Why Dumb People Succeed!
In this series of posts, Arnaud looks back to the active working life of the past 35 years or so and shares his perspective on corporate life. All are based on real experiences although any resemblance with real people is purely coincidental.
As a sequel to my previous article ‘Why Stupid People Think they are Smart.” here the logical follow-up. It strikes me that there are a set of very obviously incompetent people who somehow always seem to do so well in a large enterprise. On the other hand, there are loads of smart people that struggle to get recognition the recognition they deserve. In this article, I shared some reasons how this odd phenomenon is happening, how this can be identified, and what one can do about it….or not..
The 30th President of the US Calvin Coolidge said, “Nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent.” Little did he know that 90 years later this statement was proven to be so right with his 15th successor. However, this privilege is not reserved for presidents it, unfortunately, happens in every company. Even to those with a Mediterranean CEO.
Reason 1: It helps to be dumb!
Huh? Intelligent people tend to overthink things, consider all options and study all elements of an assignment. As a result, they often need more time to come to a conclusion and are less action-oriented. On the other side, it helps if you do not have all that intellectual baggage and jump to a conclusion with only a small set of data, even if that conclusion is not correct. Sometimes it helps to just do something! Towards the outside world — especially management — this action-oriented attitude scores many points.
It is scientifically proven that smart leaders will actually be perceived by the people under (and above) them as less effective, even if they are actually being MORE effective. This holds true across business and politics. Dumb leaders get promoted or elected ahead of their more qualified peers.
Think about this when you are about to start that expensive MBA study!
Reason 2: Dumb people tend to be stubborn
You’ve got to be pretty ignorant to get good at something when everyone else is telling you to stop doing it.
Two essential personal characteristics help you to achieve here. The ability to not listen (read talk a lot) and be the most stubborn person in the room.. Even when your own ‘gut feeling’ is telling you to stop — you’ve got to be pretty stubborn to persist anyway.
Reason 3: Stupid people talk a lot
The worst thing that can happen is to have a dump person that is a talented talker that does not stop talking.
Unfortunately, that is not too much of a rare combination. Self-promotion combined with a subtle manner to put others in a negative spotlight seems to be prevalent by this corporate population. More than often they talk so much that others just give up arguing. The ability to convince others is a key requirement to succeed.
Arguing with them is a confrontation and it is proven that we tend to avoid confrontation when we interact with others, so we let them go, even when what they say does not make any sense.
Reason 4: Stupid people are smart
Finally. strangely enough, Stupid People are often also Smart. With just dumbness as the sole skill, you won't get there at the end. The curious thing is that dumb people have a pretty good view of who are the smart ones around them.
Somehow they are smart enough to use these smart ones to their own benefit and are able to leverage their achievements to their OWN advantage. It is as like they are able to create a shield of smartness around them by having the smarties work to their benefit. Especially if they are senior to them this is a proven approach. Of course, it requires a certain level of smartness to make this happen. For this, I also refer to the first article in this sequence.
In this context, I have to share a genius medium post addressing the same issue. It explains the various types of people in an organisation, and focuses on the CB, also known as the corporate bullshitters. Find a link to this article below.
So How do we fix this?
I have bad news …. this will not get fixed. You are stuck with this. The seniors of these dumb colleagues benefit from their success and eliminating these dumb ones will impact their own achievements.
Your only hope is to leave….or retire….
