Why the best leaders all swear by the 85% rule

It’s always been the standard mantra for leaders to say go out there and give your 100%. It’s a tried and tested system which seems so natural to say and apply. But now thought leadership articles are saying that it’s not really correct.

The author of Effortless, Greg McKeown in a Harvard Business Review article said the best leaders actually ask their people to give 85% instead.

What Leaders Believe in

As McKeown says, science has shown that 85% offer actually leads to better results in the long run.

“Operating at 100% effort all of the time will result in burnout and ultimately less-optimal results,” he said.

A person can get more done in 40 hours as opposed to 50 or more because there are less chance of mistakes. Maximizing your work hours does not equate to you optimizing your full potential.

Also if you pack out your day and your schedule you may get in trouble if emergency situations crop up at work and you will find yourself quite overwhelmed. If you leave 15% of your calendar open, you will be more resilient and flexible.

McKeown advocates setting a “done for the day” time, explicitly telling employees to aim for 85% effort and watching out for unnecessarily high-pressure language like ASAP and urgent.

The 85% rule originates from the sports and fitness industry where it is thought that to operate at more than 85% for a task will result in diminishing returns in terms of quality, fitness and form.

The Workplace

The same applies to the work place. According to a 2019 study by Robert C. Wilson, the error rate for learning new tasks was measured.

“In many situations we find that there is a sweet spot in which training is neither too easy nor too hard, and where learning progresses most quickly. […] For all those stochastic gradient-descent based learning algorithms, we find that the optimal error rate for training is around 15.87% or, conversely, that the optimal training accuracy is about 85%.”

This means there is a sweet spot where it is neither too easy nor too hard and that is where the highest amount of productivity and progress occurs.

Although the above mentioned study only looks at the learning and development angle it is still a key indication of the importance of finding a sweet spot for maximum output and effectiveness.

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