Price’s Law: Why Only A Few People Generate Half Of The Results

[hermosabeach]

At my first sales job, I had about 25 colleagues who did the same work. After the first month, I noticed something peculiar.

Only 4 of my co-workers brought in more than half of the total sales. I was 17 years old at the time, and I had no idea why that was. These folks were the superstars on the floor — the untouchables.

Little did I know that this relation holds true for almost everything in business. It’s called Price’s square root law, and it originates from academia.

Value Creation Is Not Symmetric
Derek Price, who was a British physicist, historian of science, and information scientist, discovered something about his peers in academia. He noticed that there were always a handful of people who dominated the publications within a subject.

Price found out the following (now called Price’s law):

50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work.

In my example, that means 5 people (square root of 25) should bring in 50% of the sales. That means Price’s law is pretty accurate. On my floor, 4 people brought in about 50%-60% of the sales.

After my first job, I noticed the same ratio at every single company I’ve worked with. The contrast was the biggest when I worked in London for a major corporation, where top sales performers were rewarded big.

 

[hermosabeach]

I was... reading some of the junk that AOC has said.... and I’m shocked at how ignorant many are about the world and how work gets accomplished.

price’s last is probably the best way I can state why socialism is bound to fail

It’s also why America is so great. We have taken in so many people who fled the bull of socialism and communism. Those who those that wanted to work and succeed and could not do so in their home country.

Derek J. de Solla Price - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

 

[SilentStalkr]

At my first sales job, I had about 25 colleagues who did the same work. After the first month, I noticed something peculiar.

Only 4 of my co-workers brought in more than half of the total sales. I was 17 years old at the time, and I had no idea why that was. These folks were the superstars on the floor — the untouchables.

Little did I know that this relation holds true for almost everything in business. It’s called Price’s square root law, and it originates from academia.


View attachment 7234066

Value Creation Is Not Symmetric
Derek Price, who was a British physicist, historian of science, and information scientist, discovered something about his peers in academia. He noticed that there were always a handful of people who dominated the publications within a subject.

Price found out the following (now called Price’s law):

50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work.

In my example, that means 5 people (square root of 25) should bring in 50% of the sales. That means Price’s law is pretty accurate. On my floor, 4 people brought in about 50%-60% of the sales.

After my first job, I noticed the same ratio at every single company I’ve worked with. The contrast was the biggest when I worked in London for a major corporation, where top sales performers were rewarded big.

Too bad that doesn’t equate to the pay scale for all jobs. Many people well outperform others in all occupations but I can only think of a handful where they are rewarded for going the extra mile. Of course, this often leads to a decline in work ethic, high turnover rate and so on. Some people say it’s as easy as moving into another job somewhere else but depending on your job among other things this might not be that easy. I’ve worked plenty of jobs where a handful of people basically carry the others but are not necessarily compensated for it.

 

[Bradu]

Too bad that doesn’t equate to the pay scale for all jobs. Many people well outperform others in all occupations but I can only think of a handful where they are rewarded for going the extra mile. Of course, this often leads to a decline in work ethic, high turnover rate and so on. Some people say it’s as easy as moving into another job somewhere else but depending on your job among other things this might not be that easy.

Basically every job I've worked you are paid the same regardless of your performance both union and non union. The only benefit it ever provided me was being approached by people wanting me to work for a different company. It is rare to be appreciated for your work ethic and skill level. The buddy system prevails in most places anymore and I suck at kissing ass.

 

[Tchitcherine]

Pareto distribution is similar:

Pareto distribution - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Either way, coffee is for closers.

 

[2ndamendfan]

At my first sales job, I had about 25 colleagues who did the same work. After the first month, I noticed something peculiar.

Only 4 of my co-workers brought in more than half of the total sales. I was 17 years old at the time, and I had no idea why that was. These folks were the superstars on the floor — the untouchables.

Little did I know that this relation holds true for almost everything in business. It’s called Price’s square root law, and it originates from academia.


View attachment 7234066

Value Creation Is Not Symmetric
Derek Price, who was a British physicist, historian of science, and information scientist, discovered something about his peers in academia. He noticed that there were always a handful of people who dominated the publications within a subject.

Price found out the following (now called Price’s law):

50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work.

In my example, that means 5 people (square root of 25) should bring in 50% of the sales. That means Price’s law is pretty accurate. On my floor, 4 people brought in about 50%-60% of the sales.

