caring about reaching their potential or honoring the gifts they’ve been given. They are coach killers.

The leadership challenge is to move as many of the 80 percenters into the nucleus as you can. If you can expand the top 10 percent into 15 percent or 20 percent, you are going to see a measurable increase in the performance of your team. By the end of the 2014 season, our nucleus group was close to 30 percent. We did that by challenging our top 10 percent to identify and go get some of the 80 percenters and, in turn, influence the 80 percent to elevate their level of play, deepen their commitment, and give more of themselves for the program. We wanted our top 10 percent to be leaders who influenced and motivated others. This is essential because leadership is about connecting. Leadership is an activity that happens person to person and heart to heart. It’s about engaging deeply with others and inspiring them to be better.

When I coached Tim Tebow at Florida, he was a leader and an influencer. He’d come in my office and we’d say to each other, “Let’s go get an eighty today and get him into the top ten.” It was a daily, intentional priority for Tim and for me.

How well you perform as a team is going to depend on the work you do with the 80 percenters. That’s why I devote more time to them by far than to either of the 10 percenters. As much as you love your top 10 percenters, you don’t need to motivate them because they are doing it by themselves. Everybody -- coaches, staff, trainers -- wants to be around these elite people. They are positive, high-achieving people, and it’s fun to associate with them. But remember, your goal as a leader is to build and motivate your whole team, and the way to do that is to focus your attention on the 80 percenters.

On the other end, the bottom 10 percenters are not really worth wasting any energy on. It took me a while to realize this. For years I would try to change them. I would look at their corner-cutting ways and take it as a challenge to make them see the virtue and satisfaction that comes with working hard and getting results. It was probably arrogant on my part to think I could get them to change. The lesson I learned was this: time is a nonrenewable resource. If you waste it, you never get it back, so it’s essential to pick your battles wisely.

We talk about that at length at Ohio State. The hours you spend trying to motivate a guy who doesn’t care about getting better or about being there for the team are hours you would be much better off investing elsewhere. Players under stress from problematic family situations or dealing with drug-related issues, my staff and I will do whatever we can to help. If you want to get better and battle through adversity, we will be right there with you. The bottom 10 percent that I’m referring to are the players who have only one gear and don’t want to find another one. I had a player once who was the quintessential bottom 10 percent guy. He had the natural ability not only to make it to the NFL, but to be a really good NFL player. He was smart and had many advantages to capitalize on. He was on scholarship for four years, but the money that the school spent on him was wasted. He did little as a player and even less as a student. I talked to him. Mentored him. Other coaches did as well. We tried to help him see how he was slacking his way right out of a degree. Our efforts proved futile.

When we discover that a player is willfully resistant to our efforts and refuses to take advantage of the resources we provide, we redirect our attention elsewhere.

Kobe Bryant expressed it well. “I can’t relate to lazy people,” he said. “We don’t speak the same language. I don’t understand you. I don’t want to understand you.”