Bill Walsh & the Bell Curve - Does the Culture of High Performance Shift the Median?

Have you found the magic potion for moving your organization – your enterprise – to the leadership role in your market, your industry, your sector? You may be focusing on finding the most innovative technology, the hottest new product, the greatest cost advantage, or other structural components of your business that can offer differentiation from your competition. But, have you ever looked at the “Bell Curve?” It is the understanding of the Bell Curve and how to “move it” that may hold the secrets to differentiation for your business – for your organization.

Okay, so the Bell Curve is as common as Pareto’s Law. What? You don’t know that one? We know that the traditional Bell Curve shows a lower 10%, an upper 10%, and the middle 80% with the mid-point splitting that 80% grouping. This Bell Curve can be applied to most anything. I am currently suggesting it as an application for human performance – and thus, employee performance within an organization.

So, how do you work the Bell Curve of your organizational performance to become the differentiator against your competition?

I love referring back to an interview that I heard years ago with NFL Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh. Bill Walsh was the Head Coach and General Manager of the San Francisco 49ers during a period when they were the most successful organization in their business – The NFL. Bill Walsh managed The 49ers to three Super Bowl Championships in the ‘90’s. He coached numerous Hall of Fame players. And, he was generally known as the innovator of the “West Coast Offense” which revolutionized the NFL.

A reporter/interviewer asked Coach Walsh a question but included an assumption. He asked (assumed), “I assume that you spend most of your efforts coaching those better than average performers in your efforts to create more Hall-Of-Famers? Thus, the more Hall-Of-Famers you have, the better chance you have of winning the World Championship?”

Coach Walsh was a teacher with his response. He offered that Hall-of-Famers “don’t need much coaching. Those are the top 10% of the Bell Curve. They have the driving desire to be the best at their profession regardless of what my influence is. My job for them is to stay out of their way and give them the platform to excel.”

Then came the extra measure of wisdom from Coach Walsh; “The difference between winning and losing is the bottom 25%. Most coaches can deliver the top 75%. But the last 25% only blossoms in the details, in the orchestration of skills, in the way you prepare.”

I have always thought of that response as incredible wisdom and insight. But, what happens in the result? I agree that the organization – the enterprise – is stronger and has a competitive advantage. But, is the Bell Curve still intact? I believe that Coach Walsh was focused on lifting that lower tier of his team’s ‘bell curve’ into the middle.

This shift of performance within the organization changes the shape of your Bell Curve. But, I believe that what it does is that it moves your organization’s center point – thus, creating an organization that has “Moved It’s Bell Curve!” When your company – your enterprise – can effectively “Move It’s Bell Curve” it has created a cultural differentiation that might be stronger competitively than most other innovators.



Bill Walsh - Head Coach of The San Francisco 49er's