After my first job, I noticed the same ratio at every single company I’ve worked with. The contrast was the biggest when I worked in London for a major corporation, where top sales performers were rewarded big.

I have seen this myself. Worked at a place for 25 years and my boss told me many many times that 60-70% of production was done by myself and two others. There were 12-16 employees in that department.

 

[Flatwater77]

 

[pmclaine]

Price was too late.....

Heraclitus discovered truth pre Christ......

"Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back."

A quote by Heraclitus

Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they m...

www.goodreads.com

It's a fact about humanity that applies to any human endeavor and it the human character "flaw" that ensures Communism/socialism will never work.

 

[atepointer]

At my first sales job, I had about 25 colleagues who did the same work. After the first month, I noticed something peculiar.

Only 4 of my co-workers brought in more than half of the total sales. I was 17 years old at the time, and I had no idea why that was. These folks were the superstars on the floor — the untouchables.

Little did I know that this relation holds true for almost everything in business. It’s called Price’s square root law, and it originates from academia.


View attachment 7234066

Value Creation Is Not Symmetric
Derek Price, who was a British physicist, historian of science, and information scientist, discovered something about his peers in academia. He noticed that there were always a handful of people who dominated the publications within a subject.

Price found out the following (now called Price’s law):

50% of the work is done by the square root of the total number of people who participate in the work.

In my example, that means 5 people (square root of 25) should bring in 50% of the sales. That means Price’s law is pretty accurate. On my floor, 4 people brought in about 50%-60% of the sales.

After my first job, I noticed the same ratio at every single company I’ve worked with. The contrast was the biggest when I worked in London for a major corporation, where top sales performers were rewarded big.

It's one of the primary reasons I left corporate America.....same principle there was a small segment of the sales force putting the numbers up which was fine when we were paid for it. Initially it was the most fun I'd ever had in my life we were straight commission, zero backstop you survived on your ability and there was zero ceiling on income potential. Then the company decided they wanted to spend more time analyzing reports, having non-stop meetings that could have been covered in a 5 minute phone call and building layers of management and they started to cut territories. MICRO MANAGEMENT. Then they put us on base salary, in teams of 3-5 with additional support reps and I went from spending 3 hours a month in managerial time to 8 hours a week pushing paper. Mind you there were failing reps simply given accounts with great business they walked into accounts that had been groomed for years by someone else. When asked how I'd approach the head count 'problem' in the region when people started leaving for the competition I said I'd fire 80% of the management, can the non-producing reps and get back to being a sales organization vs a management vacuum. Was hilarious could hear a pin drop left less than a year later. All 3 of my buddies left within a year for the competition and that company has been bought 2x since then. Working for myself has it's own set of headaches, but when I want to make a change it takes 2 minutes on a phone call, I don't live in the PC world, we run it like savages and have a ton of fun and I only wish I'd of done it sooner. I mean could I have ripped a top 10 of the year fart last week on a conference call and received a 9.5 working in corporate America?

 

[The DFC]

I have seen this myself. Worked at a place for 25 years and my boss told me many many times that 60-70% of production was done by myself and two others. There were 12-16 employees in that department.

Me too. Math works out as well sqrt(# of employees) = 3-4.

 

[The DFC]

Price was too late.....

Heraclitus discovered truth pre Christ......

"Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior, and he will bring the others back."

A quote by Heraclitus

Out of every one hundred men, ten shouldn't even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they m...

www.goodreads.com

It's a fact about humanity that applies to any human endeavor and it the human character "flaw" that ensures Communism/socialism will never work.

Yep-you can't dick with nature cause nature always wins.

 

[pmclaine]

I was... reading some of the junk that AOC has said.... and I’m shocked at how ignorant many are about the world and how work gets accomplished.

price’s last is probably the best way I can state why socialism is bound to fail

It’s also why America is so great. We have taken in so many people who fled the bull of socialism and communism. Those who those that wanted to work and succeed and could not do so in their home country.

Derek J. de Solla Price - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Let this sink in.......AOC is an economics grad from Boston University.

If that doesn't prove how fucked up higher education is nothing will convince people.

Im certain she does not believe the bullshit that falls from her lips.....she is just something we are not used to seeing but what Soros needs to promote......young, good looking, robots to put a different face on his evil.

The look of the Sith isn't working for him.

 

[Mike Casselton]

Wasn't aware of Price's law.
I have read the quote that Pat posted.

