The risk in leading a business is the same as in piloting an airplane: namely, crashing and burning. But what if you had an operating system to keep your business airborne until you wanted to land it? How much time would that OS save you? How much money?

Written and narrated by the creator of the Profitable Growth Operating System®, The 80/20 CEO: Take Command of Your Business in 100 Days is a detailed playbook for aspiring or accomplished senior-level executives who want to lead their organizations in profitable strategic growth and do so on demand, on track, on pace, and without surprises.

The reason that 80/20 is so valuable is that it is counterintuitive. We tend to expect that all causes will have roughly the same significance, that all customers are equally valuable, or that every bit of business, every product, and every dollar of sales revenue is as good as another.

Also known as the Pareto principle, 80/20 is a management concept based on a natural law: 80% of results come from 20% of causes. It is a tool used to prioritize and manage resources, focusing on the most important and impactful activities that generate the majority of results. The principle suggests that organizations can achieve significant improvement by focusing their efforts on the 20% of activities that generate 80% of their results, rather than spreading their resources non-strategically across all activities.

The 80/20 principle can be applied in various ways, including time management, problem-solving, decision-making, and resource allocation. For example, in time management, individuals can use the 80/20 principle to identify the 20% of tasks that generate 80% of desired results and prioritize these activities. In problem-solving, the principle can be used to identify the root causes of issues and focus on solving the most impactful problems.