If my three children hear me talking about the 80/20 Rule one more time at the dinner table, I may be permanently expelled from dinner. Since I learned about and started using the 80/20 Rule, a nickname for The Pareto Principle, I have been able to accomplish so much in my career and life. In fact, I was at lunch with one of our instructors just yesterday, and she asked me, “Anthony, how do you do so much?” My response, The 80/20 Rule.
In this post, I will define the 80/20 Rule in case you aren’t familiar with it, but then talk mostly about how it can be applied in learning and development for maximum effect.
In the early 1900s, Italian mathematician Vilfredo Pareto discovered that the same ratio appeared in many of his studies, for example:
- 20% of people in the United Kingdom possessed 80% of the wealth
- 20% of Italians owned 80% of the land in Italy
- 20% of his vegetable garden yielded 80% of the produce
He then developed the Pareto Principle, which suggests that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. Another way to think about this is, 80% of the success in your career comes from 20% of your efforts. Think about that statement for a minute. It’s like you now have a crystal ball that is telling you that only 20% of the actions you take in the future will generate 80% of the success. What if you did more of those 20% tasks?
If you are having trouble visualizing this, here are two examples:
Firstly, 80% of the revenue of most companies comes from 20% of their clients. Here’s my favorite: you probably wear 20% of your wardrobe 80% of the time. You know you do. Why not donate half of your clothes and make your life so much easier?
Applying the 80/20 Rule to Learning & Development
OK, so this sounds like a powerful principle, but how does it apply to learning and development? I want you to think about the last training course or program you went through. Write down on a piece of paper what you remember from the course. I will bet you only remember about 20% of the concepts taught. If I ask another participant from the same course, they will probably cite the same 20%.
Every good learning and development program has its landmark concepts that stand out. To use the 8/20 Rule in your programs, you would highlight those key concepts and frameworks, and eliminate as many of the others as possible.
I had coffee with a friend who works at a consulting firm recently and he told me that one of their L&D professionals drastically improved their project management training program. I asked him how, and he said, “She cut the slide deck down from 90 to 30 slides, and made it more interactive.” Oh, so you mean, she focused on the 20% of the content that really matters, and let people discuss that?
When we deliver project management learning and development programs, we do post course evaluations, and often we get very positive feedback on the same session or tools. For example, we have a list of questions that we provide to help PMs scope their projects better, and 80% of the time, PMs cite this as the best tool or tip out the five-session course. So, we have worked hard to accentuate that tool and use it in more than just one session of the course.
The bottom line is that the 80/20 Rule forces you to focus on the effort versus impact of everything you do, not just the urgent and important aspects. I hope you’ll consider more. Oh, and don’t forget: only 20% of the emails in your inbox are important. I thought knowing that would make you feel better.
This article is part of EMI’s Learning & Development Lab initiative, an effort to discover how AEC professionals best learn in an effort to create learning environments that truly transfer skills back to the job. You can join the L&D Lab LinkedIn Group here, and join us in this effort.
To your success.
Anthony Fasano, PE, LEED AP
Engineering Management Institute
Author of Engineer Your Own Success
