The 80/20 Rule Might Be the Secret to a Lean, Winning Team

A mentor recently shared this with me and I just had to pay it forward. He said that from years of working with and consulting for businesses, one thing stood out across all the successful ones—the **80/20 rule**.

We’ve all heard about it in theory: 20% of your efforts bring in 80% of your results. But this gentleman was talking about **people**.

In almost every solid business he’s worked with, 20% of the team were the real drivers—the people who pushed things forward, brought in clients, made the tough calls, built the products, and solved the hard problems.

And those were the ones he focused on coaching, optimizing around, and encouraging management to identify and retain. The rest? They handled admin, reporting, and the day-to-day operations—important, but not transformative.

Rethinking Team Structure

If this is true (and I believe it is), then maybe we’ve been building our teams wrong—especially in startups or businesses that have plateaued.

Why not do the opposite of overstaffing?

**Model your company so that there's one driver per department or function.**
Someone whose job is not just to keep things afloat, but to push them forward. Whether it's sales, marketing, product, or operations—place someone hungry, sharp, and committed there. Just one.

The Risk of More People

It might sound risky at first—just one person per function? But more isn’t always better. Too many people pull in different directions. Energy spreads thin. Decision-making stalls. Ownership gets diluted.

But when one person holds it down—they either **rise or they learn**. Either way, **the business moves**.

This isn’t to say every business must be small—but when you're starting out, when resources are tight, and momentum matters most, this might be the better play.

What I’m Trying Now

Here’s what I’m practicing when I talk to our clients:

- Assigning clear ownership per function
- Avoiding overstaffing where it's not needed
- Centering the doers—not just the titles

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**Try it out. Let me know how it works in your space.**
Maybe, just maybe, you don’t need a big team—you just need the right 20%.

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