I have been meaning to write about this short article my wife found in the “National Football Post” .com for several weeks now. I guess Ethical Organizations will have to wait another week 
http://www.nationalfootballpost.com/2008/10/national-football-post-tavern-talk-49/
The short blurb has to do with a very successful leadership strategy that New York Giants coach, Tom Coughlin, uses to coach his team. It is called the “Law of Threes” which states that every team has three types of members. 1) Those that buy in – these team members agree with the current path and team strategy and “will do anything that is asked; willing to help the program.” 2) Those that are undecided – these team members are “unsure what to do.” 3) Those that are malcontents – these team members “want to buck the system all the time.” Because the malcontents are a disruptive force, are in it only for themselves and “try to breakdown the team” there is a tendency for coaches to try to win them over or convert them to the buy in category. But Coughlin believes that this attention and continued service of the malcontents converts the undecideds to malcontents and makes those that buy in bitter and frustrated. As such Coach Coughlin prefers to “teach to the top” focusing all of his attention on the type 1) players and completely ignoring the malcontents, like receiver Plaxio Burress. This isolates the malcontents and encourages the undecided players to lean toward buy in behaviors.
Now I know that this type of strategy won’t work in every situation and as a leader you have to be adaptive and flexible in your circumstances. However, I know that this “teach to the top” strategy works in some unmanageable situations, e.g. my mother a middle school English teacher employs it in her classes. In her situation there are a small group of interested students that want to learn new and are excited by school activities, a large mass of undecided students that are just passing time in class and a small group of complete clowns that only wish to goof off and disrupt class. She too teaches to the top and ignores the clowns, because to give the goof-offs much of her limited time will give them the credibility and attention they desire. If she spend too much attention on the clowns, the top students will only become frustrated and the undecided kids will learn that the way to get teacher’s attention is to goof off.
Realizing that this model works in two very different situations, I have begun to search for times in my own office where this “teach to the top” coaching strategy has been employed by managers or when it might be effective. I have yet to identify a specific situation, but I assume they are there. One of the issues is that I realize that the situations at work are a bit more complex. Depending on the situation your team role, type 1-3, can be drastically different from project to project, meeting to meeting. In some situations you may completely support an initiative, others you may oppose, why a large majority you may just sit back and observe. In each situation the balance and team makeup of the three groups could be very different, requiring the manager to “teach” to different individuals and groups in each instance.
Wow, being that flexible, observant and in-tune with the support level of the team seems incredibly challenging! If you wanted to employ a “teach to the top” strategy you might be forced to adapt you message to the audience at each individual step. No wonder management is such a tough and thankless job.
