The Paradox of 80/20 Principle

Notes From the Field

“God does play dice and they are loaded. The objective then is to find out what the rules are loaded with so we can tap into them.”  Richard Koch

In 1897 Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto discovered the underlying 80/20 principle with the key point being that the patterns of life are predictably unbalanced. 

Simply put, the 80/20 Principle states that about four-fifths of our efforts are largely irrelevant and a typical pattern will show that 80% of consequences flow from 20% of inputs. Or stated more directly, 80% of results come from 20% of effort.

Reinforcing this phenomenon in 1949, Harvard professor George K. Zipf, discovered the Principle of Least Effort, while basically restating the 80/20 principle: essentially all resources tend to arrange themselves to minimize work and approximately 20-30% of that resource accounts for 70-80% of the results related to that resource. (Human resources include our time, skills, talents, passions...or anything we do that is productive.)

Richard Koch, in his provocative book, The 80/20 Principle – The Secret to Success by Achieving More With Less highlights the paradox of 80/20 thinking by challenging us to ultimately change our behavior while refocusing on the most important 20% multiplier in our daily lives. We can begin tapping into his insights by:

1.     celebrating exceptional productivity, rather than merely raising average efforts

2.     looking for the efficient short cut, rather than the normal longer path

3.     exercising control over our lives with the least possible effort, being selective, not exhaustive

4.     striving for excellence in a few things, rather than good performances in many

5.     delegating or outsourcing as much as possible in our daily lives – especially activities that squander our much more productive time and energy

6.     choosing our careers and employers with extraordinary care, and if possible employing others rather than being employed ourselves

7.     primarily concentrating on things we are best at doing

8.     in every important sphere work out where 20% of effort can lead to 80% returns

9.     calming down, working smarter and targeting a limited number of very valuable goals where the 80/20 principle works for us rather than pursuing every available opportunity

10.   making the most of those few “lucky streaks’ in our lives where we are at our creative peak, and the stars line up to enable a miraculous compounding return on investment

In my own experience of recruiting top flight language professionals globally, I’m generally working with an impossible deadline of 3-5 business days to identify, screen and submit our candidate of choice. Faced with such a tight window, I now have a razor-sharp focus on implementing the top 20% of my recruiting activities in the first day, which consistently delivers the threshold 80% of desired results. Frequently when vetting, I witness the organic power and pull of the 80/20 principle and often don’t need to spend the next 80% of my remaining days trying to capture the final 20% of potential candidates.

Lesson learned: Always impose an incredibly challenging project deadline for yourself and your team! (This is also a great way to tap into the neuroscience of Flow and its high-speed problem solving as highlighted by professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.)

Steven Reynolds is a Global Training Coordinator at LTC Language Solutions. He is also a Business ESL instructor, and focuses on the transformational power of language with expat corporate executives. You can find his blog – NOTES FROM THE FIELD and other works at LTC’s blog and LinkedIn.