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UNDERSTANDING THE PARETO PRINCIPLE (THE 80/20 RULE)

  The Pareto principle states that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the "vital few"). Other names for this principle are the  80/20 rule , the  law of the vital few ,  or the  principle of factor sparsity . Management consultant Joseph Juran developed the concept in the context of quality control and improvement, naming it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who noted the 80/20 connection while at the University of Lausanne in 1896. In his first work, Cours d'économie politique, Pareto showed that approximately 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. The Pareto principle is only tangentially related to Pareto efficiency. More generally, the Pareto Principle is the observation (not law) that most things in life are not distributed evenly . It can mean all of the following things: The Uneven Distribution What does it mean when we say that things aren’t distributed evenly? The key point is that each unit of wor

THE DIDEROT EFFECT: INTERTWINED BEHAVIOURS

The famous French philosopher Denis Diderot lived nearly his entire life in poverty, but that all changed in 1765. Diderot was 52 years old and his daughter was about to be married, but he could not afford to provide a dowry. Despite his lack of wealth, Diderot’s name was well-known because he was the co-founder and writer of Encyclopédie , one of the most comprehensive encyclopedias of the time. When Catherine the Great, the Empress of Russia, heard of Diderot’s financial troubles she offered to buy his library from him for £1000 GBP (in AD 1765….!!) Suddenly, Diderot had money to spare. Shortly after this lucky sale, Diderot acquired a new scarlet robe. That's when everything went wrong. The Diderot Effect Diderot’s scarlet robe was so beautiful, that he immediately noticed how out of place it seemed when surrounded by the rest of his common possessions. In his words, there was “no more coordination, no more unity, no more beauty” between his robe and the rest of his items

DECISION INTELLIGENCE FRAMEWORKS: THE OODA LOOP & SEAL – CHAPTER 02

  ***Continued from Chapter 01 (Covered previously: Decision Intelligence and its meaning, The OODA Loop, How The OODA Loop Works: The Four Steps , Success Of The OODA Loop ) Link to Chapter - 01 Uses Of The OODA Loop In general, military planning models are often applied to uses outside of their original context due to their effectiveness in extreme situations. The OODA loop has been adapted to become an important concept in various fields such as business, game theory, information security, law enforcement, litigation, marketing and strategy. Professionals find this compelling because of its common-sense approach to decision-making and its emphasis on staying competitive. With technology being used everywhere and more emphasis being placed on a company’s ability to collect feedback and analyse competition, this method is now a common approach applied in organizations. In business, OODA loops typically examine what is happening externally and how results are performing to become more

DECISION INTELLIGENCE FRAMEWORKS: THE OODA LOOP & SEAL – CHAPTER 01

  All of us, without exception, would love to tame the future and tilt odds in our favor all the time. This lofty aspiration and our incessant effort toward making right choices is what sets us apart from animal species. Decision making is a basic cognitive process of human behavior. Far from perfect, our prowess for decision making stands exposed more than ever in the hyper connected and rapidly changing world we live in. Decision Intelligence: How can it help? There is hardly any organization today that does not aspire to power their decisions and actions with intelligence. Enough evidence exists that those who can harness their organizational intelligence and align it to desired outcomes accrue a substantial advantage.  Over the decades of automation, significant strides have been made in codifying human experiential knowledge as well as extracting hidden knowledge from transactional data footprints. The purview of decision intelligence is to explore outcome-focused and human-in-t

HENRI FAYOL VS ABRAHAM MASLOW: BEHAVIOURAL PERSPECTIVE ON LEADERSHIP

As our career progresses, we may find we do fewer technical tasks and spend more time guiding a team or planning strategy . While that's often a given today, in the 19th century most companies promoted the best technicians. But Henri Fayol recognized that the skills that made them good at their jobs did not necessarily make them good managers . Who Was Henri Fayol? Fayol's  14 Principles of Management  identified the skills that were needed to manage well. While inspiring much of today's management theory, they offer tips that we can still implement in our lives and organizations. Fayol also created a list of the five Primary   Functions of Management , which go hand in hand with the Principles. What Is Administrative Theory? Fayol called managerial skills "administrative functions." In his 1916 book, "Administration Industrielle et Générale," he shared his experiences of managing a workforce. Fayol’s book – and his 14 Principles of Management –