The 10–80–10 Principle:
How to Build an Elite Team
An excerpt from Above the Line by Urban Meyer,
3-time National Championship-winning coach, currently at The Ohio State
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.”
I am going to lay out specific ways of moving the 80 percenters into the high-performing group, but before I do let’s look at the bigger picture of the 10–80–10 principle and the whole concept of talent.
I like having talented players as much as the next coach. That said, I think that we tend to overrate the importance of talent. I think we, as a nation, are obsessed with it. We want to believe that having talent guarantees greatness. We want to believe we can accurately gauge somebody’s greatness with times, measurements, and data. What’s your IQ? What’s your forty time? Your vertical leap? Your fastball reading on the radar gun? Your SAT score? Your bench press? Give me your numbers, and I will tell you how good you are, and how good you can be.
But statistics don’t play the game.
Football leads the charge in all of this. Look at the endless reports we get from the NFL combine. Look at the lists spit out by all those recruiting service rankings, telling us that this guy is five stars and that guy is four stars, as if it were the final word.
Except that’s not how the real world works. The number of stars next to a guy’s name or where a school might rate on someone’s list of the best recruiting classes is nothing but a highly subjective snapshot. Maybe it will turn out to be accurate. Or maybe it won’t. There are even multiple Web sites that actually declare a national recruiting championship. I understand this is all driven by the huge fan following that college football has. The point is that a pile of numbers is not nearly as important as how hard a guy works and how driven he is to get better.
Mariano Rivera, the greatest relief pitcher of all time, signed with the Yankees for $2,000 and a glove and was not even in the top fifty prospects in rookie ball when he started. Aaron Rodgers went to a junior college because nobody thought he was a Division I quarterback, and he only wound up at Cal- Berkeley because the coach saw him when he was recruiting somebody else. Malcolm Butler, Super Bowl hero, was unrated out of high school, played at the University of West Alabama, and was picked up as an unrestricted free agent by the New England Patriots.
Not a single starter for either team in Super Bowl XLIX was rated a five-star recruit out of high school. Think about that. I have learned that being elite is not about how talented you are; it’s about how tough and committed you are to getting better.
Of the many players I’ve coached, John Simon, former OSU captain and now linebacker with the Houston Texans, was one of the most dedicated athletes I’ve ever seen. Early in his senior year — my first year in Columbus — Simon played a game against Cal-Berkeley with basically one shoulder. John was in a great deal of pain and made key plays in our 35–28 victory. After the game he gave a locker room speech that I’ll never forget. It was one of the most moving moments I’ve ever had as a coach. With great emotion, John opened up, gave us his heart, and challenged every one of us — coaching staff included — to look at what we were giving and how much we cared. I was so blown away that afterward I told the media I would name our next child after him. (OK, so I got a little carried away.) With someone like John Simon, you never have to say a word to motivate him or get him to push himself. I would put our current guys like Joshua Perry and Taylor Decker in the same category. Both of them are top 10 percenters. They are elite performers for our team and high achievers in the classroom. They do the right things and push the guys around them, the 80 percenters, to become better. They are the ultimate competitors.
Here are four approaches to getting as many of your 80 percenters as possible into the inner circle:
Mastery and Belief
If players are going to make the big push to join the elites, they need to believe it will be worth it. It’s important to remind them of the quality of the leadership at Ohio State — let them know they are being taught by masters of their craft who have made a significant difference in other players’ lives. I make sure that my assistant coaches showcase the achievements of other great players they have worked with. Visuals such as videos and images are incredible tools to convey a message. When a player walks into Luke Fickell’s office, I want him to see photos of Ohio State greats A. J. Hawk, James Laurinaitis, and Ryan Shazier, all of whom Luke has coached. When a player walks into the office of Ed Warinner, our offensive coordinator, I want him to see Warinner’s three former OSU offensive lineman who started as rookies in the NFL — Corey Linsley, Jack Mewhort, and Andrew Norwell. It may not seem like a big deal, but these sorts of associations are important. It is not about bragging. It’s about reinforcing that this is a special place that has produced special players. It’s about motivating the 80 percenters.
When I walk in my own office and I see championship trophies, photos with presidents, keepsakes, and mementos and clippings of the Heisman Trophy finalists and winners I’ve coached, I feel good. If a prospective recruit is motivated by wanting to be part of that club, well, that makes me feel good, too.
It’s a natural human reaction to want to be connected to greatness. The moment you arrive in the lobby of our football complex, you see trophies, photos, and multimedia displays of some of the great moments in Ohio State history, dating to the first national championship in 1942. Walk through the double doors and down the main hallway, and the length of it features such Ohio State football legends as Archie Griffin, Eddie George, Orlando Pace, and Chris Spielman. This isn’t theory. It’s testimony. This is who played here. This is what they achieved. Who wouldn’t want to be a part of this great tradition?
The underlying message is: “This could be you. All you need to do is work, train, and live Above the Line. Be as fully committed to getting better as the guys whose pictures you are looking at.”
Harness the Power
The top 10 percenters, as we’ve noted, are the greatest asset your organization has — the elite achievers. These are the John Simons you want out there in the fourth quarter of a big game, or the Joshua Perrys and Taylor Deckers, who set an example by performing at the highest of their abilities. So we aim to leverage the influence and credibility of the top 10 percent to maximum advantage.
As a young coach, I savored every second I could be around Earle Bruce and Lou Holtz. I wanted to absorb everything I could possibly learn from these great men. Players such as Simon have similar drawing power, and I’m sure it’s no different with guys like LeBron James, Mike Trout, and Sidney Crosby. Elite performers in businesses and other organizations have this same effect.
