2,000 Percent Living Lesson Seven: Design and Implement a Valuable 2,000 Percent Solution

Learn how to identify stalls
(bad thinking habits),
to eliminate and to replace stalls
with good thinking habits,
and to design and to implement
2,000 percent solutions
to serve others on God’s behalf
by producing your first one.

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world,
but let God transform you into a new person
by changing the way you think.

— Romans 12:2 (NLT)

Let me start by repeating what I wrote in the
Introduction. Most people can develop their first 2,000
percent solution (a way of accomplishing
at least twenty times more with the same time, money,
and effort … or the same results with 1/20 the time,
money, and effort) with between 60 and 120 hours of
reading, study, and work. If the improvement area
is an important one, the increased performance gained
from the solution will easily repay the time, money, and
effort that were invested. You can learn to identify your
bad thinking habits and to replace them with good ones
and learn to develop 2,000 percent solutions by reading,
answering the questions in, and applying The 2,000
Percent Solution (AMACOM, 1999) and The 2,000
Percent Solution Workbook (iUniverse, 2005). You can
obtain free e-copies of those books by registering (and
confirming your registration by replying to the e-mail
that’s sent immediately — be sure to check your spam
folder) at www.2000percentsolution.com.

I find that most people who learn about creating 2,000
percent solutions have one of the following four
reactions:

• That’s not possible.
• I can’t do that.
• That sounds interesting. Let me try it out on
something small.
• That would be great! Let me apply it to my biggest
opportunity.

I address each of those reactions in the remainder of this
lesson. If you don’t have any of the first three reactions,
skip the next three sections.

Otherwise, just read those of the first three sections that
address your reaction or reactions. In any case, be sure
to read the fourth section.

2,000 Percent Solutions Are Readily Available

“What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked.
“Anything is possible if a person believes.”

— Mark 9:23 (NLT)

When first creating a 2,000 percent solution, many people
report discovering that their solution could have been
implemented at any time during the prior fifty years. But
no one had. Why is that?

Let me tell you a story about a company to help explain
such delays. One of my former students works in a
business where 95 percent of the ingredients were once
discarded at the end of the production process. That’s like
taking a piece or two of a large wedding cake and then
throwing away the rest of the cake. The organization first
called the unused ingredients “waste” and dumped that
material into the ocean. A new treaty in the 1970s
prohibited this kind of dumping, and the “waste” went
into landfills instead.

Environmental laws were later enacted that made it
more financially attractive to do something else with
the “waste,” and the leftover ingredients were turned
into “by-products” that didn’t have much value.

The student redefined those used ingredients as
“products” and discovered that with a little upgrading
they became valuable forms of organic fertilizer that
many were anxious to buy. The student soon developed
a large fertilizer business and was successfully making
similar upgrades of other manufacturers’ waste into
valuable products.

From this experience, the student learned that people
only pay a lot of attention to “products,” seldom focus
on “by-products,” and hardly ever examine their
“waste.” Similarly, people pay a lot more attention
to creating and implementing 2,000 percent solutions
than to efforts to meet the annual budgeted profit
increase of 10 percent. Why? It is often more exciting
and rewarding to develop 2,000 percent solutions.
Let’s look at some other aspects of human behavior. A
parallel observation to Pareto’s Law (referred to by
many as Pareto’s Principle, or the 80/20 Principle,
meaning that 80 percent of the results can be observed
to come from 20 percent of the people doing an activity)
states that 80 percent of the results of any economic
activity come from 20 percent or less of the efforts. Let’s
look at an example of this corollary to see why 2,000
percent solutions are naturally abundant.

Imagine that a business has 100 salespeople selling
100,000 units a year. Consistent with the parallel
observation to Pareto’s Law, 20 of those salespeople
produce total sales of 80,000 units per year while the
remaining 80 salespeople produce total sales of only
20,000 units per year. The most productive 20
salespeople average selling 4,000 units per year while
the 80 less productive salespeople average sales of 250
units per year. The 20 most productive salespeople
create on average 16 times (4,000/250) the average
of the 80 remaining salespeople. Increasing the
performance of the remaining 80 salespeople to what
the most productive 20 salespeople accomplish is a
1,500 percent solution.

Within the group of 20, some salespeople are more
productive than the others. Let’s assume that the most
productive salesperson produces annual sales of 7,000
units. That amount is 28 times what the 80 less
productive salespeople average. If the less productive
people can move up to the productivity of the most
productive salesperson, that’s a 2,700 percent solution.

Within the group of 80, some are less productive than
others. Let’s assume that the least productive
salesperson who won’t be fired for poor performance
sells merely 100 units per year. If that person could
match the most productive salesperson, that would be a
6,900 percent solution.

The nature of which customers are served may have
something to do with why these two salespeople vary
so much in productivity. But if the least productive
salesperson can increase performance to even half the
average of the most productive group, that’s still more
than a 2,000 percent solution.

Let’s also assume that the company has a more effective
competitor where the most productive salespeople sell
on average 10,000 units per year. Within that group,
let’s also assume that the most productive person sells
18,000 units per year. If some of this success is based on
selling methods that the least productive salesperson in
the first company can emulate but doesn’t use now, that
relatively low-performing salesperson would only have
to capture one-eighth of this most productive
competitive salesperson’s results to achieve a 2,000
percent solution.