We've always called it the 20/80 rule.

20% of the people do 80% of the work.

Within that 20% of performers, there is another 20/80 group.

Those are the true performers and warriors.

Look within your household, you'll see the same thing on a much smaller scale.

 

[Flatwater77]

This concept is the reason the whole equality of outcome argument drives me crazy. I will be the first one in line to insist on equality of opportunity for Everyone. However, screaming and stomping your feet when there isn’t equality of outcome is childish. The only way to ensure equality of outcome is to rig the game. When that happens, the real producers leave and the system implodes.

 

[The DFC]

This concept is the reason the whole equality of outcome argument drives me crazy. I will be the first one in line to insist on equality of opportunity for Everyone. However, screaming and stomping your feet when there isn’t equality of outcome is childish. The only way to ensure equality of outcome is to rig the game. When that happens, the real producers leave and the system implodes.

Atlas Shrugged.

 

[atepointer]

Wasn't aware of Price's law.
I have read the quote that Pat posted.

We've always called it the 20/80 rule.

20% of the people do 80% of the work.

Within that 20% of performers, there is another 20/80 group.

Those are the true performers and warriors.

Look within your household, you'll see the same thing on a much smaller scale.

It's amazing how these axioms are evident in nearly everything we do from sunrise to sunset. If you need something done find the busiest person you know and they will find a way to do it.

 

[Mike Casselton]

It's amazing how these axioms are evident in nearly everything we do from sunrise to sunset. If you need something done find the busiest person you know and they will find a way to do it.

And, if you want to find the easiest way (maybe not the best way) give it to the laziest person to figure out.

Somewhere in between, will become procedure.

 

[Flatwater77]

I manage a small company of 16 employees. This principle presents interesting challenges. Obviously I need to make sure our 20% stars are happy. Beyond that, do you just accept the the reality that a lot of the staff are going to plod in comparison? Should I spend my time with lower performers or helping the stars perform even better?

 

[atepointer]

I manage a small company of 16 employees. This principle presents interesting challenges. Obviously I need to make sure our 20% stars are happy. Beyond that, do you just accept the the reality that a lot of the staff are going to plod in comparison? Should I spend my time with lower performers or helping the stars perform even better?

My 2 cents is worth less than that and I don't know if this is an open ended question so I'll throw my worthless input into the fray.

The beauty of having achievers is you don't need to coddle or motivate them just make sure the juice is worth the squeeze or they are a flight risk. If they start encountering needless wasteful problems from management/corporate that take away from their kill box they will seek life elsewhere....same or better money with less hassles. My buddy is the single best C-suite long-term sales cycle rep I've ever heard of the last 25 years and when he is given the chance he does what 20 sub par people can't do. The only reason he's left prior jobs is b/c management went full stupid. His phone and email ring 24 hours a day with offers from all over for jobs that are unreal, but as long as he can work unimpeded by managerial stupidity he's stays put.

You probably know in your gut the 80% who have a chance to be hitters and who is already on the way to being on a PIP or fired. We all have x amount of hours in a day and ya just have to tailer that to your best ROI with employee development. Maybe a balance of making sure there isn't obvious low hanging fruit your killers aren't seeing, but you don't have to motivate them to do actual work they will dive on it like Oprah at a free Krispy Kreme event.

 

[EddieNFL]

In my second career, I managed a heavy equipment maintenance and repair shop. Technicians that billed more than 40 hours in a week earned a bonus for every extra hour. About a fourth of the techs always billed 50 plus. The rest were perfectly happy with ~40.

I hired a kid as soon as he graduated diesel college. He was smart and learned quickly. Once he had some experience in his toolbox, I expected he would easily exceed 40; never happened. I watched him pretty closely for about a week and called him in my office and told him he could easily have $500-$600 extra in his pocket every month. He got really interested and asked how. "Stop smoking."

His response was he liked smoking and he was happy with what he was earning. Another kid I hired about the same time was billing 45 plus within six months. He wasn't as smart as the other, but he was motivated.

 

[Flatwater77]

My 2 cents is worth less than that and I don't know if this is an open ended question so I'll throw my worthless input into the fray.

