You Should Be So Lucky: Think Good Skills Determine Corporate Performance?The Conference Board Review - November/December 2008 |
Michael Raynor of Deloitte Consulting LLP, a Distinguished Fellow with Deloitte Research, discusses the role of luck in determining outcomes in the November/December 2008 issue of the Conference Board Review.
Michael asks the question, "Is remarkable performance always caused by remarkable behavior? Or does luck, fortune, chance — pick your poison — play a significant role in determining outcomes?"
An excerpt from Michael's article:
"[We]… looked at a dataset of more than 20,000 companies over 40 years and found fewer than 400 with performance profiles distinguishable from the rough and tumble of randomness. In our work, a particularly compelling fact emerged: The level of variation in the underlying system is high enough that it takes a long period of especially strong performance — often 10 to 15 years of results in the top 10 percent of the population — for a company to rise above the noise and distinguish itself.”
Download the attached article for a full perspective on how luck matters more than you realize.
You Should Be So Lucky
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