The Pareto principle states that, for many events, roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. It is a common rule of thumb in business; e.g., “80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients.”.
This law has been found to be true over and over again, in various scenarios and it got me thinking: if 80% of my sales will come from just 20% of my clients, why not fire 80% of my clients and focus on a few?
If 80% of my team’s productivity is driven by the top 20%, why not just let the ineffective 80% team members go? As Steve Jobs was said to have said (we can never be sure about these quotables), “I would rather have a hole in my team than an A-hole!”
I think every single day, we should be doing a pareto, shrinking the places, things and people we invest our (limited) time and energy. Who knows whether if we do, we might be able to create time for people and things that actually matter?
__________
Watching The World
- There’s now a Dedicated Manchester United News and commentary twitter handle, In Pidgin English. Now, that is some innovation in the crowded sport commentary space. Very lovely.
