Price's Law as Applied to Crime and Safety

Price's Law (also known as Price's Square Root Law) is a principle in productivity and scientometrics that describes extreme inequality in output within groups. (Keep reading and you'll understand how that plays out.)

The concept was proposed by a British physicist and historian of science named Derek J. de Solla Price in the 1960s, who originally observed patterns in scientific publishing. It states that in any given field, approximately half of all published research is produced by the square root of the total number of authors working in that domain.

For example, if a scientific field has 100 researchers, then √100 = 10 researchers will account for roughly 50% of all papers published. In a company of 10,000 employees, about 100 people (√10,000) will produce half the total output or value.

This makes Price's Law more extreme than the better-known Pareto Principle (commonly referred to as the 80/20 rule). As group size grows, the proportion of top producers shrinks dramatically relative to the whole.

Why It Matters

Price's Law shows how productivity follows a power-law distribution rather than a normal one. A small elite drives the majority of results in research, sales teams, creative fields, companies, and even open-source projects. While controversial and not universally precise, it explains why superstar performers, top scientists, or key employees often contribute disproportionately.

Understanding Price's Law encourages organizations to identify, nurture, and retain high-impact talent — and individuals to strive to be among that critical square-root group.

New Applications

Stumbling across Price's Law got me thinking about an application I'd not considered before: fighting crime. Is it possible that if there are x number of violent criminals in a city, that the square root of that number is committing half the violent crimes? If this were the case, an overtaxed police force could make a big impact by narrowing their focus on these "most productive" criminals. Are there 100 such violent felons in your medium-sized city? This would suggest that ten are doing half of the violent crime, and your city could become much safer by placing them behind bars. And maybe there are only 25. This would suggest five are the really bad dudes that should be behind bars.

Corollary: The square root of all criminals does half of all crime.

I haven't tested this theory yet, but I've an inkling that there's something to it.

What do you think?

A David Ogilvy Anecdote on Hiring

I believe April 13, 1987 may have been the first time Susie and I went to the World Trade Center in New York City. I remember because the date is inscribed inside the front cover of my copy of Ogilvy on Advertising which I purchased at a bookstore underneath the historic skyscraper.

Earlier that year I had been tapped to create an advertising program for the company I worked for and voraciously read every book on advertising that I could find in our library. David Ogilvy's Confessions of an Advertising Man was so direct and practical that he quickly became my go-to resource. This is why when I saw Ogilvy on Advertising at the World Trade Center I had to have it. He quickly became my guru and this volume my "Bible" of sorts.

The reviews on Amazon.com are invaluable for gaining insights on the books (and other products) displayed there, and this one is spot on.

If you want an overview of the core principles that are true for ALL ad-like communications, this is a must-read. The medium might change, but the principles remain the same -- and nobody knew the principles like David Ogilvy. For those wanting a current view of the ad world -- especially involving internet or social media -- read this book FIRST and then buy any of a number of books on current practices. This will teach you the fundamentals.

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Ogilvy gave us more than advice on advertising and ad copy writing. He also devoted pages to instructing leaders on how to manage a creative team. Creatives are a different kind of animal.

In the midst of all this he shared this story, which applies not only to ad agencies but to businesses of all kinds:

When someone is made the head of an office in the Ogilvy & Mather chain, I send him a Matryoshka doll from Gorky. If he has the curiosity to open it, and keep opening it until he comes to the inside of the smallest doll, he finds this message: If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.

* * * * 

While reading Philip Norman's biography of Paul McCartney I discovered that John Lennon was faced with an important decision when Paul approached John to become part of Lennon's band, The Quarrymen. Paul was likeable, talented, outgoing, effervescent, and might prove to be a challenge to John's leadership.

John could have denied Paul the opportunity and remained the frontman for his team of lesser lights. Or... You can read a brief account of that story here: A Leadership Lesson from John Lennon.

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The No-Boss Business Model Is Flawed

Photo by Hans-Peter Gauster on Unsplash

This morning I came across an interesting article at Aeon that struck a chord with me titled No Boss? No Thanks. It brought to mind a bad experience I had between 15 and 20 years ago dealing with a very flat organization that had no bosses. Everyone in the company was a "boss" sort of. The opening sentence hooked me in as did the lines that followed:

Management thinking is notoriously faddish. One week, the gurus, star CEOs, pundits and professors are talking about downsizing as the solution to corporate bureaucracy and inefficiency. The next week, the bandwagon has moved on to knowledge-management. Then to empowerment. And so on – sometimes in cycles, such that old ideas are revived, dressed up and resold to a gullible audience. Serious thinkers might pooh-pooh all this as guru talk, driven by media hype and ‘thought leaders’ hawking their latest books.

What is interesting is when one idea is pushed from the top down as the way to proceed and then the following year a new approach is propagated that directly contradicts the first. The ideas a pushed by "authorities" whose books become bestsellers and therefore the ideas must be good, right?

After giving several examples of fads (a few of which I experienced at one time) Nikolai Fossi and Peter Klein, authors of the No Boss? No Thanks piece, proceed to discuss the super-flat organization.

The concept is, in essence, a reaction against the dehumanizing effect of corporate culture. It is also an attempt to empower everyone in the organization. The problem comes when you make the company so flat that no one is in charge. There is no leadership. "We're all leaders here."

Sounds good in theory, but what happens in practice? What about decisions regarding company direction? Or when customers are mis-handled?

I was responsible for the advertising and signage at our local airport when a new vendor was selected to manage the interior design space there. The company was a "flat" organization with everyone on the same level. Each was a boss or supervisor or whatever. The contracts were created with someone who seemed capable, but when it came time to execute the plan problems ensued.

Before long I had a different rep. There were unresolved issues and I wanted to speak to her supervisor to address the way our account was being handled. That is when I learned the problem of flat organizations. There was no one higher up the chain of command. When I tried to address the issue by speaking with others in the company it was always bounced back to the problem person.

As the Aeon article's authors observe, "Someone needs to be held accountable for the firm’s actions – the buck has to stop somewhere."

If I recall correctly, Peter Drucker addresses this issue in The Effective Executive by pointing out that when there is a fire, someone has to dictate, "OK, everyone run this way and head out that exit."

Leaders don't have to micromanage every dot and tittle, but when the occasion calls for it, someone has to take charge and make a decision. Drucker emphatically states that making decisions is the key responsibility of leadership.

The bottom line here, again citing Aeon, is what you might expect: "As should be clear by now, we think that the bossless-company narrative has been badly oversold by its proponents."

I'm not suggesting that there is a perfect way to run an organization. Let's face it, businesses are made up of persons, people who are also struggling with issues of meaning, concealing areas of incompetence, pride and insecurities.

When all is said and done, this article is a pretty darned-good read. No Boss? No Thanks.

Here is the URL should the link be dead:
https://aeon.co/essays/no-boss-no-thanks-why-managers-are-more-important-than-ever