At no point in this book am I going to define ‘success’.
We all have an idea of what the term means but a precise definition is impossible.
(There is exactly the same trouble with the word ‘creativity’.)
Is it success in the eyes of the world:
winning an Olympic gold medal or at Wimbledon;
making a great deal of money;
running a large organization;
making things happen;
being awarded the Nobel Prize?
Or, is it personal success:
the person who toward the end of his or her life feels that it has been a happy, fulfilled, and enjoyed life?.
Which is the more successful, a man who has made millions but is unhappy and unsatisfied or an unnoticed person who has led a happy life?
There are clearly many different ways of looking at success and it is only the poverty of the English language which provides us with but a single word for them.
Perhaps the simplest definition is ‘to set out to do something and to succeed in doing it’.
Drucker+ mental landscape exploration
In this book we shall be looking at the lessons that might be learned from a number of people who would generally be regarded as ‘successful’.
This is not a personal selection in the sense that I believe these people to be the most successful, for there are many others who are just as successful but are not in this book.
Nor does the selection mean that I would choose the same route for myself or recommend it to all others.
For example, my own training approach is very different from that used by Werner Erhard, the founder of EST.
Nevertheless, Erhard has been extraordinarily successful with his training and is clearly a success.
To be successful you have
to be lucky, or a little mad,
or very talented,
or to find yourself in a rapid-growth field.
Each of these positions can be defended,
and I shall attempt to do so below.
Lucky
A hundred people set out to do the same thing.
They have the same personality characteristics and they behave in the same way.
Even the sequence of their actions is the same.
Yet two of those hundred succeed and the rest fail.
The difference between these people is that although they all acted in the same way the ‘timing’ of their actions was different.
For example, a cluster of property millionaires acted at the very moment when war-bombed London needed them most.
You may argue that that is no luck but perception (and I would be on your side), but there are times when unexpected events like the assassination of a president, a change in the law, a Middle East war, or a sudden scientific discovery make success (or disaster) out of an action which otherwise would have been pretty ordinary.
Sometimes there is a series of ‘ifs’ before something can be done.
You have to find the right property; the owner has to be willing to sell; the bank has to be willing to finance you; the property market has suddenly to rise; you have to find a buyer, etc.
If all the ‘ifs’ come right — many of which may be outside your control you are a success.
The main point is that if you look only at the two out of a hundred that succeeded you might attribute success to their personality, style, or course of action.
It may actually be no more than a lucky fall of the cards.
I have no doubt that some people have been very successful through sheer good luck.
There will be times when readers of this book will spot instances of-such luck.
This often happens when one person meets another who provides him with an opportunity.
If you play tennis with a girl and then marry her and then join her father in a booming television business, then that probably counts as some sort of luck.
In other cases luck is meeting just the right partner at an early stage.
It is remarkable how many successful people have come across a backup partner who provides the solidity and financial soundness to complement their entrepreneurial flair.
It can, of course, happen the other way around.
Sometimes a very gifted person has a run of very bad luck.
For example, he designs a fuel-saving car just when the price of oil drops.
Or, an important write-up on him (which might have changed his career) is not published because the newspaper happens to be on strike that week.
Others argue that luck may give the first opportunity, but then such characteristics as perception, determination, dealing with people, etc., turn that first opportunity into success.
They also arkue that if that opportunity had not come along, then another one would have.
A successful person would be successful whatever the initial opportunity.
The noted psychologist Professor Hans Eysenck says that he only went into psychology because he could not afford the year’s waiting that would be required for entry into another science area.
For myself, I do not feel that it is necessary to take a fierce position on this matter of luck.
Some people have been extremely lucky, some people have been extremely unlucky.
Some people have had a certain amount of luck and have built on it.
Some people have had virtually no luck and have still been successful.
There is a spectrum ranging from a great deal of luck to no luck at all.
As in so many other areas, I see no great virtue in taking a strongly polarized position.
With regard to the role of luck in success, there is, however, a practical point which must be considered.
If success is largely due to luck (a factor outside our control), then there is not too much point in reading about successful people except to admire the luck they have had.
