Alberto Croce | Santiago Bilinkis l Risk and Reward

Bye Bye Pareto: The new “20/60/20 rule”

Most of you who studied Economics or other social sciences are likely familiar with the “Pareto Rule” or “80/20 Rule”.

The rule was invented when an Italian economist of the 19th Century called Vilfredo Pareto noted, while analyzing the distribution of Income in Italy, that 80% belonged to the richest 20% of the population. The rule was then extended as the “Pareto Rule” to any situation where 80% of the effect can be traced to 20% of the causes and is used in many different fields

All this introduction serves as background to a breakfast I attended a week ago, organized by the Ashoka Support Network. There we attended a presentation by an amazing social entrepreneur called Alberto Croce from Fundación SES.

I could talk a lot about Alberto, but in this post I want to focus on one single aspect of his speech. He mentioned that when someone is trying to promote a social change in a group of people. 20% are very open to it and embrace it easily. Another 20% is completely resistant, no matter how much effort we put. But the secret is in the 60% in between, that does not jump in easily, but can be attracted with the right approach and effort.

What is the catch? That tempted by the Easy 20%, we tend to concentrate our efforts there, not where we can really make a difference.