Lots of talk nowadays about 1%ers. As an inadvertent student of groups of people, I have noticed trends over time and I will tell you that generally, when the chips are down, the 1% you want to be associated with are the ones that are committed, have their own motor and drive and won’t take no for an answer.
A few years ago, I was stopped on the production floor by the Senior Service Manager for Offshore Systems and he said to me that I spent a fair bit of time as the Product Manager walking the floor of our assembly and test facility. He then asked me what I was doing. I told him I was following up. He laughed and said he had been watching me for a month, and had figured something out about me that no one else had noticed. The word Can’t wasn’t in my vocabulary and worse, I would not let others around me use it either. He told me he noticed that in spite of finding 100 people that couldn’t do what I needed, I was committed to finding the one person that would. We built a great team that way, avoiding and removing the Cant’s and aligning and attracting the Cans. It seems to be a recurring theme and challenge in all organizations.
I have coached youth athletic teams and led Boy Scouts all over the country. The focus was a program for the children but the folks that made the opportunities available were the adults. I discovered something about people (adults). For every 100 you would come across, all of them were willing to take something from you. But of that group, you typically could find about 10% that would give you something in return, in these cases; they volunteered some time to support the endeavor. These were good finds and on average, if you had 10 parents, 1 would volunteer to help. But the rare find was the person that not only would volunteer to help, but would also go out of their way, get on the point, take a risk and lead; they would make something happen. They were 1 in a hundred, the 1%.
An exemplary colleague and leader I worked with once said, “Some people watch things happen, some people make things happen and other people wonder what happened. Which one are YOU!” He always challenged me and others to decide which group we were in. I always knew it was the “make things happen” group. Sometimes for the good, and we were successful and enjoyed the work. Other times, not so much; and things got hard and were very unpleasant to the end. But we were always committed to see it through to the end—the 1%.
So I put to you, which one are you?
If you’re like me, you would rather have 5 people that worked like 10 instead of 10 that work like 10 or even worse, work like 5. Are you creating teams of 1% and 10% people? Are you accountable for making an environment for their success? Selecting, training and coaching personnel and helping to identify obstacles and move them out of their way—that’s your responsibility. These should be the people that prototype and pilot your growth and development. They should be your troubleshooters and planners. They know how to make it happen. How many people stand in the way of your success and the success of your 10%ers and 1%ers?
If you are struggling to get your oil field projects completed on time, and struggling to make the profit you promised, see about the blend of your team and look to identify and sponsor the leaders in the group. Remove the roadblocks they find in the organization. Sponsor your 10%. Promote your 1%.
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