The 5% and the 95%

[The following refers to an unverified account concerning Korean War POWs. I can’t make any claims for its veracity and certainly don’t mean any disrespect to those who served in that conflict.]

There are a few movies from the time when my children were young that we all look back on with affection and enthusiasm. Any quote from Cool Runnings or The Princess Bride is, even today, to be instantly recognized and riffed upon. One of our favorites is a somewhat less famous film called Secondhand Lions. Our favorite scene is when a young boy asked an old man if all of the fantastic stories he’s heard are true. The old man’s answer is (I paraphrase): What does it matter if the stories or true or not? Some things are the things that you believe in because they are the things worth believing in. The point is, there is truth, and there is Truth. Sometimes True things come wrapped in a story that is less than true. 

So, I jump ahead to a story I have heard told in a variety of ways and sometimes claimed as true, and sometimes not. But it’s a great story and, in my opinion, smacks of Truth.

During the Korean War, it is said that the Chinese would sort their prisoners of war into two groups. This sorting was not done by rank, but according to the leadership qualities any given POW exhibited. Those who showed leadership were placed in one group, and they were kept under high-security conditions. The second group was: everybody else. The first group, those who showed leadership qualities, comprised about 5%-10% of the POW population. The balance, 90%-95% of the POWs, was kept under minimum security conditions.

There was not a single successful escape from a Chinese POW camp during the Korean War.

So the story goes. Is it true? Who knows. What does it matter? It’s almost certainly True.

Consider that all the POWs shared a common condition—shared a common need: they were imprisoned in a Chinese POW camp and wanted to escape. They shared a common solution set. There is no suggestion that the 95% were less intelligent, or less creative. There’s no reason to believe that the same escape plans were not hatched in both groups. The difference between the 95% and the 5% came down to the execution of the idea. The 5% had to be physically prevented from executing their escape plans. For the 95%, the thing that prevented them from executing an escape plan was internal, not external. There was no need to prevent the 95% from escaping.

I’m told that as the world of film was changing, when competitors brought innovations to market, people at Kodak often said something like, “Yeah, we had that.” They had the intelligence and the creativity to develop the innovation, but somehow, they lacked the drive to execute. Kodak’s competition didn’t have to be smarter or more creative—they just had to execute. They didn’t even have to execute better or faster—they just had to execute. Something in the DNA of Kodak meant that, time and again, there was some internal obstacle to launching innovative products that anticipated where the market was going. External restraint was not necessary.

Imagine a company where you could shop at brick and mortar stores for a wide variety of products, or, you could order those products without ever going to a store, and you could have them delivered right to your door. That company was Sears. They didn't lack the idea. It would probably be fair to say that the infrastructure that allowed Amazon to take hold and prosper was not in place until after Sears had weakened to a point where it could not have reinvented itself. Maybe. But when did Sears stop trying to solve the needs of its customers who wanted to be able to order products without entering the store?

I think it would be crazy for organizations to think they just need to hire people from the 5% group. It would, in any case, be extremely difficult. Intelligence and creativity are found in the 95%, and it would be foolish to overlook the many, many contributions that are found in the 95%. And there is an ugly elitism that forms when an organization fixates solely on the 5%. They are the doers, the achievers, and nothing gets done without them. We reward them with compensation and career advancement because they make it all happen.

Maybe the right way to look at the 5% is that they are necessary, but not sufficient. Remember that in the Korean War example, the Chinese were still able to neutralize the leaders, and in a way that seems to have been pretty easy. The genius of the Chinese was in separating these two groups so that each could be defeated in the most appropriate manner.

The 5% did not succeed in escaping, either. The 5% are not morally better than the 95%. The 5% may or may not deserve higher compensation or more opportunities for advancement. Intelligence, creativity, goodwill, collaborative spirit: all of these are found in the 95% as well. Strength and success accrue to organizations that unite the efforts and talents of their 5% and their 95%. A culture that devalues the 95% risks losing the intelligence and creativity that resides there. A culture that claims to value everyone but only rewards the 5% is dooming itself to the fate of the 5% in the Chinese POW camps. They didn’t escape either.

Is the Korean War story true? I don’t know. Is my representation of Kodak accurate? I don’t know. But I just can’t help believing that they are True. I choose to believe them because it’s something worth believing in.