“The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less” by Richard Koch
In the year 1897 an Italian economist by the name of Vilfredo Pareto noticed that around 80% of England’s wealth was owned by 20% of the population. From this observation he proceeded to find similar examples from many other walks of life, and he eventually formed the 80/20 rule that he called the Pareto Principle.
At its core, the principle is very straight forward: 80% of results come from 20% of causes. For example, 80% of business revenue come from 20% of the biggest customers, or 80% of software bugs come from 20% of the code, or 80% of crimes conducted by 20% of criminals. It is only an observed pattern and not a precise law, and the numbers are approximate (it could be 65/35, 70/30, 75/25, 80/20, 95/5, or 99.1/0.1) with the split doesn’t even have to add up to 100. That’s it, that’s the entire essense of the principle.
Here’s the irony of this book: the entire 20-chapters book feels like an overstretched essay out of this simple principle, turning one short paragraph into a 315 pages book. Sure, the book is broken down into several more domains – such as corporate strategy, marketing, personal finance, relationship, and lots of diversion to self help – but it is still filled with around 20% of the important points (that the author keep on repeating) to provide 80% of the value.
In fact, if you just read the conclusion at the end of [almost] each chapter, and read chapter 19 (“Your place in the 80/20”) you’ll be pretty much set. This is very much inline to what Koch himself said, where “80% of the value of a book can be found in 20% or fewer of its pages and absorbed in 20% of the time most people would take to read it through.”
After all, Koch recommends not to read a book at its entirety, when he reminisces about his tutor at university who advised him: “never read a book from cover to cover, except for pleasure. When you are working, find out what the book is saying much faster than you would by reading it through. Read the conclusion, then the introduction, then the conclusion again, then dip lightly into any interesting bits.”
And this is exactly how I eventually read this book. 5 stars for 20% of the book, but 3 stars for the remaining 80%.
