Step 1: Focus on your 8020 destination


Step 1: Focus on your 80/20 destination

A destination is where you want to arrive and where you want to be. Destination means:

  • Your goals, dreams, objectives throughout life ” what you want to achieve.

  • The kind of place you want to be ” the people you want to be with, the kind of person you want to become, the experiences you want to have, the quality of your life.

  • Where you most care about arriving ” the life that suits and expresses you.

Using the law of focus, that less is more, you need to think very carefully about the particular, personal destination that is best for you. To be happy, we each need a unique 80/20 destination, one that cuts out the great majority of trivial objectives and defines our own extremely relevant subset of vital objectives. Focusing on our 80/20 destination means solving the riddle of less is more for each individual. What are the few vital characteristics or results that will make us happiest? What are the very few qualities that we must focus on and multiply, not worrying about all the rest?

The 80/20 destination is a very small part of all available destinations, but the one that is central to our personality and deepest desires.

What happens when we truly focus on our 80/20 destination is that we make less more. If you are exceptionally selective and find the few things that matter deeply to you, life acquires a purpose and meaning way beyond what it had previously, when you were somewhat concerned about a large number of issues.

So who and what do you want to become? If you strip away all the acting and all the role- related trappings, who is the authentic you? What is your best 20 percent?

A good way to answer this question is to define your 20 percent spikes . Let s take the example of my friend Steve, who runs a restaurant in Cape Town.

Steve s 20 percent skill and interest spikes (shown in Figure 5 on page 56) are entertainment, hospitality, rock music, starting businesses, teaching, understanding people, and verbal skills. He s ideally suited to starting and running a funky restaurant.

Figure 6 on page 57 depicts Steve s 20 percent emotional and personal spikes: inspiring leadership, teamwork, being trusted, and zest for life.

Use Figures 7 and 8 (pp. 58 “9) to chart your own 20 percent spikes. Put dots where you think they belong for each attribute and then join the lines up.

I want to make a name for myself in the restaurant trade, Steve says, not just in Cape Town and South Africa, but also internationally. I am committed to Tracy for life and to our children. I want them to grow up loved and to lead happy lives. Besides creating and building a new restaurant, I enjoy leading and training people so that they become the best they can be in their jobs. I m still learning about what it takes to make a restaurant great and I will continue learning.

Is there anything else, I ask, that you really care about? No, he says.

Steve knows his 80/20 destination.

Do you? Can you limit what you re trying to become and do, down to the essentials that really matter? If so, you can make less more.

Try filling in your destination below:

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Check:

  • Does the 80/20 destination reflect what you truly want and care about?

  • Does it mirror your individuality ? Is it unique to you?

  • Does it bolster the best of your talents and emotions?

  • Does it focus you? Will you avoid squandering energy on many other things? Does it exclude lots of objectives that currently soak up a large part of your energy?

  • Is it short enough for you to remember all the time?

  • Does it excite you? Is it a dream life for you?

But most importantly:

  • Will pursuing it prove that less is more for you?

Step 2: Find the 80/20 route

What s the best and easiest route to your 80/20 destination? Knowing what you want, how can you make a large improvement in your life while doing less overall?

  • There are always many possible routes to any destination.

  • A large majority of the routes will be greatly inferior to a few of the routes. The 80/20 routes we select are many times easier or more productive than other routes.

  • There is always a route that provides an elegant and relatively easy solution, a way to get much more of what we want for much less energy, time, money, and bother. All we have to do is to find it.

    click to expand
    Figure 5: Steve s skills and interests ” 20 percent spikes

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    Figure 6: Steve s emotions and attributes ” 20 percent spikes

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    Figure 7: Your skills and interests ” 20 percent spikes

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    Figure 8: Your emotions and attributes ” 20 percent spikes

  • Probably, someone else has already discovered the route, or one very similar. Who has been spectacularly successful in reaching an objective similar to your 80/20 destination? How did they manage it?

  • Routes are also personal affairs. Pick one that suits you particularly well.