For some people it is a comfortable thought that success may be due to luck.
It means that they do not have to do anything different but just to carry on and hope that luck — like winning a lottery ticket — might make them successful.
They may also feel there is no point in striving because without luck nothing will happen.
It is always comforting to feel that you are just as talented and just as worthwhile as the successful person but not quite as lucky.
There is a parallel attitude, prevalent in England, where success is more often a cause for jealousy than, as in America, for admiration.
The attitude attributes all success to a small talent plus a great deal of salesmanship.
This enables the less successful person to feel just as good as the successful person except that the latter has used salesmanship (often much despised in England) to market the talent.
The positive attitude toward luck is very different.
The positive attitude is that you put yourself in a position to take the maximum advantage of-any luck that comes your way.
The positive attitude means that you are able to carry to success whatever turns up by luck.
The Return on Luck
The positive attitude means that you are very ready to spot opportunities, and it also means that you may generate such opportunities deliberately.
This attitude acknowledges luck as a possible ingredient in some cases of success and then places the operational emphasis on the other ingredients, such as determination, strategy and style.
A Little Mad
As the reader will discover in this book, successful people are often very single minded and determined.
Indeed, it would be possible to pick this out as the one characteristic common to almost all successful people.
It can take the form of drive: if you want something hard enough, you will get it.
It can take the form of ruthlessness: let nothing stand between you and your goal.
It can take the form of a strong sense of purpose: know exactly where you want to go and get there.
It can take the form of determination and persistence: accept failure only as a step on the path to success.
This type of determination comes close to fanaticism and what might be called ‘a little madness’.
It implies a rather unnatural view of life, because one single goal becomes more important than any others.
A person may be willing to sacrifice his wife, his children, his friends, his health, and even his life for his goal.
At times the goal may seem very much like an obsession.
At its extreme, obsession is a form of madness.
There are many advantages to powerful determination and a strong sense of direction.
The sense of direction urges action.
The sense of direction shapes the action.
The sense of direction allows the value of the action to be assessed: has it got me nearer to my goal?
The sense of direction allows all judgments and decisions to be made more easily: does this help me toward my goal or does it hinder me?
Most people in their ordinary lives lack such a strong sense of value when taking a decision.
Most people may have to take into account a soup of different factors such as family, health, enjoyment, career, etc., when making a decision.
The strongly success-orientated person only takes into account one thing: the path to success.
As with luck there is, of course, a spectrum.
At one end is the ruthless obsessed tyrant who could properly be called mad.
At the other end of the spectrum is the person vho enjoys what he or she is doing, enjoys his life and friends, and just seems to stumble into success (as with Nolan Bushnell, Norman Lear, or Sir Clive Sinclair).
Readers may be surprised to find that most of the people in this book seem to fall into this second grouping.
Determination and ruthlessness always seem to suggest a person who wants success and power for their own sake and as an extension of his or her personality.
There is, however, another sort of obsession.
This is when a person is enslaved by an idea.
The person wants to see the idea work, wants to make it happen.
Power, riches, and fame have virtually nothing to do with it.
Determination can spring from this sort of obsession.
There is even a further sort of determination.
This is where someone sets out to do something and takes the first few steps.
There is then a determination to see things through, to finish that job.
Once one block has been placed on top of another, there is a compulsion to finish the building.
This characteristic also becomes clear in some of the people mentioned in this book.
All these characteristics are somewhat abnormal insofar as normal people tend to be rather passive and multidirectional (less focused).
That is why I have said that successful people may seem to be a ‘little mad’.
From a practical point of view it does matter whether we attribute success to a particular type of personality.
Some people may feel that since their own personality is not ‘driven’ in this way, then there is little they can learn by reading about people who are so driven.
Like the ‘luck’ explanation of success, this is defeatist and passive.
I would not want to get into an argument as to whether people can or cannot change their personalities (through awareness, training, counselling, or environmental change).
It is not easy for someone to become ruthless by just willing himself or herself to be ruthless.
