Want instant results? Concentrate on improving the worst performers.

"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice." -- Albert Einstein

Concentrating on the worst performers can be particularly fruitful in a well-managed organization, where performance is distributed in a close to random manner.

Mind you, we are not talking real improvements here. We are talking about putting yourself in a situation where there is nothing, but the upside.

Here is how you can spot the right type of the "worst" performers. They are usually smaller in size compared to an average performer. Whether it is smaller regions or smaller segments, groups of smaller sample size tend to have a higher variance, and thus, a higher probability to be an outlier, including the "worst" kind. You also need to make sure there are no systemic factors that drive poor performance, or otherwise simple random nature of the world may not be able to compensate for the systemic factor. That means you will have to actually do something to improve performance of your "worst" group. So, check your averages over several time periods to confirm that your worst performers had a particularly hard time when you pick them.

After you have validated the random (or even semi-random) nature of your "worst" performance group, you can crate a project to improve how it is doing. You would not expect your "worst" performer group to stay exactly the same every period, would you? If so, there are pretty good chances that next period you will "pull" a good number of the worst performers closer to the average, or out of the "worst" group. Congratulation, you just got yourself a "real" quantifiable result!

Remember, there is always a bottom 5% to work on!