  • Routes become easier with help from allies . Think hitchhiking ” who can give you a lift?

But the acid test of whether you ve devised an 80/20 route is this:

  • Does the route offer more with less? Does it give you not only a better solution, but also an easier one? Unless it is both better and easier, it won t lead to a major improvement in your life.

As a simple and literal illustration of routes, let s assume that your destination is Paddington train station in London. You live in East London, close to a tube ( subway ) stop. You like walking, but that is impractical : it s six miles and you need to get to Paddington quickly. Looking at the tube map, you plan to go directly from your local station on the Central Line to Notting Hill Gate, then change to the Circle Line for Paddington. All fine and dandy.

Yet what if you want a 80/20 route, which is both faster and also better? Try this. Leave the tube at Lancaster Gate station, two stops before Notting Hill Gate, and take a relaxed walk to Paddington, occupying no more than five minutes. Altogether you save yourself four stations traveling on the tube, as well as the hassle of changing from one line to another and waiting for a new train. The 80/20 route is easier, more pleasant, yet quicker too. More with less.

Or imagine you re in southern Spain, in a rush to get from San Pedro on the coast to Seville, three hours drive inland. You re a nervous driver and usually get lost. The road to Seville starts with 30 miles of hairpin bends through a mountain pass to Ronda, then there are many changes of direction and the route is hard to follow. There is no other way to Seville that is anywhere near as short or direct. You grimly set off.

But what if you follow the 80/20 Way? You demand more with less: a solution that s easier for you, yet also takes less time. Even though it would take a few precious extra minutes, you study the map carefully, and ask the cashier at the service station for help. She tells you that for the price of a small toll, you can take the freeway to Malaga, then another freeway to Seville. How long will it take? Two hours, she says, if you drive fast. Is it clearly marked ? Even your grandmother couldn t get lost, she laughs. You find she is right: the freeway is clearly marked and almost completely empty; the Spanish hate paying tolls.

By taking a little extra time to think, you ve found a much easier route that is also faster. More with less.

Be clear, however, about your objectives before deciding the route. In the Seville example, the best route would be different if you had plenty of time, enjoyed driving on challenging roads , and placed a premium on beautiful scenery . If so, you d pick the mountain route via Ronda: it would offer you more with less ” more interest and stunning views for less distance and cost.

The destination is not only Seville, but also the fun of getting there. This is typical of life lived to the full. It s important to know what you want to achieve and what you don t want to achieve; and it is of equal or greater importance to know how you want to live, how you don t want to live, what person you want to be, and what person you don t want to be.

Of course, my travel examples are rather trivial. They are meant to provide simple and memorable illustrations of 80/20 routes and are not meant to imply that there s always a better travel plan or that one s touring routes are weighty enough to fret over. But for your key 80/20 destinations, it s worth substantial thought to devise a better and easier route, so that you get more with less. This is certainly the case for finding the route to your best 20 percent. How do we do this?

Back to Steve. Has he discovered his 80/20 route? I ve made a start, he tells me. I found a backer from overseas and I opened this restaurant two years ago. It won the best Cape Town restaurant competition last year and everyone agrees it is a cool place. But I want to have a chain of these restaurants in South Africa and then overseas. The first step is to open in Johannesburg. To do that I need to find a new backer and I m close to having done that. Then I have to prove that the idea will work in Jo burg.

So is there nothing else important on the route? I ask. There is one thing, Steve says. I need a mentor from America or Europe or Australia. To get better at what I do, I need someone who s better than me to help stretch and stimulate me. I haven t found the mentor yet, but it s a key objective this year.

What is the 80/20 route

to your best 20 percent?

There are always many possible routes. The 80/20 route is the best, fastest , most fun, least worrisome, and least effortful way for you to get there. It is also ” and here s the rub ” the way you are least likely to be following now or to dream up on the spot.

Why? Because the 80/20 Way, like the 80/20 principle, is counterintuitive. It offers a much better answer simply because the right solution is not readily visible to us, conditioned as we are to take in the total picture, the 100 percent of our experience. Left to our own devices, we d devise a route that offers more for more. The challenge is to craft a route offering more for less.

