After a long time, I came across the third edition of the book The 80/20 Principle written by Richard Koch. The strapline to the title is “The secret to achieving more with less”. I have always loved this book and I tried to tie up the ideas here with what I had learnt from Steven Covey, who had become very famous throughout the world with his books on the ‘seven habits’ (Seven Habits for Highly Effective People; Seven Habits for Happy Families, etc.).
He propounds – ‘First things first’ - which is one of the seven habits. It means set your priorities. Do what is most important, first. Although most of us would be inclined to do just the opposite. That is how we spend 80% of our work time, which we could well have done in 20% of the time!
In management books, especially under the chapter on time management, they will tell you to separate all jobs into important, urgent, routine, and not necessary. One should deal with the important and urgent first. And deal with everything else only, if and when there is time, However, many of us forget these basic lessons in our busy schedules in life.
Going back 25 years, to 23 November 2000. There was a newspaper report that the prime minister had assured the Rajya Sabha during question hour that provident fund, gratuity, pension, employees' state insurance (ESI) and other statutory dues of over 100,000 central public sector employees amounting to Rs1,899 crore, would be cleared soon. One year later, only Rs88 crore was paid out and Rs1,811 crore was still due.
A member of Parliament (MP) drew the prime minister’s attention to his packages worth thousands of crores to Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Punjab, on the eve of the assembly elections in those states. A classic case of what are the priorities of our government - the statutory obligations of the employers, especially with regard to provident fund, where default by the employer attracts heavy punishment; or the compulsions of investment in states going to the polls. What is important and what is urgent?
Now I focus on 2025 and again look at the newspapers for the latest news. Have priorities changed? I wonder!
Many times, as I drive down the roads in Mumbai, I see large gangs of workers busy breaking down and resetting the road dividers. Or worse, they will be painting the white lines for traffic channels. Even worse, they will be painting these white lines on pedestrian crossings at peak traffic hours in the morning or the evening, thus increasing the traffic chaos in an already chaotic situation.
Yet, the condition of the road itself is so bad, with potholes, and craters and badly constructed speed breakers, that one wonders why the authorities have focused on road dividers as a priority rather than the roads themselves. Would not the road maintenance be more important than the road divider? Is this a case of reverse importance in setting priorities?
There has recently been a controversy about the functioning of the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). This is a municipal corporation which has the largest budget in the country. There have been accusations of bad management. The losses of the corporation have increased more than six times in five years. They are turning out large losses, in spite of large revenues. The revenue could even be larger if it were not for an all-pervading corruption at many levels of the corporation.
A cursory look at the accounts of the corporation (some time ago) shows that 80% of the revenue collected goes into paying the salaries and wages of the corporation staff. There is barely 10% left to do the work which the BMC was supposed to do - to provide good and clean roads, sanitation, sewage management, garbage clearance and water supply systems.
The BMC has evolved into an organisation whose primary objective seems to have become to provide employment and sustenance to the employees; rather than to provide facilities to the citizens who pay taxes to get these services. What are then the priorities of the BMC? Is the priority the service of the citizen who pays for the services, or the employee who is part of the system to provide these services? Again, a case of misplaced priorities.
There are many areas where considerable sums are spent in broadening roads in order to facilitate faster movement of vehicular traffic. This is a laudable objective and the city authorities embark on these projects at considerable cost. However, they overlook the fact that the existing roads could be used much more efficiently, if vehicles were not parked on the curb of the road, thus effectively reducing one lane.
They overlook the fact that heavy vehicles do not keep to the left lane and therefore slow down the movement in the right lane which is reserved for small vehicles. They overlook the fact that vehicles keep changing lanes and therefore slow down all the traffic on the road with their capricious and undisciplined driving.
Should we put our priority on our first correcting the situation with better traffic management, and little capital expenditure? Or should the priority be on investing large sums of money (which are not easily available) on broadening the road itself?
We just read about the case of a person who met with an accident, where he was knocked down by a train when he was crossing the railway track. Of course, he was in the wrong. As he lay there, a doctor jumped out of the train to help the injured man and, with the help of two onlookers, moved him to the road, and looked for a taxi to take him to the nearest hospital in Ghatkopar in Mumbai. But for half an hour, they could not get one. The taxi drivers were not keen to get involved in a ‘police case’. The police have to be first notified, and only then, the hospital will admit the patient. By the time these formalities are complied with, many patients may die from the bleeding. But that does not matter. Rules are rules. And registering with the police is the first priority. Are our priorities misplaced? Do we put first things first?
All of us need to set our priorities. To think through. To remember the 80/20 principle. To put first things first - as individuals, as corporations and as a nation.
(Walter Vieira is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants of India - FIMC. He was a successful corporate executive for 14 years, capping his career as Head of marketing for a Pharma multinational, for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka- and then pioneered marketing consulting in India in 1975. As a consultant, he has worked across four continents. He was the first Asian elected Chairman of ICMCI, the world apex body of consultants in 45 countries, in 1997. He is the author of 16 books, a business columnist, international conference speaker and has been visiting professor in Marketing in the US, Europe, and Asia for over 40 years. He was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award for Consulting in 2005, and for Marketing in 2009. He now spends much of his time in NGO work - Consumer Education and Research Centre, IDOBRO, and some others.)
