Get Smart!: How to Think and Act Like the Most Successful and Highest-Paid People in Every Field
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- Nothing Replaces Experience
| Better to Be Right As the psychologist Jerry Jampolsky once wrote, Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?” It is amazing how many people come up with anew product or service idea and then fall in love with the idea long before they validate whether or not this is something that a sufficient number of customers are willing to buy and pay for. Keep gathering information until the proper course of action becomes clear, as it eventually will. Check and double-check your facts. Assume nothing on faith. Ask, How do we know that this is true?” Finally, search for the hidden flaw, the one weak area in the decision that could prove fatal to the product or business if it occurred. J. Paul Getty, once the richest man in the world, was famous for his approach to making business decisions. He said, We first determine that it is a good business opportunity. Then we ask, What is the worst possible thing that could happen to us in this business opportunity We then go to work to make sure that the worst possible outcome does not occur.” If you can gather all the information you need, and you can neutralize or remove the hidden flaw, you will make vastly better decisions than others. Nothing Replaces Experience This is where experienced thinking versus inexperienced thinking can be so valuable. Nothing replaces experience in a fast-moving, rapidly changing business or industry. Certain invaluable lessons can only be learned by trial and error, by having countless experiences and making innumerable mistakes in a particular area. Experienced people develop what is called pattern recognition. When they are exposed to anew or existing business situation, they can identify patterns that they have seen before that led to either successor failure. They can immediately anticipate things that might happen that would render the business investment or decision invalid. They can quickly identify holes in the reasoning supporting the new idea. Because of the many patterns that they have seen in the past, they can quickly focus on the critical elements that can lead to successor failure. B ECOME A M ASTER OF THE G AME In a study of chess players, from local chess champions up to international grand masters, the researchers assumed that the difference in their levels of success was the players ability to predict far more potential moves than their opponents could make in any given game. Then they found that chess players, at all levels, seldom think more than three or four moves ahead. Thinking any further ahead than that is not helpful to winning. Instead, they found that at each level of expertise, the players recognized more patterns on the board than a player at a previous level, which could only come from experience. The grand master could glance at aboard and almost instantly see as many as fifty thousand possible combinations of the pieces. He could accurately guess what move the opponent was likely to make given the existing pattern of the pieces on the board. As a result, a chess champion could play and win against ten, twenty, and even thirty opponents simultaneously. He could walk from board to board, glance quickly, recognize the pattern, make a decision, and move his piece. Then goon to the next board. E XPERIENCE C OUNTS It is the same in business and the professions. Because of extensive experience, which cannot be gained quickly or easily, the expert can rapidly assess a complex situation and immediately suggest a solution that was simply not obvious to a person with less experience. The CEOs of Fortune 500 companies earn more than $10 million per year on average. This is almost solely because of their ability to react and respond quickly to complex situations, examples of which they have seen and worked within the past, and then make quick and accurate decisions that lead to financial results, sometimes involving millions or billions of dollars. Download 0.86 Mb. Share with your friends:
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