> Why would we see a 80/20 distribution when most human abilities are distributed on a bell curve? Generally you get normal distributions (bell curves) when yo

> Why would we see a 80/20 distribution when most human abilities are distributed on a bell curve? Generally you get normal distributions (bell curves) when you add together random variables. For example, if you roll 10 dices and add their numbers, the probability distribution will look somewhat like a bell curve. And if overall employee performance was the sum of their normally distributed human abilities, you would get another bell curve. But it only works when add numbers. If you multiplied numbers instead of added them, you would get a log-normal distribution instead. Other processes can get you Pareto distributions (80/20). Employee performance is a not just a sum of their individual abilities, there are some synergies happening, giving a multiplicative effect. In other words, seeing a 80/20 type distribution shows that people are more than the sum of their parts, literally.