go read up on it<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 It will kinda-sorta blow your mind.<\/p>\nI have heard all sorts of different interpretations for the 80-20 rule in my life.\u00c2\u00a0 The first one I heard was that 20% of the workers at a company do 80% of the work, and since then I have felt this to be painfully true at each and every one of my jobs.\u00c2\u00a0 I have also heard two more interpretations that make some sense.<\/p>\n
First, that 80% of a product\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s value is realized with the first 20% of effort.\u00c2\u00a0 I have found this to be especially true when I write.\u00c2\u00a0 I get nearly everything out during the first go-around; then I can spend as much time as I want editing.\u00c2\u00a0 But the final product is never that much better than the original draft.<\/p>\n
Second, that 80% of everything is crap.\u00c2\u00a0 This one is catchier, but I am still a little wary of it.\u00c2\u00a0 It may be true and it may not be — but I think a more palatable version of the rule would be that 80% of everything is non-memorable.\u00c2\u00a0 20% is generally enough to get the basic idea from something, and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s usually all people will bother with.<\/p>\n
So what does this have to do with meetings?\u00c2\u00a0 Just that: people are usually going to walk out of the conference room having only heard about 20% of what you said.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sad but true.\u00c2\u00a0 From this, we can learn three very valuable lessons.<\/p>\n
Lesson 1: Meetings can be shorter. <\/strong>If people are only going to remember 20% of what is discussed then you might as well not keep them hostage for quite as long as usual.\u00c2\u00a0 Who set the standard meeting length at 1 hour?\u00c2\u00a0 Seems arbitrary to me.\u00c2\u00a0 Perhaps a good motivator for getting people to pay better attention would be to say that the meeting will end as soon as it seems like everyone gets the gist of things.<\/p>\nLesson 2: You must be careful what you emphasize. <\/strong>Most people will only remember 20% of what you say, but not everyone will remember the same 20%.\u00c2\u00a0 This is why you need to make it clear which bits are the important ones and which ones are the details.\u00c2\u00a0 Use the three-step salesperson\/teacher method:\u00c2\u00a0 Tell them what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to tell them.\u00c2\u00a0 Tell them.\u00c2\u00a0 Then tell them what you told them.<\/em><\/p>\nLesson 3: The follow-up is crucial. <\/strong>Ok, so people are walking out of your meeting with only the basic idea of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going on in their heads.\u00c2\u00a0 Disaster, right?\u00c2\u00a0 Not really — the basic memories of the meeting are still there.\u00c2\u00a0 They just need to be nudged a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 Best way to do this is by sending out notes as a follow-up right away so that people will have them as a reference.\u00c2\u00a0 This way the other 80% won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t simply get lost.<\/p>\nI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m sure you can find other applications for the Pareto Principle in your life and work.\u00c2\u00a0 Just don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t take things too far.\u00c2\u00a0 Remember, it may be true that you get 80% of a project\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s value from the first 20% of work, but the difference between success and failure in the business world is often a margin much slimmer than 20%.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s important to spend that time polishing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by John J. Walters Ever heard of the 80-20 rule, also known as the Pareto Principle?\u00c2\u00a0 If you have: good, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll save me some time.\u00c2\u00a0 If you haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t: go read up on it.\u00c2\u00a0 It will kinda-sorta blow your mind. I have heard all sorts of different interpretations for the 80-20 rule in my life.\u00c2\u00a0 The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.meetingcaptain.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}