Going up it’s hard work…. going down is bad luck
The myth of meritocracy
It is a fascinating construct of human psychology how quickly we sight our own hard efforts when things go well, but blame bad luck when they go poorly. Successful business folk, sports people and companies are all a source of study — how did they get on top? What tips can we gleam that might get us ahead? If it worked for them then and we just copy their “secrets” maybe we will have similar success.
Whats missing from this narrative is the question of luck. Yes, successful people work hard and get to an above average level. But that is true of lots of people. Writes Robert H. Frank in the excellent book “Success and Luck — good fortune and the myth of meritocracy”
If performance depends almost entirely on ability and effort, our intuitions tell us that those with the most talent and drive will almost inevitably prevail. Those intuitions are strongly supported by the observation that the winners in highly competitive arenas almost always are, in fact, highly driven and talented people.
But let luck matter in even the most trivial ways and our intuitions begin to unravel. The contests that determine society’s biggest economic winners invariably attract an enormous number of contestants. Many if not most of them will be enormously talented and energetic.
In most cases, however, those who prevail would not have done so if they had not also been unusually lucky.
There is an entire self help industry built around finding the secrets of the successful people in the world and teaching these hacks. Almost always missing from the narrative is “and I just got lucky…!”
This is becoming increasing of relevance as the digital era continue to concentrate wealth in a smaller and smaller number of individual. The narrative these people in the top 1% tell each other is that they worked hard, they deserve it. It is no-one’s right but there own to decide how they are going to spend their hard won spoils of success.
And yet studies have shown that statistically the biggest drivers of your chances of success hinge mostly on where in the world you are born, your sex, your race, the school you are able to attend. Factors all determined by your parents — in other words you are born lucky. Back to Robert H. Frank
Chance events are more likely to be decisive in any competition as the number of contestants increases. That’s because winning a competition with a large number of contestants requires that almost everything go right. And that, in turn, means that even when luck counts for only a trivial part of overall performance, there’s rarely a winner who wasn’t also very lucky.
… With very large contestant pools, then, there will almost always be someone who is almost as skillful as the most talented contestant, but is also significantly luckier. So even when luck counts for only a tiny fraction of total performance, the winner of a large contest will seldom be the most skillful contestant, but will usually be one of the luckiest.
Scott Galloway highlight in his post how he was effectively born on “Third Base” when it came to the game of life, focusing on how more and more economic policies, particularly in America and the western world, are protecting the privileged position of the the wealthy. These individuals somehow through life got lucky but now are using their wealth and power to skew the playing board so far in their favour they cannot help but continue to be lucky.
Not recognizing your blessings feeds into the dark side of capitalism and meritocracy: the notion that success is a choice, and that those who haven’t achieved success are not unlucky, but unworthy. This leads to regressive policies that further reward the perceived winners and punish the perceived losers based on income level. (Galloway)
Writer Michael Lewis highlights how research has shown how strongly this luck reinforces a narrative of entitlement which permeates society.
The grotesque inequality between the haves and the have-nots is seldom framed as a problem that the haves might privately help to resolve. Instead, it is a problem the have-nots must persuade their elected officials to do something about, presumably against the wishes of the haves.
…the problem isn’t that the kind of people who wind up on the pleasant side of inequality suffer from some moral disability that gives them a market edge.
The problem is caused by the inequality itself: it triggers a chemical reaction in the privileged few. It tilts their brains. It causes them to be less likely to care about anyone but themselves or to experience the moral sentiments needed to be a decent citizen.
(As a side note Lewis is only too aware of how important a role luck has played through his life as highlighted in his 2012 Princeton commencement speech.)
Several thought leaders (notably female!) have started challenging with increasing influence the notion of a self made success story which is seeing economic policy’s that cut taxes and funding of public services on the premise that freeing this money up for the wealth will see it used more effectively for social good.
Mariana Mazzucato, Kate Rawtworth, Elizabeth Warren, Jacqueline Novogratz — all have campaigned and started driving successful change in how society views the role of government in our lives and how destructive the capitalist narrative of success, hard work and meritocracy is.
There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. You built a factory out there, good for you…. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police and firefighters that the rest of us paid for…. You built a factory and it turned into a great idea, God bless — keep a big hunk of it, but part of the underlying social contract is that you take it and pay it forward for the next kid that comes along. (Elisabeth Warren — Youtube)
Two key takeaways for me from this:
Firstly you have to position yourself to take advantage of the luck that comes your way. Louis Pasteur wrote that “luck favours the prepared mind” — this means reading things and experiencing things, and accumulating knowledge and understanding. And then being attentive to how, in the light of this knowledge, new experience can spark off new things. (Will Buckingham)
Secondly, when and if you are lucky in the game of life (and I would suggest most reading this post are already there), stay humble enough to realise the role luck has played. How can you use this privilege to to contribute back and enhance the luck of others?
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