I'm sure many of you have heard about something called the 80/20 rule. I've seen it applied to just many fields of human endeavor. Here are a few examples about what I mean:

- 20% of the people do 80% of the work.
- 20% of your efforts account for 80% of your success.
- 20% of salespeople make 80% of all sales.

This "rule" tells us that among all the human effort going on out there to build or change things, only a fraction of these actions are making a significant difference. Further, it seems that of all the people doing them, there is a minority getting most of the results at any given time. This is a hypothesis I'd like to examine with regard to group process.

Based on my experience as both group participant and group leader, I do find that around 20% of the people in groups or on teams seem to do most of the work. I know this idea may rub against the grain of many a facilitator's hide, but as a facilitator myself who's been part of many groups, I have to say that this may be the case more often than not. If this is so, we'd be fools to ignore this phenomenon. So then the question becomes, "How can this improve my group leadership and facilitation?"

If it's really true that 20% of the people in a group or on a team are the shakers and movers, how much time should we be spending trying to get the remaining 80% involved, motivated, excited, contributing, (fill in the blank)? Is it possible that our efforts would be better spent focusing on the motivated 20%? At times, this is surely the case. So briefly, how do we use this perspective in our work as facilitators? Here are some suggestions:

• Leverage Your Energy. If the same people seem to be consistently lost, uninvolved, uninterested, unmotivated, despite your best facilitative efforts to get to the source of this "problem," then surrender to this as simply the state of the group and focus your energy on those ready to move on with the task.
  
• Acknowledge Levels of Development. One often overlooked difference among groups is that individuals within them can fall into different levels of personal development. Some people need a great deal of structure, regulations, and procedures to guide their actions. Others need less structure, but sometimes need be reigned when pursueing hidden agendas at the expense of the group purpose. Acknowledge these various individual needs and do your best to help get them met, but not at the expense of deviating outside well-defined team goals and expectations. (Read more about this concept in one of our past articles here).
  
• There Will Always be More Followers Than Leaders. This is a good thing. Get to know and support the leaders/self-starters in a group and use your knowledge of group process to minimize friction that could be imposed upon them from the other participants. This slightly different orientation to facilitation suggests that rather than trying to empower everyone, you help minimize resistance from individuals to the efforts of the official or unofficial leaders in the group.
  
• Help Participants Know Themselves. Use self and peer evaluations to help participants identify how they show up in their group. Often our own perception of our skills, knowledge, and motivation is different from the perceptions of others. In other words, we often over or under estimate our energy, strengths, and weaknesses. Getting feedback from other members of our team can be a wakeup call that motivates us to show up how we'd like to show up or, encourages us to do more of "x" that we weren't aware was so valuable.
  
• Let Passion Lead. Our society places a huge value on knowledge and skills. However, there are many people with treasure troves of degrees and experience that lack the passion, for whatever reason, to take any significant action in the world. On the the other hand, there are others, often of the younger set, who lack the skills and experience, but who have great passion and desire to try new things and to make things happen. Help your groups to identify and contrast members of the brainstrust with those with the fuel to make things happen (passion) then match them up. Have the skilled ones with waning passion mentor those seeking to make the changes. This gives everyone a role that works for them. When discussions around levels of passion and skill among individuals is missing, more senior members often block the actions of those passionate for change. Having them mentor the change agents gives them an important purpose and something to be passionate about.