--
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.”
