The purpose of professional service companies is to help customers solve complex business problems.

When looking for ideas and solutions to solve problems, we should analyze the problems faced by customers and form our own opinions, so as to avoid confusion and overlap while ensuring the integrity of ideas. This is the famous MECE principle.

MECE (mutual exclusion, collective exhaustion)

It means "independent of each other and completely exhausted"

Its core idea is to clearly define all the elements of the problem through the method of gradual decomposition when analyzing the problem, and at the same time ensure that there is no intersection between these elements, so as to straighten out the thinking, effectively grasp the core of the problem and find a solution to the problem.

The viewpoint formed by MECE principle is the clearest (or least confusing) and most complete.

MECE principle requires that large and complex problems be divided into small and easy-to-solve sub-problems and a list of problems be made.

When you think you have identified the problem, please study this list carefully to ensure that the decomposition elements of each problem are independent and different. With this list, you need to check whether it contains all the elements related to the problem and ask yourself if there are any omissions (that is, complete exhaustion).

MECE principle can help us to clarify our thinking when analyzing problems-recognizing the problem is equivalent to solving half the problem.

On July 30th, 20 13, I attended the audit report meeting of Agricultural Bank of China. When discussing a specific audit problem, our team applied the MECE principle. After listening to my explanation, Yao Mingde, general manager of the financial accounting department, said, "Yes, this will be' neither heavy nor leaking'."

When I heard the word "neither heavy nor leaking", I thought it was the best Chinese translation of "MECE" that I had been looking for for for years. "No weight, no leakage" gives an accurate and vivid interpretation of MECE principle in concise language.

02 28 Rules

The "28 rule" is one of the greatest truths in the management consulting industry and even in the commercial field.

The "28 Rule" holds that there is an unexplained imbalance between cause and effect, input and output, effort and return.

Generally speaking, most inputs and efforts can only have a little impact, while only a few inputs and efforts can have a significant and significant impact. We define these inputs and efforts as "key drivers".

If we describe this imbalance mathematically, we will get an 80/20 relationship, that is, 80% of the results, outputs or returns depend on 20% of the reasons, inputs or efforts.

For example, about 80% of the global resources are consumed by 20% of the population; 80% of the wealth in the world is owned by 20% of people; In a country's medical system, 20% of the population and 20% of diseases will consume 80% of medical resources.

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