Therefore, in finding the 80/20 route to your best 20 percent, try these eccentric questions:

  • What s the route to your 80/20 destination that you would normally pursue ? This is not the answer ” instead, it s the standard against which you judge a possible 80/20 route. Unless you conjure up an approach that is hugely better than your habitual answer, you don t yet have your 80/20 route.

  • Now ask, how can you make a vast improvement on your habitual answer, by unreasonably demanding more with less?

  • Divide the improvement into two parts . First, how could you get more? What would be a much better way for you? What would you enjoy more, and what would get you to your 80/20 destination more quickly? Brainstorm all possible routes. If you re short of ideas, ask a friend or three to help ” it s always easier to solve someone else s puzzle.

  • Second, ask how the route could be made easier for you. Dream up many ideas.

  • Then, put them together, until you have a way that might work and definitely offers more with less. Even if you re not sure it will work, try it. If it fails, move on to your second choice of route ” but only if it too offers more with less.

If you re stumped for an answer, go back to your 20 percent spikes. The things that you are best at, that come naturally to you, will give clues on how you can best get more with less.

For example, earlier in my life, my 80/20 destination was to become a successful and well-paid management consultant. The first route I tried seemed very promising : I landed a job with one of the best and fastest-growing American firms, the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Sadly (or, as it later turned out, happily), though my clients seemed to like me, my bosses didn t. I just about managed to resign before I got fired .

The second route I devised was to join Bain & Company, a spinoff from BCG. Having failed the first time round, with a huge dent to my ego, I determined to correct the things that had sunk me before: my lazy style, independence of spirit, irreverence, and reputation for frivolity. I decided to make a big deal of working unbelievably hard, brownnosing my bosses, and presenting the serious and responsible side of my nature. I would not fail again and I would prove the folks at BCG wrong in their judgment of me.

Was this the right thing to do? Yes and no. Bain was a fine choice. It had a great business formula, exclusively focused on serving the top person in any client organization, and grew even faster than BCG. Talent was so thin on the ground in Bain that I rapidly got promoted to junior partner. I reined in my rebel instincts , projecting a convincing image of company loyalist and team builder.

I was heading nicely along to my 80/20 destination, but one day I stopped to think, what was I doing? Was I really following an 80/20 route?

Clearly not. In donning my Bain mask, I was seeking more with more. More success, more interesting work, more responsibility, more money. Fine. But the bargain I struck had me putting in more too: more intense work, more hours, more single-minded devotion to the job and firm, more politicking, more worry, more conformity to the bosses predilections, and more wearisome international travel. For someone who believed in more with less, this was far from ideal.

What about my 20 percent spikes? Was I playing properly to these? Alas, no. I m good at ideas, sudden insight, spotting talent, and telling clients what to do to make more money. I m bad at sustained hard work (I m a sprinter, not a long-distance runner), appearing grave and serious, internal politics, and the whole messy business of managing other people. Was Bain the right place for me? Not really. I was not straitlaced or loyal enough. Was I finding it a strain to appear so Bain-like? You bet.

My first thought was that I had enough money and should take life easier, get out of management consulting altogether. That would be less with less: less work, less strain and stress, but also less money and less interesting work. I hadn t yet reached my 80/20 destination and I still wanted to prove that I could get there. Besides, I professed to believe in more with less.

So how was I going to contrive more with less? What did I want? I wanted less angst, less conformity, less suppression of my true nature, less travel, less intense work, fewer administrative duties , and fewer bosses (preferably none at all!). I wanted more work with interesting clients, more independence, more time with my family and friends , more freedom to select my colleagues, and also ” let s be honest ” even more money.

To state my desires was to answer them. In spelling out what more and less I wanted, the 80/20 route rapidly became clear. The only way I could get more with less, the exact way I wanted it, was to start my own firm. And yet, this wasn t quite true. On thinking deeper, I realized that I didn t want the administrative responsibility of having Koch & Co, nor did I think I had the full set of skills to found a truly preeminent firm. The ideal 80/20 route for me was to co-found a firm, with two other partners whose 20 percent spikes exactly complemented mine.