The beauty of having achievers is you don't need to coddle or motivate them just make sure the juice is worth the squeeze or they are a flight risk. If they start encountering needless wasteful problems from management/corporate that take away from their kill box they will seek life elsewhere....same or better money with less hassles. My buddy is the single best C-suite long-term sales cycle rep I've ever heard of the last 25 years and when he is given the chance he does what 20 sub par people can't do. The only reason he's left prior jobs is b/c management went full stupid. His phone and email ring 24 hours a day with offers from all over for jobs that are unreal, but as long as he can work unimpeded by managerial stupidity he's stays put.

You probably know in your gut the 80% who have a chance to be hitters and who is already on the way to being on a PIP or fired. We all have x amount of hours in a day and ya just have to tailer that to your best ROI with employee development. Maybe a balance of making sure there isn't obvious low hanging fruit your killers aren't seeing, but you don't have to motivate them to do actual work they will dive on it like Oprah at a free Krispy Kreme event.

Not worthless input. I appreciate the advice.

 

[Flatwater77]

In my second career, I managed a heavy equipment maintenance and repair shop. Technicians that billed more than 40 hours in a week earned a bonus for every extra hour. About a fourth of the techs always billed 50 plus. The rest were perfectly happy with ~40.

I hired a kid as soon as he graduated diesel college. He was smart and learned quickly. Once he had some experience in his toolbox, I expected he would easily exceed 40; never happened. I watched him pretty closely for about a week and called him in my office and told him he could easily have $500-$600 extra in his pocket every month. He got really interested and asked how. "Stop smoking."

His response was he liked smoking and he was happy with what he was earning. Another kid I hired about the same time was billing 45 plus within six months. He wasn't as smart as the other, but he was motivated.

I’m seeing a lot of this from kids coming out of school. They are smart, have talent, and want to work 35 hours a week. They also want top pay. I will almost always pick a less qualified candidate that has worked their way through college over an academic high achiever who has never had to work. The real world is often a kick in the shorts for them and it takes several jobs before they realize their GPA doesn’t mean anything.

 

[Jscb1b]

There is a dumbass ass at the shop I work in. The boss is OK with the fact that he is "trying". After fixing another of his fuck ups, I asked the boss when he was going to stop trying and start doing. And said dumbass is married into the owner's family.

 

[The DFC]

I’m seeing a lot of this from kids coming out of school. They are smart, have talent, and want to work 35 hours a week. They also want top pay. I will almost always pick a less qualified candidate that has worked their way through college over an academic high achiever who has never had to work. The real world is often a kick in the shorts for them and it takes several jobs before they realize their GPA doesn’t mean anything.

That's good real world insight. 4.0 students are often so smart they don't have to work hard in school-and in 1 case this attitude translated to my lab. He lasted 2 days and was gone. I no longer hire 4.0 students-and side note I stopped hiring home schooled people too
This kind of stuff never occurred to me getting my Engineering degree because I worked my balls off (so did everyone else as far as I could tell) and it's generally accepted that GPAs near 3.0 a little above/below are where you want to be which was where I was at-I was a little below 3.0

 

[E. Bryant]

Too bad that doesn’t equate to the pay scale for all jobs. Many people well outperform others in all occupations but I can only think of a handful where they are rewarded for going the extra mile. Of course, this often leads to a decline in work ethic, high turnover rate and so on. Some people say it’s as easy as moving into another job somewhere else but depending on your job among other things this might not be that easy. I’ve worked plenty of jobs where a handful of people basically carry the others but are not necessarily compensated for it.

The solution for over-performers who face this pay inequality is simple - go into business for yourself. You can charge customers what you are actually worth, and if you're worth enough, you won't get dragged down into the usual corporate bullshit (who wants to pay a contractor megabucks to sit through another round of training from HR?).

This is an enormously long read, but it describes modern corporate culture better than any book I've encountered:

The Gervais Principle

Read on Kindle for $4.99 Main Series Part I, The Office According to The Office: In which we analyze the basic structural dynamics of organizations in terms of the Gervais Principle of promotions a…

www.ribbonfarm.com

 

[P-Squared]

And, if you want to find the easiest way (maybe not the best way) give it to the laziest person to figure out.

Somewhere in between, will become procedure.

But I'm a lazy OCD maniac. I find the easiest way to get it done perfectly the first time so I don't have to do it more than once... except sex.

