Page 105 - Benjamin Franklin\'s The Way to Wealth: A 52 brilliant ideas interpretation - PDFDrive.com
P. 105
48 DON’T FALL BEHIND YOUR BUSINES
Ever had the feeling you’re running flat out to keep up with your
business? While he tied the concept to the notion of getting up early (a
key belief), Franklin also observed that some of us seem to spend all
day chasing our own shadows: ‘he that riseth late, must trot all day, and
shall scarce overtake his business at night’.
There are, of course, two responses. The first is not to get up late and
thereby give yourself an early start. That’s sound advice now as ever, but
with business life and time demands getting ever more complex you may
feel that you are still running just to end up in one place.
DEFINING IDEA…
People who create 20% of the results will begin believing they
deserve 80% of the rewards.
~ PAT RILEY, FORMER NBA HEAD COACH, WITH HIS TAKE ON THE PARETO
PRINCIPLE.
Which means it’s time to turn to triage. The word ‘triage’ comes from the
French for sorting or ordering things and is most famously used by
battlefield medics selecting which patients to give their attention to, and in
which order, so as to maximise the benefits of their limited resources. A
similar principle can be brought to bear on your priorities during the day.
Not that I’m saying your business day looks like the bloody carnage of a
battlefield, just that it can seem that way…
In the 1940s the quality management pioneer Dr Juran came up with the
theory of ‘the vital few and trivial many’ and named it after an Italian
economist called Vilfredo Pareto who had observed that in his home country
80% of the wealth was in the hands of just 20% of the population. Hence
the Pareto Principle, whereby 20% of something (the vital few) is always
responsible for 80% of the results, and the remaining 80% (the trivial
many) only accounts for 20% of the results. Confused? Don’t be. In daily
life the application of the Pareto principle means that, for example, 20% of
