The music video “Gangnam Style” has been watched more than 2.6 billion times on YouTube, making it one of the most watched clips in history.  The Economist worked out, assuming everyone watched the full 4:12 minutes, this equates to 180 million man-hours or around 20,000 years.

In this time, humanity could have built:

• Twenty-five and a half Empire State Buildings
• Eight Burj Khalifas in Dubai
• Six Stonehenges
• Five Great Pyramid’s of Giza
• Three London Olympic parks
• Another Wikipedia

My point here is what do you spend time doing in your business that isn’t having any impact (other than distracting your time and stunting growth)?

A key challenge in any business as it scales is to not get bogged down in the detail. The 80/20 Principle by Richard Koch, outlines that roughly 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. For example:

• 80% of a company’s profits come from 20% of its customers
• 80% of a company’s complaints come from 20% of its customers
• 80% of a company’s profits come from 20% of the time its staff spend
• 80% of a company’s sales come from 20% of its products
• 80% of a company’s sales are made by 20% of its sales staff

As the business owner, or leader, you have access to dramatic improvements in profitability by focusing on the most effective areas and eliminating, ignoring, automating, delegating or retraining the rest.  But there is a tendency for most companies, regardless of size, to solve the immediate problems facing the individual, department or business.

90% of the time the actual issue or challenge will only be solved forever if something else is fixed. It’s key to identify the 20% of things that are causing the 80% of issues. By solving this you solve lots of issues.