 

[Bender]

I am in a new management position at work. I was just a tech, but previous boss got content and stopped looking for work. They offered him to be a lead technician and convert his salary to hourly but he was no longer boss. He declined and left. Anyway they asked me to be manager as I have some background in it but I’m far from knowing everything. The change at work has been immediate, moral is better, billable hours ratio is up and overtime is down, I’m working on landing some big contracts and we are even bidding on new work types that we’ve never done before but are very capable of doing, I’m talking about usual site bid work of $8k-80k to $180k-300k jobs. I need new techs already and I’m not even out of my first month. All because I was not content with our current work load. I just pray I can keep infront of it all.

 

[The DFC]

I am in a new management position at work. I was just a tech, but previous boss got content and stopped looking for work. They offered him to be a lead technician and convert his salary to hourly but he was no longer boss. He declined and left. Anyway they asked me to be manager as I have some background in it but I’m far from knowing everything. The change at work has been immediate, moral is better, billable hours ratio is up and overtime is down, I’m working on landing some big contracts and we are even bidding on new work types that we’ve never done before but are very capable of doing, I’m talking about usual site bid work of $8k-80k to $180k-300k jobs. I need new techs already and I’m not even out of my first month. All because I was not content with our current work load. I just pray I can keep infront of it all.

That's great-I love hearing success stories these days. Good luck hiring new people-take your time and hire exactly what you want to hire even if it seems like it takes forever. Finding good workers is very difficult-because they always already have jobs

 

[candyx]

If you learn this at a very early age you'll be able to keep your job and be able to watch all the other suckers do all the work.

 

[MadDuner]

Working with a small staff - it’s also easy to see that the high achievers also need their “space” to get it done. Attempting to only keep the superstars and get rid of the under performers doesn’t work here unless you can find “space” for them to not work shoulder to shoulder. Two or three “alpha” males on a single project is a recipe for disaster. You cannot have multiple “leaders” on a single task because they have difficulty playing well with each other. Give each of them their own project with a couple of “helpers” and you have high-performing teams.

 

[atepointer]

I am in a new management position at work. I was just a tech, but previous boss got content and stopped looking for work. They offered him to be a lead technician and convert his salary to hourly but he was no longer boss. He declined and left. Anyway they asked me to be manager as I have some background in it but I’m far from knowing everything. The change at work has been immediate, moral is better, billable hours ratio is up and overtime is down, I’m working on landing some big contracts and we are even bidding on new work types that we’ve never done before but are very capable of doing, I’m talking about usual site bid work of $8k-80k to $180k-300k jobs. I need new techs already and I’m not even out of my first month. All because I was not content with our current work load. I just pray I can keep infront of it all.

That's great! Love to see this exact scenario play out. Go get em!

 

[Bender]

I have known about the “80-20” rule, and I know to not bog down the top performance guys, but some needed to tighten up field paperwork, as in turn it every evening rather than save up a week or two at a time then dumping it in lap of our billing department.

 

[Bender]

I hope we can keep this thread going as I don’t know everything and want to learn from others mistakes as I don’t have time to make all the mistakes and learn from them on my own. Lol.

 

[Arc Light]

I've noticed this phenomenon applies to internet forums too.

10% of the members post 50% of the crap

 

[Dewey7271]

I manage a small company of 16 employees. This principle presents interesting challenges. Obviously I need to make sure our 20% stars are happy. Beyond that, do you just accept the the reality that a lot of the staff are going to plod in comparison? Should I spend my time with lower performers or helping the stars perform even better?

An old first manager of mine that ran a top notch sales organization said it best. “You feed your horses man..” meaning of course you take care of the 20%

 

[SilentStalkr]

The solution for over-performers who face this pay inequality is simple - go into business for yourself. You can charge customers what you are actually worth, and if you're worth enough, you won't get dragged down into the usual corporate bullshit (who wants to pay a contractor megabucks to sit through another round of training from HR?).

This is an enormously long read, but it describes modern corporate culture better than any book I've encountered:

The Gervais Principle

Read on Kindle for $4.99 Main Series Part I, The Office According to The Office: In which we analyze the basic structural dynamics of organizations in terms of the Gervais Principle of promotions a…

www.ribbonfarm.com

Yes sir, that is an option, but depending on what you do that can her super difficult. There were times where I was spending 60 hrs a week chasing 10 hours of work.

 

[Dewey7271]

I have known about the “80-20” rule, and I know to not bog down the top performance guys, but some needed to tighten up field paperwork, as in turn it every evening rather than save up a week or two at a time then dumping it in lap of our billing department.

