Say you are a boss (or maybe you already are).
You have an employee who's brilliant, gets his work done very fast, solves complex problems, etc, but is very apathetic and always leaves at 5PM. Basically like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting - while complicated for most people, all of the work is "a fucking joke" to him. (
)You have another employee who's not so bright, takes forever to get his work done (because he's an idiot), but is very willing to learn, work hard, and put in long hours. This is like Kramer in this Seinfeld episode, but imagine that the employee is actually getting the stuff right: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bU6m5UqLx9M)
Imagine that at the end of the day, both get their work done. Which one would you rather have as an employee?
The first.
It is relatively easy to find people that are of average intelligence, but competent in what they do. A business needs these to sustain itself.
But what is most valuable above all in an employee or entrepreneur, is creativity. And it is in those individuals who have sufficient intelligence and a diversity of experiences that usually possesses the trait.
Actually a study was just published where a couple thousand CEOs were interviewed and by a wide margin the trait they most desire in an employee was creativity. Not brains, or discipline, but creativity.
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/31670.wss
I suppose it's all about incentives. You can motivate the first guy to work harder while appreciating the second to go on. Eventually he will become smarter.
The first if he's actually brilliant. Often you have these guys with only average intelligence thinking they're the shit and doesn't take work seriously.
i would go with the second cause he doesn't have a fucking attitude.
banking isn't rocket science and being efficient can only cut down your hours so much.
better to have someone who isn't that smart but has the work ethic of a fucking horse.
What if I wasn't talking about banking - what if it was something that takes a normal person 8 hours / day to do. The first guy takes 1 hour and the last guy takes over 12 hours.
Obviously you strive for efficiency in the work place. Ideally worker one would want to work just as long as worker 2, as this would lead to a jump in overall production. Since this isn't the case you have to address fit. There are jobs that require creativity, brilliance, etc. and jobs that require you to be a work horse. Neither of these individuals is worse, they just need to be used in a way that will best utilize their given talents.
Another thing to consider is whether I'm paying these workers by the hour. If this were the case then the obvious answer would be worker one, as this would lead to lower labor costs. If I'm paying them a salary, the answer becomes a little more dicey. Could I close my office earlier if I were to hire worker one? Thus reducing utility costs.
The reality of this situation is that it depends entirely on the situation. Like I said, there are some jobs that require worker bees and some that require brilliance. There is no clear cut answer to this problem.
It somewhat depends. If the second is handicapped from improving, then obviously the first. But a good boss can get the most out of either employee.
There is a massive amount of zero-thought grunt work in business that only requires a little bit of discipline. Very few jobs in business and even high finance require a spectacular intellect.
There is always work for a diligent but dim-witted person.
I personally hate laziness. You can bring a horse to water, but you can't make it drink.
+1 That movie is friggin retarded. You cant tell me that some punk kid is a better mathematician than a fields medal winner.
Then you've never hung around with engineering/math/cs kids. It's not rare that kids are smarter than professors, especially at top schools
I have a masters in the subject. Sure there are kids that are smarter than their profs, but that does not make them better mathematicians due to the extra practice the teachers have. However, the guy in the movie had a friggin fields medal. Do you know what that is? What that means? Most of my profs went to elite universities for grad school, and none of them got a fields medal.
well i'd take the first because it seems like they are performing the same function and the second person needs to get paid OT (maybe not sure)
also you could try and get the 1st person to do the jobs of 3 type 2 people and pay them double or 3 times what you are now
Both, as long as they get their work done.
If I cannot incentivize the first one to work hard, of course I will choose the second. Always believe ability, leadership and other stuff can be trained, but attitude is something very hard to change.
Absolutely the second one, Even if a person is brilliant the work ethic is more vital. Someone who puts hours into a problem will more than likely think of multiple ways to fix the problem. They are looking at it longer and have a better chance of thinking outside the box on it. Even if the person is stupid, they still have the work ethic to get it done. Eventually it will click and the persons current respondsibilities will become easy to them. The first person is great as a person that gets jobs done but I wouldn't want him. He would never amount to more than he currently is. The first person has no desire to learn and no desire to push himself, in other words he is usefully useless. He is good for brain dead jobs that don't require creativity or time. The second person wants to be there and that makes all the difference.
You can get over laziness with proper incentives, there are however people that are just plain dumb... and for that there's no solution... Also a lazy person (as long as he does his job right) won't make you lose a million, now hire a dumb trader and it is an all diferent story...
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