Review # 14: The 80/20 Principle
The pages in this book written by Richard Koch already turned yellowish from the fact that the last time it read it was probably 8 years ago. The thoughts from the book, however, stays with me through the years.
Lately I have been facing with some difficult decisions to make. In the nutshell, it’s a resources management problem. There are lots of questions going, where should I put who to work or how much different would I compensate my average staff and the outstanding one... you know stuff like that. In one gloomy day I picked up the book and go through it all over again. Surprisingly, it’s now much more interesting than 8 years ago.
This is the book I categorized as an awakening book (doesn’t necessary mean good book). The first time I read it, the book somehow putting the fact of life right into my forehead. It confirms my believe that nature has its selection process and our world do organized in 80/20 principle.
In almost every organization, 20% of employees produce 80% of profit. In almost every business portfolio, 20% of the portfolio contains 80% of profit. In almost every country, 20% of the people owned 80% of the wealth and the lists goes on and on.
The interesting thing to notice is that in the top 20% there is also another 80/20. Meaning, in the top 20, there are 4% that product 16% of everything. And I’m sure you can imagine it goes deeper and deeper depends on how much population sample we are looking at.
It seems that the principle itself touches every angle of life whether it’s business or personal. The important point is that we decide to be in 80 or 20 by choice not by chance. To be more exact, it’s an accumulate of choices. Our faith is decided by few important decisions in life. Rule of thumb, the easy way usually gets you to the bottom 80.
Everyone can achieve something but most people didn’t. It might not be about effort, it’s about finding the right thing to achieve. Most people are putting average effort into too many things rather than superior thoughts, effort and determination in to only few important things. Also, most people spend 80% of their time into what is only 20% important to their life. You can go ask every successful people, one skill they all share is how to prioritized things. This skill is a core of 80/20 principle.
Overall, this is quite a good book. I admit there are few overrated chapter and perhaps slight exaggeration in some context but still worth reading it.
If you wonder, yes, I only did skim through about 20% of the whole book. That’s all I”ll ever need!
8/10
Cheers
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