If it’s a sales gig, find someone to do their paperwork for them. Paperwork bogs a speed runner down.
I’ve never seen a high end salesperson that’s excellent that likes paperwork.
The new opportunities the top people will produce without bothersome paperwork will more than pay for the grunt you hire to do it in my experience.
Hire analyticals and amiables for paperwork. Driver and expressive personalities need to sell.
Four personality types. Driver, expressive, amiable and analytical. Quantifying who is what let’s you put the right person into the right slot. Drivers are Joe Friday from Dragnet. Just the facts ma’am. Expressives are terrific in that they bright, personable and relate well with people. They need to be dragged back on track occasionally but they’re usually doers. The type that you can usually say squirrel and they’re off. Lol. Amiables want to be liked. Not good closers as they’re worried the client won’t like them. Analyticals are obviously number driven and function best with spreadsheets, tracking and other numerically driven approaches.
An analytical can be death to an expressive or driver in a high performing organization. They want numbers the driver and expressive just want to do it. Not a slam on analyticals just an observation.

 

[Dewey7271]

Yes sir, that is an option, but depending on what you do that can her super difficult. There were times where I was spending 60 hrs a week chasing 10 hours of work.

Hire someone to chase.
Nothing more fruitless than a $200 an hour person doing $15 an hour work.

 

[Bender]

If it’s a sales gig, find someone to do their paperwork for them. Paperwork bogs a speed runner down.
I’ve never seen a high end salesperson that’s excellent that likes paperwork.
The new opportunities the top people will produce without bothersome paperwork will more than pay for the grunt you hire to do it in my experience.
Hire analyticals and amiables for paperwork. Driver and expressive personalities need to sell.
Four personality types. Driver, expressive, amiable and analytical. Quantifying who is what let’s you put the right person into the right slot. Drivers are Joe Friday from Dragnet. Just the facts ma’am. Expressives are terrific in that they bright, personable and relate well with people. They need to be dragged back on track occasionally but they’re usually doers. The type that you can usually say squirrel and they’re off. Lol. Amiables want to be liked. Not good closers as they’re worried the client won’t like them. Analyticals are obviously number driven and function best with spreadsheets, tracking and other numerically driven approaches.
An analytical can be death to an expressive or driver in a high performing organization. They want numbers the driver and expressive just want to do it. Not a slam on analyticals just an observation.

Not sales. But our brilliant tech.

 

[Deleted member 10043]

So, Stalin knew this too and cleaned house every five years. He had enough forced membership to get away with that. Personally, it has to do with how people respond to the leadership. There will always be that small percentage that responds and produces under poor leadership. In others words, that have a knack for managing the boss so they can produce. Good leadership, as Bender has shown, leads to more productivity overall. So yeah, Price's law is typical for an organization, but within the organization are going to be units that have higher individual productivity that Price leaves out in his math. Unfortunately, I'm not referring to leadership at the highest level of an organization. Those positions are reserved for people that produced under poor leadership and have been promoted to their level of incompetence. They no longer have lousy bosses they can manipulate and now are out on a limb relying on the 10%ers that manipulate them. You will find most of your good leadership content at the supervisory or middle management levels. These leaders have no desire to move up the chain of command. They get more satisfaction working with good people than they know they won't experience with a new title and 15% pay raise.

 

[W54/XM-388]

So, Stalin knew this too and cleaned house every five years. He had enough forced membership to get away with that.

Except he did it a couple times too often and wound up leaving feet first. As is pretty much typical for Russian/Soviet/Russian dictators throughout history. There is always the taken suddenly and violently ill........

 

[Deleted member 10043]

Only a very minute % of leadership can turn an entire organization around. History shows us that. I've seen too many good leaders take a promotion into a cesspool knowing they are going to get gobbled up but in their minds they rationalize that it is something they have to do. What Price is really showing is people are no damn good. Pinocchio is a bad motivational speaker only because he cannot lie without it showing.

 

[Crang]

I've been on a performance based income (tech sales) for 20+ years. Its grueling- my competition is quite good and often if you lose you are fired just like them- you literally have to win all the time to a) get paid and b) keep your job. Its common for me to have 2-3 years invested in a single deal and if i dont win it, thats a big chunk of your life you didnt get paid for. I couldnt even imagine what its like to work harder or lazier and get paid the same. It just doesnt compute. If i slack off my paycheck 6 months from now will be a lot less. When my college professor brother in law talks about getting tenure I have to bite my tongue that thats everything thats wrong with the world.

