Most companies say they hire smart people. I have only heard one company admit to not always going after the smartest people in the room. The CFO at the time said “We hire from the half of the college class that makes the upper half possible.” An you know what, they now own their industry.
I see hard work as one of great equalizers at work. If we were like France and other countries that limit how many hours someone could work in a day/week then it would be much more about smarts. Smart is something that is largely out of our control. You think someone scores a 35 on the ACT through hard work? Now way, that is a gift.
I know looking for work life balance is a hot topic. But if the government starts limiting how much or hard someone can work they are limiting people’s success. Don’t believe me? How about if school limited how long students could study each night? If your student can’t learn the subject matter in that amount of time too bad. No tutors or extra work. I mean kids need school balance right?
Or how about if you had to pick your spouse just on looks? You couldn’t meet them or talk to them first. That would REALLY suck!
Why not just hire on smarts? Well, if the smartest person in the world did not show up to work then would it matter? No. What if the smartest person in your company was a real ass-hat and no one wanted to work with or for them? No bueno. Or when you are working towards a deadline of 8am the next morning and at 5pm the day before they say “sorry, I need to leave.”
I will take an average person who works hard and wants to learn over a lazy brilliant person any day of the week.
The Man
Hard work does not necessarily guarantee success, but no success is possible without hard work.
Dr. T.P Chia