[ARCHIVED THREAD] - intelligence vs hard work (Page 1 of 2)
Posted: 8/14/2013 9:23:18 AM EDT
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which wins.
lets say you have two guys in a corporate environment one has the brains / one has the willingness to work his tail off and do whatever is necessary stay late etc which one moves up and succeeds? |
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The smart lazy person will get the hard-working dummy to work for him...
In reality, it depends what their "higher-ups" want from them, different companies have different expectations. Neither of the two (hard working dummy vs. lazy brain) are likely be at the top of the food chain. |
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There's a point of diminishing returns when it comes to labor. Once you have produced your best work, making more of it is still going to be more of your best work. If you're not intelligent, you're not going to improve your best work or the way in which you create it.
I'd take three intelligent workers over nine unbreakable slaves any day. You can't get excellence by doubling-down on mediocrity. |
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A little of both, but I still lean towards hard work. Intelligence may get you in the door, but hard work is what will get you promoted.
I was in the middle/lower tier of my engineering class. It was tough for me to get good jobs right out of college due to not having the greatest GPA. I somehow got into my current company and have busted my ass for them over the last 5 years. I now do pretty well for myself and get annual raises and regular promotions, and have only been out of school for 6 years. |
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Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. - Calvin Coolidge |
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It's a crapshoot. Or a combination.
Some of the hardest working and intelligent people I have ever met haven't amounted to much. Then there are some, like the guy I work for (who started from nothing, and now his net worth increases annually in the seven figure range) who have a combination of intelligence and worth ethic do very well in life. Another guy I know is not on the upper end of the intelligence scale, but has made more money than he knows what to do with. I mean REAL wealth. $100 million dollar (at least), personal wealth. That man doesn't stop working. 5am on Christmas morning? He's in his office. So you just never know... some people make it, and some don't. Neither is a sure-fire way to the top. |
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My washing machine works hard, everyday. Seriously, a combination of those things and not being a social retard. intelligence covers adaptability and divergent thinking, being able to fix problems before they compound is important, more so than working really hard on fucking up.
Being able to have a conversation with the guys who work and the c level guys is optimal. |
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Depends.
Do they both achieve the same amount of output or results? Is the smarter guy producing the same with less effort than the other guy? For example. Two sales guys. Both are required to get ten sales or sell $10,000 of product a day. Smart guy hardly looks busy but gets it done fast and easy. Does the other guy always look like he's busting his balls, staying late, and doing weekends to get the same amount of work done? If that's the case then the smart guy. Another example would be in IT. Smart guy knows programming, or scripts, or uses images to set up new pcs. The hard working guy does everything manually and takes a hell of a lot longer to get the same amount of work done. Or is the smart guy lazy and gets less work done than the other guy? |
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Quoted:
Also the older I get, and the more people I get to know, I find that these two traits are found in the same folks more often than not. Part of intellect is knowing when and how to apply "hard work." The answer is definitely not "all the time." Intelligence means learning and improving on what you are doing and how you are doing it so that you can eventually not have to work as much or as hard. Nothing wrong with that. |
| It takes both plus luck to succeed.Almost all major corps. that fail are managed by people with college degrees.The smartest man I ever worked for had a GED. I know a guy who owns his own trucking company that cannot read or write. He can only sign his name, but he has made millions. |
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Depends on the job description.
An intelligent person can manage several hard workers and be fine. A hard worker can't always manage several intelligent people because the intelligent people will question what's asked of them if they think they're way is better. Without the right personality, the hard worker just takes it on themselves and burns out. Performance based incentives are going to favor hard workers but you as a manager has to keep an eye on through-puts affect on precision. |
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Quoted:
which wins. lets say you have two guys in a corporate environment one has the brains / one has the willingness to work his tail off and do whatever is necessary stay late etc which one moves up and succeeds? Where I am #2. It's all about "diversity" the company is unable to distinguish what intelligence is. |
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One thing that has continually perplexed me over the last several years... is just HOW LONG it takes to learn something completely foreign and new. There is just TOO much to learn if you want to become an entrepreneur. One person just cannot do it all. For example, you have to get a website on a budget, so then you need to learn HTML, PHP, Python, and MYsql... before that you have to learn how to setup a linux server from scratch. You have to learn about accounting, corporate finance, and business; then you have to know enough about business law to understand how to manage the company properly and not damage the corporate veil. You have to learn about marketing, and computer networking, servers, human resources, payroll taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, and securities laws, etc. The list goes on and on and on. Entrepreneurs and business managers just cannot possibly know everything there is to know about every single detail of the business. Therefore, corporations have a vested interest in keeping the sled dogs as, well... sled dogs, for as long as possible because they need them to be the cogs that keep the machine running.
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Quoted: Poster boy for not needing intelligence nor the willingness to work. All you need is the right skin color and the willingness to sucker people into believing you. http://www.biography.com/imported/images/Biography/Images/Profiles/O/Barack-Obama-12782369-2-402.jpg I am not such a fan of the current President either, but you cannot say he didn't work hard. You don't get accepted to and graduate from Harvard Law as an editor on law review and not work hard. Yes he wants to turn America into western Europe... but he didn't just sit on his ass for 20 years turning bolts at a factory either. |
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Quoted:
- Calvin Coolidge Quoted:
Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence.
Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race. - Calvin Coolidge Damn it, someone beat me to it. Coolidge was right. Intelligence helps, but it doesn't do much without the work to back it up. |