Sunday, January 02, 2005

Is it better to be lucky than smart?

I keep hearing the phrase: "You know what they say, 'Sometimes it's better to be lucky than smart.'"  A lot of times I think that's true; a lot of times I don't; sometimes I wonder who "they" are.

According to this post on Brand Autopsy, Bo Peabody has written the book on it called, not surprisingly, Lucky or Smart?  Secrets To An Entrepreneurial Life.  I haven't read it, but it just got added to my first Amazon order of 2005.  Here are some snippets (ok, it's actually one big snippet, but it's a good one) by way of the post on Brand Autopsy:

"B-students don’t know everything about anything and are excellent at nothing. B-students, however, know something about a lot of things, and they can complete almost any task with some modicum of success. Entrepreneurs are B-students. There is no one thing they do well. But there are many thing they do well enough.

A-students, on the other hand, know a lot about one thing, whether it is technology or marketing or sales and finance. And they do this thing extremely well. If they don’t do it well, it bothers them. A-students want to do things perfectly all the time. This is a very bad trait for an entrepreneur, but a very good trait for a manager.

The most important thing to realize when you’re a B-student entrepreneur is that you need A-student managers. You must listen to them. You have no choice. The good news is that A-students must also listen to B-students, because B-students know about aspects of life and business that A-students know nothing about. While most A-students are really good at one thing, they tend to be completely out to lunch when it comes to most everything else. On the other hand, B-students are really good at being sort of good at everything.

The sooner the B-students and the A-students understand and appreciate each other, the more productive everyone will be."

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