The 8020 Rule
The 80/20 rule or The Pareto Principle as it's known, states that for many events roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. While this, principle works when applied to inanimate objects it doesn't work when applied to animate objects like the workplace.
While it's probably safe to say that 80% of the work is done by 20% of the people, what it doesn't do is breakdown exactly what the other 80% of people are doing. In his book "The Coming Jobs War", author Jim Clifton does just that.
In his book Mr. Clifton states that Gallup has done exhaustive testing to determine who actually does the work in America. Their finding where that 28% of the American workforce is actively engaged in supporting and building the business.
That 53% of the workforce are not engaged, they are there in body only, just killing time with little or no concern for the customer. Waiting for there next break, essentially checked out.
And a staggering 19% of the workforce is actively disengaged, there to dismantle and destroy your business either through ignorance or malice. They account for the most accidents, the most sick days and are directly responsible for most of the internal shrinkage of a business.
This 19% takes up to 80% of managements time in performance reviews and investigations. This group also has the highest turnover, but in many cases have a dogged determination to hold on to there jobs, surviving numerous coaching s and performance issues.
Compounding this problem is that according to Gallup estimates nearly one in five U.S. managers are dangerously lousy, which is a conservative estimate. According to Clifton, " If we want to beat China workplaces in the future, fire all lousy managers today. Replace them with good managers. If they are lousy at developing people and leading teams, fire them. They will never get better. If you won't do it for your business, do it for your country."
The coming global war for jobs demands that managers understand the role human nature plays in all outcomes and are expert at maximizing human potential. This applies to the entrepreneur as much as it does to the company man.
As always, thanks for visiting. Dave
Recent Comments
8
Terrible insights
The disengagement of people
Walking zombies
Or is it the lack of incentives?
PS
Marked as top read
Fleeky,
Thanks for the reply. I've used the 80/20 rule for years and have found it to be a good generality.But when it comes to applying it to people I was surprised about the actively disengaged, both that people would actually be that way, and that the percentage was so high 19%. That means if you have five employees one is probably working against you.
I wonder if WA works the same way -- 80% drop out and 20% hang in there. That might be a pretty accurate percentage. I wonder if Kyle and Carson know that figure.
I would imagine that it's fairly close especially at the 6 month to year period. What you don't see is the 19% actively disengaged. The WA community would smell them out quickly.
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This is a great article and gives from very useful insight into explaining the Pareto Principle. I try to look at this principle whenever I am doing anything and especially when doing my online marketing and figuring out where the 20% and minimizing the 80%. Thanks for sharing.
works good for somethings, just not in the workplace. Dave
Actually, I think it would if most workers would be able to have the freedom to be able to figure what they do in their task that moves you forward more than the smaller amount that may not move you as far forward. It isn't always 80/20 but there are things that you do that are more efficient uses of your time than others. Thus the principle works, just you have to find by trial and error which is which. My opinion from what I've seen and observed.