Left unchecked, most people will keep the company of likeminded people. In other words, the top 10 percenters will stick with their fellow 10 percenters, and the 80 percenters will do the same with their group. We work hard to change that inclination, pairing a top 10 percenter with an 80 percenter as much as possible in workouts, drills, and unit meetings. Harness the power that the elites have. Leverage the ability of the top 10 percenters to bring more 80 percenters into the nucleus.
When Simon was captain and leader of the undefeated 2012 team, he would come to the weight room by himself every day at 6 a.m. to train. One day I pulled him aside.
“You can’t come in to lift at 6 a.m. anymore,” I said.
He looked at me, puzzled.
“You know that I love your work ethic,” I said. “This is about using you as a magnet — getting more players to go about their work the way you do. You can keep coming in, of course, but there’s one rule: you have to bring somebody with you.” He did, and it had a significant impact. It’s been such a success that Coach Mick won’t let the top 10 percenters in the weight room if they don’t bring along an 80 percenter.
David Nelson was a wide receiver for me at Florida, a fine young man with a lot of talent who was another quintessential 80 percenter. Tebow and I and others on the staff had been working to get him into the inner circle for the better part of three years, but it just wasn’t happening. When I got to my of-fice the morning after we lost to Ole Miss in 2008, our only defeat of the season, David Nelson was sitting outside. He was in tears.
“I want to make an impact on this team. I want to make a difference,” he said. He told me he felt ashamed that he’d wasted his first three years by not pushing himself hard all the time, the way Tebow did. Now he wanted to do all he could to change that.
“You can make a huge impact, David,” I said. “You can start today. It starts with your heart and how much you want this. The more you are willing to give of yourself, the more you are going to get.”
From that day forward, David Nelson became a top 10 percenter. He gave relentless effort every day. The change in him was remarkable. After Percy Harvin was injured in the SEC Championship game, David Nelson caught a touchdown pass that gave us the lead. In the BCS National Championship game, he scored the game-winning touchdown, grabbing a jump pass from Tebow.
I can’t think of a better example of harnessing the power of the 10 percent.
Building Ownership
When a player or employee feels an ownership stake in what’s going on, he gives maximum effort. As a young coach at Illinois State in the town of Normal, Illinois, I rented my first apart-ment. It was a shabby place with a leaky toilet, scuffed-up walls, and cabinets that looked as if they might not stay on the walls. One night, I had some friends over to watch the heavyweight fight between Mike Tyson and Buster Douglas. When Douglas won in a shocking knockout, one of my friends jumped off the couch and kicked a hole in the wall. In the time- honored tradition of young and penniless renters everywhere, I moved the couch to hide the damage.
A couple of years later, when I joined Earle Bruce’s staff at Colorado State, Shelley and I saved up and bought our first house, for a whopping $75,000. If the same guy kicked a hole in one of our new walls, I would’ve made absolutely sure he fixed it as soon as possible. It’s different when you are invested and have something at stake.
So I started to give the 80 percenter guys more and more ownership. We have a ring committee that designs the jewelry when we win a championship, and I select guys to design the rings. When we have to make a decision about jersey styles and colors, I select guys to get involved in that also. It’s the same with locker room décor, and some of the menu options at training table. The more ways your people can share ownership, the more loyal and committed they are going to be.
Positive Peer Pressure
On the east end of our indoor training facility, there’s a section we call The Grind. It is the place where players can put in extra work honing their football skills. The top 10 percenters practically live there. The receivers go there to catch footballs and tennis balls fired from a JUGS machine. Defensive backs go to fine-tune their footwork, and offensive linemen work hand placement on dummies.
The Grind is headquarters for extra effort, the after-hours spot of the elite. It is where athletes go when they’ve moved beyond all excuse making or resistance. It is where champions are made. We have large wall banners of some of our greatest players above the area as both a tribute and motivation. One of the forces that gets our 80 percenters to move up is the culture they are immersed in. Everybody is pushing each other to get better. They are pushing hard. We cannot afford to settle into complacency. If you are going through the motions, staying in the same place, there’s a good chance somebody is going to move right past you. This isn’t something we use as an overt threat, but the message is clear.
The world is a competitive place. To compete at an elite level, you need to train at an elite level.
If you are seeing this in your organization, enhance it and keep going. If not, lead the change that will make it a priority. Remember that the real power of your leadership is not your level of authority, but your level of influence. Your chances of ordering an 80 percenter into the top 10 percent are negligible. But your chances of influencing the shift by using the strategies we’ve discussed are excellent. Harness the power of your elite performers. Greatness happens when you are able to maximize their impact on the 80 percenters.
Tim Tebow reminded me just how profound this dynamic can be, after that Ole Miss defeat that David Nelson was so torn up about. At the end of his postgame press conference, Tim became emotional. He had to stop and compose himself. He felt that he hadn’t performed up to his own expectations or his team’s expectations.
He closed by saying this:
I’m sorry. Extremely sorry. We were hoping for an undefeated season. That was my goal — something Florida has never done here. But I promise you one thing. A lot of good will come out of this. You will never see any player in the entire country play as hard as I will play the rest of the season and you will never see someone push the rest of the team as hard as I will push everybody the rest of the season, and you will never see any team play harder than we will the rest of the season. God Bless.
And then he left the podium.
We didn’t lose a game the rest of the season.
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