3% of workforce drives growth for most companies

MUMBAI: Do super-achievers in your company have a snowball effect? The outperformers may be instrumental in driving growth, but may have failed to inspire others.

It's this 3% of high-potential group of achievers that companies reward for their exceptional performance. The worry now in India Inc is whether this segment is getting the right kind of coaching to help spread the achiever's spirit. From encouraging competition to spurring growth, organisations are now looking at cooperation as a better tool to convert ordinary workers into extraordinary, and achievers into super-achievers.

Anand David, founder, Manford, a corporate training specialist, calls it the 3% theory. Manford believes strategy can play a key role in training and ensuring that people become exceptional in what they do.


"If you take any organisation, it's a very small number of people, say 3%, who drive the way it thinks and behaves. They are the primary movers and shakers, giving both character and shape to the organisation. Shouldn't we then be focusing on their very unique needs, so that they in turn are able to responsibly lead and impact others? In fact, this 3% can be at any level, even line-1 managers, who could then be identified and fast-tracked through intense, expert coaching," said David.\

After adopting such a strategy for the Indian subcontinent, Avery Dennison, a global leader in labelling and packaging materials and solutions, saw clear improvement in business results that were significantly better than planned. Following a workshop, a group of potential change leaders were identified for one-on-one executive coaching at Avery Dennison. Each trainee, along with the coach, identified actions on three to four streams — this was based on the relationship wheel and coach's evaluation of the areas each individual needed to develop to be more effective leaders.

The transition was from competing to co-opting and breaking down functional silos. It enhanced risk-taking with a changed mindset, moving from 'cannot' to 'why not'. It improved accountability among employees and inculcated a language of speed and delivery and aggressiveness towards targets.

The trickle-down effect was noteworthy. Coaching sessions include an effort to align key managers in the organisation on language and behaviour. When key influencers talk the same language, it starts percolating down to the lowest levels. As collaboration improved with one common agenda versus multiple functional agenda, accountability across levels too improved.

Avinash Venkat, director (HR), Avery Dennison, said, "It opened our eyes to how we are perceived as individuals and provided an avenue to discuss individual and organisation derailers and strengths (reds & greens) and actions to address/leverage the same. The key benefits included stretch goal-setting, interdependence strategies, conflict management, empowerment and delegation."

With coaching for the key influencers and each taking up at least four more people to coach, in all 45-50 employees moved the needle on breakthrough thinking at Avery Dennison. "It also helped better understand our emotional quotient — build our knowledge of neural response to stimulus and become more self aware of how we reacted to situations that challenged us," said Venkat.

Similarly when Ruchi Mathur from Zensar became a participant in such a leadership training programme, she didn't know she would be able to soon multi-task two leadership roles at the same time. An MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad, Mathur joined Zensar in 2010 with over 15 years of industry experience, to look after strategy and organisation development and CSR. She was among the 400-plus managers worldwide who got enrolled in iZen — the leadership training initiative Zensar had designed to find her true calling.

Unlike other leadership training programmes that involves personal coaching, the iZen format involved group workshops, under which managers focused on connectedness, feedback and development action planning that was allowed to percolate through the organisation.

Ganesh Natarajan, vice-chairman and MD, Zensar, said, "iZen helped her (Mathur) find 'the true change maker' within herself and she found the resolve to jettison her corporate roles and focus on heading Zensar Foundation part-time, and take on the large responsibility of being CEO of Pune City Connect, as an additional city social responsibility. iZen also gave me the courage to move from intra-preneurship to true entrepreneurship with a strong focus on skills and social initiatives on a national and global scale."