An organisation could focus on satisfying the needs of only 20 percent of their customers and still maintain 80 percent of their revenue.
However, as humans, we are predisposed to linear thinking, which makes the implications of his power law distribution hard to get our heads around, but the implications are clear. Researchers have found the Pareto Principle operating in many areas, including wealth distribution, employee productivity, customer revenue and agricultural yields. In other words, a small portion of work produces the majority of the results. Vilfredo Pareto was an Italian economist and his principle is that 80 percent of effects come from 20 percent of causes. The reason why it is easier to learn broadly than deeply lies in the Pareto Principle (the 80/20 rule) and the work of Jake Chapman. And it’s the combination of two or more skills at which you are competent, but not exceptional, that can lead to a powerful skill set. But everyone has at least a few areas in which they could, with some effort, be in the top quartile. Few people will create paradigm shifting scientific theories, write a culture defining novel, or become a multi-billionaire businessman. In short, anyone who loves learning across fields can use it to be more successful in their life, career and discipline.Īnd the good news is that it’s easier and less time consuming to become very good at a few things than superlative at one. To become, in other words, a competent generalist or polymath. While there is too much knowledge in the world today for one person to know everything that is known, like Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘Renaissance Man’, it is possible to create a network of ties that allow you to learn from people in other disciplines and become sufficiently knowledgeable across disciplines. Ideal employees, who combine deep specialist knowledge (the down bar of the T) with a broad understanding of other departments and disciplines (the crossbar) and how they combine for greatest effect. “The future belongs to the integrators.” Ernest Boyer