That doesn't really reward workers that take on hard problems and open themselves up to failure. Plus the limitation of this 20/80ism is that it's not explainin

That doesn't really reward workers that take on hard problems and open themselves up to failure. Plus the limitation of this 20/80ism is that it's not explaining why some people are more effective. Maybe they did really well a long time ago and manager afforded them more freedom to set technical direction. Now every way is their way, they are bombarded with negative reviews and requires rewrites, etc. A good manager can see a problem even in their aces. Just because they're high performers, it doesn't mean they aren't a problem. Real world story time, a company I worked at had the worst employee I've ever met. He was aggressive, openly berated staff, insert a bunch of things that would get you fired and they did those. But the rub was he was one of their most capable developers they had, so he got away with it. You could argue the company was fine, but a trivially deep analysis would dictate that the company lost a boat load of potential talent that quit due to this disruptive influence. I still to this day feel lousy because I never had the guts to personally raise a complaint against them with HR.