Later in the book the reader will see how some very successful executives still find it difficult to be ruthless (Lord Forte says that he hates to fire people, although that is the right course of action).
A reader can, however, try to become more single minded and more focused.
Once a reader perceives that a strong sense of direction may be an ingredient for success, it is possible to do something about it (for instance, by dropping other projects).
A person who will not take ‘no’ for an answer and writes ten letters runs the danger of being a nuisance and a pest but may be more successful than the person who is turned off by the first refusal.
Such things may arise naturally from a personality or they may be adopted as strategy.
You cannot will yourself to have a foul temper (even if this often seems to be most useful for success), but you can become much better at saying what you do not like.
It may well be that having successoriented characteristics by virtue of your personality is much more effective neyertheless adopting some of them as deliberate strategies can also be valuable.
Very Talented
Chess geniuses, athletes, tennis players, pianists, architects, dress designers, advertising creative directors may all seem to owe their success to a great deal of talent.
Obviously the talent is there at the time of their success.
Has it always been there at least potentially?
Whether it is always true or not, we can accept a ‘yes’ answer at this point.
But that is the beginning, not the end of the story.
There can be talent but there may have to be hard work and training before that talent can succeed against others.
There can be talent but there may also have to be strategy — for example, Bjorn Borg’8 ‘low error’ strategy was important.
There can be talent but there may also have to be the right mental attitude: for example, the ‘killer instinct’ which Virginia Wade seems to lack.
It may be a matter of unlocking the talent, or maximizing it or building upon it.
Maria Callas put a great deal of effort into making the best of her talent.
There are times when a phenomenal natural talent soars above all others — and so it should be.
Most of the time, however, it is a competition between talents which are not so phenomenal, and in that competition the difference is often made by the effort put in to make the most of the natural talent.
In practical terms, what is the most useful attitude toward natural talents?
For people with high natural talents, the practical step is to make the most of them.
For people with moderate natural talents, the most practical step is to make the most of them.
For people with no talent at all, the most practical step is to focus on a field where success does not depend so heavily on natural talent as an ingredient.
In both the first two instances it is rarely sufficient to sit back and leave it all to ‘natural talent’.
So in reading this book it is useful to see how those with talent have made the best use of that talent.
Where there seems to be no natural talent, then it makes sense as far as possible to substitute for talent (preferably in a field where talent is not essential) by hard work, training, experience, and strategy.
If you can do complicated mathematics in your head, that is very talented.
If you cannot, then use a pencil and paper.
Even better, delegate the maths to a computer.
There are said to be detectives who work through a Sherlock Holmes-type flair.
There, are others who use hard work and detailed work.
The key question is whether hard work and training are really a waste of time where there is little talent.
The only useful answer is to try it and see what happens.
If hard work is really getting you nowhere (as may be the case in a field which relies heavily on talent for success) then it may well be a waste of time.
More usually, hard work will make a great improvement but will not take you to the very top most ranks.
This brings us to another question: are there levels of success and is the top-most success the only one worth having?
Does every player who goes to Wimbledon really think he or she is going to win the championship — or is it success enough to play there?
In conclusion, as with luck and ‘a little madness’, there is a difference between the passive and negative attitude and the positive one.
The passive attitude says that there is nothing that can be done: either there is talent or there is not.
The positive attitude says that natural talent can be maximized and also that without further effort natural talent will be wasted.
Rapid Growth Field
The computer industry is a growth industry, and within that industry software is a growth field.
The steel industry is not a growth industry.
Clearly it is easier, as I write, to be successful in the computer industry than in the steel industry.
Property has always been such a promising field.
So is insurance.
The oil industry has its ups and downs but it has also been an area in which individuals could make fortunes.
It is both the growth of the field that matters and also the nature of the transaction within that field.
It is easier for a person to make his name in investment banking than in retail banking.
It is easier to make a name as a journalist than as a school-teacher.
Clearly there are some situations in which it is easier to be a success than in others.
It is easy for a general to become a success in war but rather more difficult in times of peace.
The most likely way to make a good living out of creative imagination may be to go into advertising.
With the term ‘rapid growth field’ I intended to indicate also another point.
