Periodically, I like to take stock in all the accomplishments my department achieves. Personally, it gives me a great deal of pleasure to reflect on all the things we do, and it’s important that the members see the list of accomplishments so they can feel good about their contributions toward providing and improving on emergency services. One disappointing thing about taking inventory of our successes is realizing that a very small number of firefighters do the majority of the work.
This is known as the “Pareto Principle” or the “80:20 Rule.” In 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country, observing that 20 percent of the people owned 80 percent of the wealth. Applied to work, it means that 80 percent of the work is done by 20 percent of the people. If the Pareto Principle holds true for your fire department, it means that 80 percent of your firefighters aren’t breaking a sweat to help your organization progress. For the 80 percent who are sitting on the sidelines, they’re not the least bit interested in the volume of work being done by the 20 percent who are working hard. For them, it may as well all happen by “magic.”
As I reflected on this phenomenon, I quickly realized that the very same 80 percent whose contributions are marginal are the same firefighters who do most of the complaining when the “magic” doesn’t happen. Then the light bulb came on. There is a positive correlation here, and it isn’t a coincidence. The 80:20 Rule is in effect again, only in reverse.
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