I firmly believe that the most ambitious destination and route can also be the easiest ” if and only if they precisely match your strengths. In working at Bain & Co, I successfully corrected my weaknesses, but really only papered over the most evident cracks. Correcting our weaknesses, the most we become is mediocre. If we hone our few super-strengths, our 20 percent spikes, insist on behavior that is authentic and true to our inner selves, and unreasonably demand more with less, the sky is the limit.

Step 3: Take 80/20 action

What is 80/20 action and how does it differ from the actions we normally take in life? There are three liberating differences:

  • 80/20 action is dictated by your unique 80/20 destination and 80/20 route.

  • 80/20 action focuses on the very few actions that are proven to give you the great majority of your happiness and fulfillment: less is more.

  • 80/20 action involves less total action and greater total results ” more with less.

    Once I had decided my 80/20 destination (to be a successful management consultant) and my 80/20 route (to start a new firm with two partners), the 80/20 action was obvious. There were only two actions necessary: to find the partners, and then start the firm! Once I had made my decision, all the other actions I was taking every day became the trivial many; finding the partners and starting the firm became the vital few. Though it wasn t clear how I was going to take those two actions, they were all I really thought and cared about.

    Here s the eerie thing: Two months after I made my decision, I d still not taken the 80/20 action. I couldn t decide which of my colleagues to approach about starting a competing firm ” a wrong move could find me out of a job. Then chance intervened. I called Ian Fisher, a colleague and friend, about our current project, and at the end of the call he let something slip.

    There s something weird going on with Jim and Iain [two other junior partners]. We can t really speak about it, but they made a sudden trip to Boston [Bain & Co s headquarters].

    What s going on, Ian?

    I can t tell you, Richard, but it s really strange and it s really bad.

    What do you mean you can t tell me, we re close colleagues, and come to that, I m your boss.

    Bill Bain made me swear not to tell anyone . [Me, taking a wild guess] Have they resigned? Silence. After a long pause, You said that. I didn t. Jim Lawrence s phone rang and rang. Iain Evans phone was off the hook. I jumped on my bicycle and rode along the Thames towpath to his home in Kew. I found them holed up together, shell-shocked after a traumatic encounter with Bill Bain. Were they going to start a new firm? Yes. Could I be their partner? Maybe. Yes.

Chance had taken my 80/20 action for me. Or had it?

There s a marvelous sentence in Paulo Coelho s fable The Alchemist :

When you want something,

all the universe conspires

in helping you to

achieve it.

I think that is right: when you are clear about your 80/20 destination and 80/20 route, then chance events will give your plans a mighty shove in the right direction. But the key phrase is when you know your destiny .

If I hadn t known my 80/20 destination and 80/20 route, I wouldn t have pressed Ian Fisher about his cryptic remarks, I probably wouldn t have guessed what had happened , and I wouldn t have ” apparently impulsively ” jumped on my bike (it was a long ride and I had other plans that morning). I still had to take action, but actions are easier if you ve narrowed the field down to an obsession that is right for you.

Action doesn t always have to be preplanned. Desire does have to be preplanned. Being open to chance events, and interpreting and exploiting them properly, is part of the 80/20 Way.

Ultimately, if you don t take the few 80/20 actions, your life won t be transformed. If you do take them, they can multiply happiness out of all proportion to the effort.

Make the most of your difference. Nobody else can. Focus on the best of yourself, so that less is more. Find the route to transform your life, so you get more results with less worry and less effort. Then act, and be open to the great luck that the universe will try to bestow on you. When you ve discovered and selected the authentic parts of yourself and made them work smoothly and easily, you ll be unique, highly valuable and yes, very happy too.




Living the 80. 20 Way. Work Less, Worry Less, Succeed More, Enjoy More
Living The 80/20 Way: Work Less, Worry Less, Succeed More, Enjoy More
ISBN: 1857883314
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 86
Authors: Richard Koch

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