If the field is really growing rapidly, then any person in that field may simply be carried along with the growth and not have to contribute very much to his or her own success.
Riding the bandwagon has always been one road to success.
There is usually room for several people on the bandwagon.
The pioneer in the field may or may not be successful, but those who come in very soon after the field is established can be carried along by its explosive growth.
Getting into a rapid growth field may be a matter of luck or choice.
You may simply happen to be in a field that starts to grow rapidly.
You may choose to get into a field that you think may start to grow.
You may choose to move smartly into a field as soon as you spot that the field is on the move.
In show-jumping you can be a brilliant rider who gets the very best out of a difficult horse.
Or you can make sure that you choose for yourself the very best horse around and then just hang on and let the horse do it for you.
There is a certain heroism in the first approach and more sense in the second.
What if your temperament and talents are suited to a field that is not growing?
What if the growing field demands talents you do not have?
If you are no good at writing software, should you get into that field?
You could always market the software or finance software companies or hire people to write the software for your company.
It is well worth looking around to see the many ways you can be in a field.
The real estate world has deal-makers, developers, financiers, lawyers, contractors, etc.
Sometimes there is a sort of ‘talent trap’.
A youngster is good at maths at school so he or she gets channelled into a career that uses mathematics.
But that youngster may have been almost as good at organization and might have become a chief executive of a major corporation instead of a professor of mathematics.
Talent in one direction does not always mean that there is no talent in any other direction.
If you are suited to a slow-moving field, it is only too easy to feel that you will not be able to shift to another field that is growing more rapidly.
Far too many youngsters who showed some aptitude for art at school have had their lives ruined by that small talent which has led them into a field so difficult even for the most talented.
de Bono’s view
I do not really believe that to be successful you have to be lucky, or a little mad, or very talented, or to find yourself in a rapid growth field.
I have put forward this view simply because it is one that many people hold.
I believe, as I have tried to show, that these things may all be ingredients in success.
In the case of any individual, one or other ingredients may have played an important role.
In other cases it would be hard to ascribe an important role to any of these ingredients.
The explanation provided for the success of a person may be simple or it may be complex.
Determination in a rapidly growing field may be enough.
Talent and some luck may be enough.
In other cases, it is a complex composite not only of the ingredients mentioned but also of many others.
For example, a sense of humor may be an ingredient that protects an individual from the depression that may accompany failure.
An ability to assess people may be a hugely important ingredient to someone whose success has depended on choosing the right people and then letting them get on with the job.
That is why this book is worth reading.
In this book
In this book there are things that are obvious and clear.
There are things that I shall comment upon and spell out sometimes even when they appear so obvious that they hardly need spelling out.
There are things which are hidden and subtle and can only be noticed by reading between the lines.
There are also complex constellations of factors and characteristics which the reader is entitled to assemble in any way he or she wants.
There is always the reader’s privilege of noticing what I have noticed and then going further.
Agreement or disagreement with the author or the interviewees is not particularly relevant because the book is offered as an exploration rather than a thesis.
Read and explore and use any conclusions to help you reach your own.
If you do not agree with my conclusion then make yourself a better one.
Tactics
You do not have to want to be successful.
You do not have to value success.
But If you do want to be successful, then there are two attitudes.
The first is the passive attitude, which tells you that there is nothing you can do except wait for luck or pray for the right talent and temperament.
The second is the positive attitude, which tells you that there are things that you can do that will make a difference.
For example, reading this book and taking note of what seems important to you.
The positive attitude toward luck is to be ready for it, to spot it, to make the maximum use of it — but not to sit around waiting for it.
Knowing what you want to do, determination, and persistence are important.
You may have these qualities by temperament or as a strategy.
Make the most of your talent and do not expect it to be enough by itself.
Do not be trapped into one field by some talent for that field.
In some fields it is just much easier to be successful than in others.
The ‘me-too’ and bandwagon effect has always been powerful, so try to choose not only an opportunity field but preferably a growing one.
Read this book in an exploratory sense.
Note what I have noticed and then go farther.
Why bother?
