Introduction: Is There an Answer to This Classic Dilemma?

“Should a manager spend more time stretching high performers, or should they pour that time into those who are struggling?”

Anyone who has supervised people for the first time has likely wrestled with that question. The ideals sound good: education should be equal, and raising the floor is the optimal strategy. Yet once you stand on the ground and face real people, those ideals are relentlessly tested.

My own failures forced me to find my answer: you should spend your time on the ones who can already perform.

A Failure Story: One Year Devoted to “X-san”

Let me start with an old story. When I first became a manager, I had a ten-person team and one notorious low performer—let me call him X-san (using the common Japanese honorific -san to anonymize him without sounding demeaning).

His behavior was problematic across the board.

  • He would doze off anywhere, anytime, and became combative when warned. (We once had him see a doctor because it was so severe, but nothing medical was found.)
  • He did not listen.
  • He made many mistakes.
  • His pride was sky high; when corrected, he visibly sulked.

Every previous manager had given up on him. I, however, believed that if I could somehow turn X-san into a contributor, the entire team would level up. For a full year I devoted more than half of my coaching time to him—explaining why sleeping at work was a problem, investigating the root causes of his mistakes, and translating abstract pep talks into concrete behaviors he could adopt. I spoke with him in earnest and worked hard alongside him.

The result? Nothing changed. Only he can know what was happening inside, but from my perspective it was like talking to a brick wall.

Of course, this case was extreme. I am not claiming that every low performer is hopeless. Given appropriate opportunities, people with latent potential can change dramatically.

That said, the time I spent on X-san was almost entirely wasted during the period when I was his direct supervisor. Looking back, investing so many hours in one person out of a ten-person team must have looked unfair to others and may even have hurt morale.

I was so fixated on saving one subordinate that I robbed the other nine of chances to grow. I was the person endlessly pouring water into a bucket riddled with holes.

A 180-Degree Turn: Investing in the Ones Who Can Perform

After that, I completely changed course. I poured the majority of my coaching into a handful of promising members.

Yes, those with potential will grow even if left alone. But by teaching them business frameworks, when to deploy them, how to think during client engagements, and what lines must never be crossed, I watched their growth rate skyrocket before my eyes.

More than that, they eventually influenced the teammates I had failed to help. Even X-san seemed to improve compared with the days when I was coaching him directly, spurred on by the growth of those around him.

The lesson I drew was simple: stretching those who can already perform is the fastest way to lift the entire organization.

A Psychological Lens: The Pygmalion and Golem Effects

Educational psychology offers two well-known concepts:

  • The Pygmalion effect: people who receive high expectations tend to achieve better results.
  • The Golem effect: people who sense that nothing is expected of them tend to perform worse.

Who you invest your expectations in directly affects their growth. Time does not need to be distributed evenly. In fact, because expectations signal belief in someone’s potential, it is rational to focus those expectations—and the accompanying resources—on people whose growth you can already see.

An Organizational Lens: Diminishing Returns and Resource Allocation

If we borrow a concept from economics, diminishing marginal utility applies here as well.

  • An hour invested in a high performer quickly converts into meaningful results.
  • An hour invested in a low performer produces small improvements with limited spillover.

As I noted in a previous article, management is the continual act of adjusting resources to achieve a goal. Time is one of the scarcest resources you have. It belongs where the return on that investment is highest.

How to Answer the Fairness Objection

People often say, “Isn’t it unfair to abandon those who struggle?”

Fairness comes in two forms.

  • Fairness of opportunity: everyone has access to learning and the chance to take on challenges.
  • Fairness of outcomes: everyone is promised the same level of growth.

Organizations should pursue the former. Equal distribution may look fair on the surface, but in practice it saps the motivation of those who try hardest and keeps the entire organization stagnant.

That does not mean it is acceptable to deprive anyone of opportunities. The baseline is that every member must have a real chance to exert effort and grow.

Summary: My Conclusion

Through my failure with X-san, I learned a hard lesson.

👉 A manager should devote time to those who can already perform and help them soar.

  • Performance follows a long-tail distribution: a few people create outsized value and radiate it outward.
  • The return on investment is clearly higher for top performers.
  • Once they accelerate, high performers pull others along, which ultimately raises the floor as well.

Because management is “every activity that leads to achieving the objective,” resource allocation must be grounded not in goodwill but in accountability for results.

For a new manager, deciding who to spend time on can be daunting. Start by choosing one person who can deliver visible results in a short span. Focus on that person as an experiment; the experience will give you tangible evidence to trust.

One More Point You Should Not Misunderstand

This is not a story about X-san being incompetent. The one who lacked competence was me as his manager.

Someone else might have been able to draw out his growth (in fact, exposure to the high performers who later grew under my guidance did seem to affect him). And my evaluation of X-san is just that—my evaluation. Under a different boss or in another role, he might shine. None of us can know.

But so long as I was the manager, it made no sense to keep wasting time on a coaching approach that produced no results. That is all there is to it.

If you are about to become a manager, please engrave this point in your mind. The moment you start looking down on a subordinate because you think they “cannot perform,” you begin to believe you are more important than you really are.

That path leads straight to harassment, warped character, and many other traps. A manager is merely playing a role inside the small world of a company. Never forget that.

…And one more thing. Do not share this line of reasoning with your subordinates, and do not let it show in your demeanor. If someone realizes they are treated as “one of the capable ones,” they may get cocky and fail. If someone fears they are viewed as incapable, their performance may drop even further. Treat this as your internal policy, maintain fairness, and apply it within that frame.

FAQ

Q. Does this mean you completely abandon those who struggle? A. No. Give them baseline coaching and real chances to improve. Investing in your strongest people may even create indirect coaching that reaches those who struggle—as it eventually did for me.

Q. Won’t the capable ones grow even if you leave them alone? A. They will. But with focused guidance and opportunities, their growth rate accelerates dramatically. Leaving them alone is throwing away leverage.

Q. How do you stay fair? A. Enforce fairness of opportunity. Make the rules transparent so anyone can reach the top through effort and results.

  • J. Rosenthal & L. Jacobson (1968). Pygmalion in the Classroom.
  • Robert K. Merton (1948). The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.