Stop 50 50 Thinking
In business it is the vital few that deliver success to you. Doing a few of the right things is much more important than most things done. Similarly it is always only a few people that add most of the value to a business. Business growth therefore requires moving resources from low-value to high-value uses. To achieve this we need to change: stop thinking 50/50 and start thinking 80/20.
Richard Koch, the authority on 80/20 thinking states that it is vital to start thinking 80/20 and start acting 80/20. He advocates:
Think skewness. Expect 20% to equal 80%. Expect 80% to equal 20%.
Expect the unexpected. Expect 20% to lead to 80% and 80% to result in 20%.
Expect everything – your time, your business, your market and every person or business entity you come across – to have quality 20%: its essence, its power, its value, the small percentage with substantially all the goodness hidden away by the mass of mediocrity. Look for the powerful 20%.
Look for the invisible 20% and the subterranean 20%. It’s there – find it. Unexpected successes are one give-away. If a business activity succeeds beyond expectations, that is 20% activity – and it will have further to run.
Expect tomorrow’s 20% to be different to today’s 20%. Where is the germ, the seed, of tomorrow’s 20%? Where are the 1%’s that will grow to 20%’s and be worth 80%? Where are the 3%’s that last year were 1%’s?
