The Curse of Being Smart July 27, 2006
Posted by Andrew Wee in : business 2.0 , trackbackMost people are oriented towards being a thinker or a doer.
Thinkers tend to be better educated and having had the opportunity to go to a tertiary educational institution.
They tend to land white collar jobs and have relatively high starting salaries.
Doers while also possibly having a tertiary education, will tend to be adept in having hands-on skills and experience.
I am a thinker, a lot of my friends are thinkers.
We sit, we chat, we make plans to take over the business world.
And then we finish our round of drinks, break up and meet again the following week.
Rinse and repeat.
Doers on the other hand, tend to have action-oriented conversations. They talk about specifics of what they might do.
They might lack the overall ’strategy’ for going about doing what they plan to do.
They may think one step ahead, maybe two or three.
But the ‘big picture’ may be a pie-in-the-sky concept for them.
After all, actions speak louder than words.
Thinkers have a larger chance of success at what they do, because they will have well-thought out plans, factoring in worst case scenarios, ROIs, ROEs and all sorts of mathematical functions.
Doers however, may not have a complete game plan, or even a game plan.
The venture may have a higher rate of failure.
But the weird thing is that successful entrepreneurs are more likely to be doers, rather than thinkers.
Why is that?
Besides the process, there’s also the what happens after the outcome is achieved (whether success or failure).
The thinkers are likely to do an analysis, reflection, extended periods of navel gazing, call it what you will.
Doers on the other hand, will dust off their knees, get up, say to themselves, ‘ok, let’s not do that again’
They attempt to succeed again. And again. And again. Until success comes.
In the final analysis, a thinker might have a 40% chance of success, and he may attempt to succeed once, maybe twice.
On the other hand, a doer may have a 15% chance of success, but he will try and try, and try, and try, and try, and try until he succeeds.
Would you choose to be a thinker? Or a doer?
Popularity: 22%
Text Blog feed
If I have to choose, I would definately like to be a doer. Why? Cause doers can be a thinker while still having the zest of a doer, but for thinkers, they are usually stuck being a thinker their whole lifes.
Being a doer and a thinker at the same time is easier if you are a doer first.
tks for the comment, sudirwan.
to go a step further, we are all a mixture of thinkers and doers. just that some are more thinker than doer…