 

[Flatwater77]

I am in a new management position at work. I was just a tech, but previous boss got content and stopped looking for work. They offered him to be a lead technician and convert his salary to hourly but he was no longer boss. He declined and left. Anyway they asked me to be manager as I have some background in it but I’m far from knowing everything. The change at work has been immediate, moral is better, billable hours ratio is up and overtime is down, I’m working on landing some big contracts and we are even bidding on new work types that we’ve never done before but are very capable of doing, I’m talking about usual site bid work of $8k-80k to $180k-300k jobs. I need new techs already and I’m not even out of my first month. All because I was not content with our current work load. I just pray I can keep infront of it all.

I read a short book awhile back that you may find useful. It is titled The Ideal Team Player by Patrick Lencioni. It has some really good advice for ways to build a team and hire good people. All of his books are good, practical and easy reads. Cheers.

 

[Deleted member 10043]

Yep, I'm working retired now. The longer I'm there the less work I have to do. I'm also a long way from the flagpole. My unit of seven has a combined experience of a hundred years, LOL. And we consistently outperform those same types of units at HQ because we don't have the headroom to be broken up. Nobody from upper management asks me for my opinion because they know that I know they only add up to dryshit because of the before mentioned.

 

[OldSalty]

I have known about the “80-20” rule, and I know to not bog down the top performance guys, but some needed to tighten up field paperwork, as in turn it every evening rather than save up a week or two at a time then dumping it in lap of our billing department.

IMO, based on your comments you are already on the right track.

-as mgmt work to remove obstacles that reduce your teams productivity. Basically, help your team function to full potential. Often requires data / analysis to help build your "case" and present ideas to Sr. Mgmt. This may end up as process change or changes to specific models.

-empower teams / workers to focus on core functions that provide the greatest return of value to the client and to the business.

Try to find out why people are not submitting paperwork in a timely manner. Is it available cycles? A systematic issue where the process is cumbersome and inefficient? What are they spending time doing when they should be submitting paperwork?

Keep in mind there are tradeoffs in simply making them submit the paperwork...less time w/ clients, less time developing leads, less time working on the product, etc.

 

[Bender]

The paperwork aspect for technicians is simply part numbers used in the field so we can have them properly removed from their truck inventory/warehouse inventory. They are really good technicians at the physical work but sometimes drop the ball on proper paperwork. They will go into the back and grab a mess of parts and go install them in the field and forget what they used and never get it billed correctly. I know we are not a charity and I cannot afford to give away parts LOL.

 

[Bender]

I am basically the technician manager/office manager/go find new work guy, so basically I am in sales as well. We have a full-time salesman but he sells more of our parts inventory and not our service. I am more responsible for selling our service contracts. Our last manager was an excellent technician and brilliant in that aspect. But he would never leave the office to look for new work. He had anxiety issues about talking to other people about work. He didn’t have very good relationship building skills.I am kind of the opposite, I have a small knowledge of the field tech and calibration that we do. I have a wealth of background and relationship building skills in my past jobs as site superintendent or government contract superintendent or even as a police officer. I know how to talk to anyone and nobody intimidates me. I’m out of the office 60% of the time. I am seeing existing customers and going over any new services we could offer them, and I am chasing down new customers as well. As I said before we are bidding on scopes of work that are larger than we’ve ever done. I’m shooting for the moon and will bid till our wheels fall off. As we won’t win every bid.

 

[hermosabeach]

I manage a small company of 16 employees. This principle presents interesting challenges. Obviously I need to make sure our 20% stars are happy. Beyond that, do you just accept the the reality that a lot of the staff are going to plod in comparison? Should I spend my time with lower performers or helping the stars perform even better?

Small companies can move quickly.

turning a warship can take miles.

jet ski- several feet

Smaller companies have or should have the ability to replace the bottom 10-20% of the workforce as needed.

The ability to thin the slackers and the folks that hurt the office culture.

HR is following lawsuits and making everyone get the same base compensation

The annual or quarterly rewards programs for top performers are one of the last way to bonus up top people in a non discriminatory way....

To me retaining and training existing people is better than focusing on recruiting new people.

the contact one has when retaining and training really lets you know who should be kept and who needs to be rotated out.

 

[gigamortis]

Bad management runs off more top performers than any market condition ever could. As a top performer in my field, it brings me great joy to leave a miserably managed job just to watch it wither and go under within a year after my departure. Stupidity should cost dearly.