There is nothing more important for the long-term success of your team, department and company than identifying your pipeline and managing your high potentials. Whether you are thinking about who to promote, how to identify your successor or how to be a better manager, this list of things to consider along with some key questions to ponder is a good place to start. Over the next seven weeks, we’ll explore 25 ways to keep your great employees engaged and help them continue to out-perform everyone else.

This week we start with where you’re spending your time.

Case 1: Pareto’s law, otherwise known as the 80/20 rule, basically says that 80% of the work is likely done by 20% of your employees. Guess which 20%? It’s your top performers who really generate results and consistently achieve stellar outcomes. As such, it may be a good idea to spend at least 80% of your time with your top performers to ensure they stick around!
1. What percentage of your time in a given week do you spend focusing on “putting out the fires” caused by your poor or mediocre performers?
2. What percentage of your time do you spend on coaching, mentoring or developing your best employees?
3. What would help skew this percentage so that you are spending more time with top performers and less time putting out fires caused by poor or mediocre performers?

To read other blog posts including more of the “25 Questions to Ponder to Improve Your Talent Pipeline and Manage Your High,” visit

Part 1 – Where You’re Spending Your Time
Part 2 – Developing Your Subject-Matter Experts (SMEs)
Part 3 – Politicians vs. Performers
Part 4 – Leadership Attention to Talent
Part 5 – Leadership: Do They Want It and Are They Ready?
Part 6 – Openness to Innovation
Part 7 – The Purpose Behind Leadership

Brent Proulx, M.S., SPHR is a Management and Leadership Consultant for Talent Plus. He is passionate about helping people and organizations become more successful at what they do through the creation, implementation and perfection of strength-based measures for selection, development and coaching.