’10 Ways to become a great leader’ is the tagline but don’t be fooled, this book isn’t just for those high up! The book focusses on the idea first stated by Vilfredo Pareto that for every 20% of effort and time put into a project it should yield 80% of success – and how to implement this in a workspace.
By selling itself as a how-to guide in helping reduce stress in the workplace, it plays with the concept that managers can be more efficient and effective by working less – yep, working less! Richard Koch states that if you are an overwhelmed manager, instead of busting your chops on the minute details, focus more on the output allowing you to do more in less time.
Koch believes that a true 80/20 manager should be relaxed, happy, full of energy and working reasonable hours. He provides a how-to guide for achieving this with his 10 ways, split into headers such as: Investigation – what currently works and what doesn’t, Superconnections, Mentoring, Leveraging Influence, Being a Liberating Manager, Seeking Meaning, Becoming Time-rich, Simplifying your role, Becoming Lazy – not quite what it sounds like and Being a Strategic Manager. Koch backs up all of these ideas/topics with background research and relevant stories.
Not being a manager myself I was slightly apprehensive coming into this book, wondering how relevant it would actually be. I really enjoyed the read and found there were so many relevant strategies that I could implement into my day-to-day life, but I did get a bit confused about the way it was written.
While the 80/20 strategy has proven itself to be successful in many cases, it is still a theory and Richard Koch pushes the idea like it is 100% fool-proof and is the only way to run an office – not always possible in some cases. I would definitely recommend The 80 20 Manager to others but would say to keep an open mind when reading.
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