In addition, there are probably better performing
salespeople in other industries who could also show the
lowest producing salesperson in the original company
how to improve. By drawing on those examples, the least
productive salespeople can expand their productivity
further.

It’s also true that few of the top-performing salespeople
are using identical methods. As a result, you can combine
highly productive techniques from different top
performing salespeople to exceed the performance of
even the most effective salesperson.

Likewise, 20 percent of the customers will produce 80
percent of the earnings for a company. So it’s as
important whom you sell to as it is how efficiently you
perform. Some organizations will find that their highest
volume salespeople are mostly bringing in business from
relatively unprofitable customers. As a result the most
profitable best practice may be found among a so-called
average performer who only produces high-margin
sales. Cross-fertilize the methods of the high-volume
salesperson with the high-margin one, and you should
increase the profit-productivity of sales efforts by a
great deal more than 2,000 percent.

There’s also hope for improvement from other sources.
The parallel observation to Pareto’s Law also applies to
every other activity that a person does in a company:
Twenty percent of the employees will produce 80
percent of the results. By learning from the best inside
and outside the company and combining those lessons in
new ways, the most productive employees can improve
further in all aspects of what the company does.

Beyond that, there are always new best practices under
development. By learning about those possibilities for
improvement from articles and experiments, even greater
gains will follow. At Mitchell and Company (the
management consulting firm I direct to help leading
companies create the next generation of best practices),
we measured a large number of companies performing
the same activities to see how each company’s
effectiveness compared to its competitors. Much like
what the parallel observation to Pareto’s Law suggests,
companies were highly effective compared to other
firms in only a few areas … usually less than 5 percent of
their most important activities. Companies were about
as effective as the average firm in approximately 30
percent of their important activities. And these same
companies were well below average in the remaining
important activities. That research means that more
than 95 percent of important activities in each of these
companies were clearly ripe for 2,000 percent solutions.
On closer inspection, of course, it could be the case that
all important activities in a given company could be
improved by twenty times.

When the same observations are applied to individuals,
the room is even more enormous for making 2,000
percent solutions in all areas of life. That’s because the
performance gaps among low, average, and top
performers are greater across all people in all activities
than they are among the smaller population of different
companies doing a few important activities.

If you doubt that, just compare your best performance to
what the world record holder can do in some of the areas
that matter to you. (If you are a runner, consider how
fast you can run 200 miles, a distance some ultrarunners
accomplish at a pace not too much slower than what
many marathon runners achieve in the shorter 26 mile
race.) Keep in mind that in many cases even the world
leader in an important activity is using some obsolete
practices.

Anyone Can Create a 2,000 Percent Solution

And He has said to me,
“My grace is sufficient for you,
for power is perfected in weakness.”
Most gladly, therefore,
I will rather boast about my weaknesses,
so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.

— 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NAS)

Many people start work on creating a 2,000 percent
solution without any expectation that they will succeed.
When asked why they doubt their ability to succeed, they
often describe problems they’ve had when they were in
school, past difficulties in learning how to do other
things, what they don’t know now, or obstacles that have
frustrated them for years. After a few weeks of
successfully developing a 2,000 percent solution, every
one of these doubters will confidently state that they can
create more 2,000 percent solutions and that anyone
else can, as well.

What happened in between the start and the finish to
change their expectations?

• They learned what bad thinking habits were holding
them back and how to eliminate those habits.
• They easily began to use better thinking habits.
• They found that there are lots of resources and people
available to help them engage in whatever they found
to be difficult about the eight steps in the 2,000 percent
solution process.
• They discovered that they already knew hundreds of
examples of individuals and groups performing perfectly
and could easily understand and explain how to duplicate
those successes.

If you ask people how to do something they have never
done before and have not yet seen anyone else do, most
of those you ask will draw a blank in their minds, leaving
them passive and feeling discouraged. A person’s belief
that he or she cannot create a 2,000 percent solution is
usually based on drawing such a mental blank about
the opportunity: They don’t yet have a solution
strategy, assume they cannot locate one, and don’t know
that the process contains a simple solution-developing
strategy that anyone can use. These people need to
read and answer all the questions in The 2,000 Percent
Solution Workbook, a resource designed to break down
the solution process into tiny, simple steps that
cumulatively build the experience of applying
new and better ways of improving performance.

What if you don’t have the time? After applying the
processes described in Lessons Four and Five, you won’t
be able to use that excuse any longer.

What if you don’t have much education? People who
didn’t finish elementary school have been able to
create 2,000 percent solutions by working with people
who could help them research the future and ideal best
practices.

What if you don’t have much experience with the
problem? That’s probably an advantage because you
will be more open-minded about what’s possible. Just be
sure that you take whatever time is required to learn
about future and ideal best practices.

What if you cannot discipline yourself to follow the
2,000 percent solution process? That’s no problem:
You can hire a coach (or ask a friend or relative to
perform the same role for free) to keep reminding
you to do the next step (whichever one that is) and to
praise you for whatever you have done so far.

