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Pareto and Priorities                                                  March 23, 2011
Tim Moore

Managing Partner

Audience Development Group
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The Gift That Keeps "Giving Back" to Your Station!

Greetings!

Centuries ago Vilfredo Pareto lived his life as an Italian mathematician. His analysis of the relationship between effort and result explained success and failure through time to present moment. The Pareto Rule proves 20% of a body of effort will produce 80% of the result. Thus thank Vilfredo for the "80/20 Rule."

 

Put it to the test: consider that 20% of your station's weekly sampling produces 80% of your time spent listening. 20% of your sales team's client list will produce 80% of their gross. And as a manager, 20% of your priorities will account for 80% of your success. Reversing this rule offers an ominous warning: 80% of your activities will only yield 20% of your results. Every day scores of leaders are misaligned with the priority-reality fulcrum, focusing on the 80% that has little to do with the objectives that matter most. Take a week and log your daily activities, then weigh those against the week's successes. Are you confident in those to which you're devoting your time, energy and talent? Is it the 80% or the 20%?

 

80/20 transcends our restricted career specialties. For example 20% of a baseball lineup will account for 80% of the team's RBI's. 20% of an executive team will generate 80% of the most productive ideas. The implication for your managers is obvious and warrants discussion.

 

At the War College Naval officers are drilled on the most fundamental of battle axioms, the first of which is Objective. Of all the principles of any competition including warfare, this is the first and most basic. As a manager of people with objectives we must ask, "What is the point of fighting this battle? What do we hope to achieve? How will it forward the position of our organization? And what are the estimated costs in human endeavor, organizational strength, and company treasure?"

 

These principles seem almost too elementary to bring you your attention. Nevertheless we witness misappropriations of time, materiel and effort all too frequently. Sometimes when asked to review a plan we see multiple failures waiting to happen: too many working parts, an absence of concentration on the critical 20% that will result in the hoped-for 80%; numerous incongruities all suggesting a disappointing if not calamitous outcome.

 

Inside radio groups many programmers fail because they don't adapt to transitions, are resistant to change resulting in unproductive behavior, and fail to lead in a team-centered way, putting their emphasis on 80% of time and effort that can never pay back.

 

The simplest things are always hard, and military historians have often sarcastically remarked, "Wars are won by the side that makes the fewest mistakes." The 80/20 principle heads the list.


Sincerely,
 
Tim Moore     
Tim Moore
Managing Partner
Audience Development Group
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