Spend 80 per cent of your time on the 20 per cent that is your most important work, expert says
The chief customer experience innovation officer at Arise Virtual Solutions, he learned the value of the 80-20 approach when working for the customer service team at Microsoft, which was deep into analytics. Often called the Pareto Principle, it traces back to economist Vilfredo Pareto’s finding that 80 per cent of the land in Italy was owned by 20 per cent of the population.
Most people, he finds, get stuck repeating what has been done before and as the landscape changes have trouble letting go. His first rule forces you to look at your work – say the top 10 things you do – and pick the two activities that create the most value or contribute the most to satisfying your key performance indicators. You should spend 80 per cent of your time on those items and determine whether you can eliminate some of those other activities.
He used to be an 80 per cent speaker, thinking as a leader it was expected he would know everything and dominate discussion. But in order to learn, dialogue is vital. If five people attend a meeting and everybody speaks for about the same amount of time, he says it provides a well-rounded discussion and the issue is probed from varied perspectives. If the leader dominates the discussion, at the end they just confirm the idea in their head rather than advance their thinking.
As well as watching how much you speak in meetings and with others, you need to study what you are saying. Asking questions 80 per cent of the time will unlock more knowledge and ideas, especially when probing for the root causes of a problem, rather than supplying your answers up front. In particular, direct questions at people who don’t speak much.
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