How anyone can be more effective with less effort by learning how to identify and leverage the 80/20 principle--the well-known, unpublicized secret that 80 percent of all our results in business and in life stem from a mere 20 percent of our efforts.

The 80/20 principle is one of the great secrets of highly effective people and organizations.

Did you know, for example, that 20 percent of customers account for 80 percent of revenues? That 20 percent of our time accounts for 80 percent of the work we accomplish? The 80/20 Principle shows how we can achieve much more with much less effort, time, and resources, simply by identifying and focusing our efforts on the 20 percent that really counts. Although the 80/20 principle has long influenced today's business world, author Richard Koch reveals how the principle works and shows how we can use it in a systematic and practical way to vastly increase our effectiveness, and improve our careers and our companies.

The unspoken corollary to the 80/20 principle is that little of what we spend our time on actually counts. But by concentrating on those things that do, we can unlock the enormous potential of the magic 20 percent, and transform our effectiveness in our jobs, our careers, our businesses, and our lives. 

(Excerpted from the book) 

The Pareto Principle--in Koch’s words, “a minority of causes, inputs, or effort usually lead [s] to a majority of the results, outputs, or rewards” --is hardly new; Vilfredo Pareto discovered it in 1897. But London-based investor, entrepreneur, and author Koch traces Pareto’s insight through the past century (George K. Zipf, Joseph M. Juran, IBM and other computer firms) and adds a bit of chaos theory to make the 80/20 principle a way of life. He spells out essential characteristics of “80/20 analysis” and “80/20 thinking,” then explores application of this “Vital Few” approach, first in business, then in achieving personal success and happiness. Koch closes with a chapter on the social implications of the Pareto Principle, urging that this predictable imbalance between inputs and outputs is “not inherently right wing,” and that steps such as spreading best practices in education to all students and giving those currently excluded from the market economy a stake in the game would generate less inequality as well as greater productivity. — Mary Carroll

(Source: Booklist)