What if you cannot bear to work alone on 2,000 percent
solutions? That’s also no problem: You are not required
to create these solutions by yourself. In fact, you may
find that you will develop better solutions when you
work with others who complement your experience,
skills, and interests. In some cases, people learning the
process have worked in groups containing as many as
twenty people and made rapid progress.

What if you cannot overcome procrastination to do the
steps, even with coaches or helpers? Hire someone to
run a public contest that invites others to compete in
developing a solution for you and offer attractive
rewards for success. While thinking about hiring
someone to run the contest, keep telling yourself:
“Hesitate to procrastinate.”

The Value of a 2,000 Percent Solution
Is Positively Related to the Size of the Problem

Give the larger tribes more land
and the smaller tribes less land,
each group receiving a grant in proportion
to the size of its population.

— Numbers 26:54 (NLT)

Some people choose to work on a small problem with small
benefits for creating a 2,000 percent solution because they
wrongly think that there’s much less work involved. My
experience with creating 2,000 percent solutions is that
the time involved has little to do with how substantial or
insubstantial the benefits are. In addition, the difference
in the time involved for creating one 2,000 percent
solution for a simple problem versus a solution for a more
difficult problem is rarely more than sixty hours.
However, the people who want to do less work are right
in thinking that more time is usually involved in
implementing 2,000 percent solutions that have larger
benefits. Since the practical benefits from those
implementation efforts are enormous, however, no one
will hesitate to make the implementation commitment
for a 2,000 percent solution with large benefits.

Some other people opt to work on a 2,000 percent
solution for a small problem because they think that it
will be easier to do for whatever hours are involved.
That belief is often mistaken. Larger problems are more
likely to attract the interest of other talented people.
When that happens, it becomes easier to involve still
more people who can be helpful. As a result, the
difficulties involved in your personal efforts may be
reduced.

Yet other people decide to work on a small problem for
creating a 2,000 percent solution because they perceive
that they will encounter less opposition to change. That
perception can also be mistaken. Instead, organizations
are very likely to resist working on problems that won’t
make much difference. Show people a way to make a
huge breakthrough in an important area, and those
involved immediately begin to perceive that recognition,
promotion, and tangible rewards are likely to become
theirs. Everyone will want credit and will line up to be
supportive of the successful solution.

Still other people choose small problems with small
benefits because they simply don’t take the time to
calculate what the benefits might be before selecting
what they work to improve. In my experience, this
mistake is often related to not realizing that the size of
potential benefits from solving different problems
varies quite a lot. Problems also don’t come with labels
attached that say how much the solution is going to be
worth. As a result, you have to do some work to estimate
where the big benefits are. Start by simply calculating
what it would mean to accomplish twenty times more
with the same resources. That quantification may be
enough to steer you away from working on small-benefit
solutions.

Some other people pick small problems to solve because
no one cares very much about those problems. These
problem solvers reason that there is no risk of offending
anyone by exposing the gross inefficiency in what has gone
before. In my experience that’s a poor reason to pick a
problem: After producing a 2,000 percent solution, I’ve
never seen an organization go back to chastise the person
who followed the old solution. Instead, people turn away
from thinking about what occurred before because a
2,000 percent solution dazzles the mind and senses so
much that negative thoughts are pushed aside.

First Create the Most Valuable
2,000 Percent Solution You Can

“I know all the things you do ….
And I can see your constant improvement
in all these things.”

— Revelation 2:19 (NLT)

No matter how big the dreams are that God sends you to
accomplish, you’ll create the opportunity to exceed them
all in reality by developing and implementing a highly
valuable 2,000 percent solution. Here are some of the
reasons why:

• You will build your problem-solving and
implementation abilities and reputation faster.
• You will sooner develop the knowledge and experience
to repeat 2,000 percent solution success as often as you
like with great solutions to other problems.
• You can teach all those you work with what you know,
and they can create as many highly valuable 2,000
percent solutions as they want.
• You can also teach all those with large problems whom
you serve how to solve their own problems with 2,000
percent solutions without your help.
• Many people who don’t yet know how to make 2,000
percent solutions will seek you out and offer whatever it
takes to gain your assistance.

• You can acquire assets, businesses, and resources that
will be greatly improved in value by 2,000 percent
solutions and exponentially expand your financial value
in short order through implementing such solutions.
• Your advice will be sought by many people whose
actions you would like to influence.
• You can use your expertise in creating 2,000 percent
solutions to enter into activities and fields that interest
you but that would normally be closed to you.
• Whenever you are satisfied with what you’ve
accomplished, you can apply the 2,000 percent solution
process to reduce by at least 95 percent the time,
money, and effort you put into any activities that you
cannot avoid, but would like to minimize.
• You will leave a heritage of accomplishment and
knowledge for your family that is far more valuable and
desirable than diamonds and pearls.

In the next lessons, I spell out how to build on your first
2,000 percent solution to gain many of these benefits.
Before leaving this lesson, be sure to take note of which
benefits from the preceding list are most attractive to you
and keep them in mind while you read the next seven
lessons.

Copyright 2010 Donald W. Mitchell All Rights Reserved.