One of the jobs of a supervisor is to study their teams performance. Who are the top performers? Who are the ones just squeaking by? In IDCON's article, "70/30 Phenomenon" we learn that 70% of the work is done by 30% of the people. This applies to a wide range of jobs from mechanics to engineers. For example, when talking to the team of nine you will find it split into three groups. The first group are the Gripers, then those who kind of agree with the gripers, and finally those who say very little. What you'll find is that the ones who say very little will be in the group that do 70% of the work. As the leader you should listen to the top performers and downplay the complainers. The solution to the gripers is to bring it to the attention to everyone in an open group discussion and state that the "griping level" is an improvement opportunity. This will change the attitude of most gripers, since most people do not what to be labeled as "gripers". Not only must you provide honest feed back to your team you must also work with your team to give them a chance to improve their performance. As a supervisor you may be tempted to hand all the work you need done to you top performers, but you must allow others to match your top performers. This pays off in the long run. I personally agree with the 30/70 principal in fact I've heard it stated as the 20/80. I know where I work, If there is something that needs to get done its handed to me. I understand why they come to me but sometimes it can get annoying when you see others not getting the extra load. It wouldn't bother me if saw that the others did their fare share.
Source: http://www.idcon.com/article-phenomenon.htm...