Smart + Hard Working + Charismatic = Crazy Successful

Posted on December 16, 2009 by amit

There’s the old project management saying: good, cheap and fast… pick two.

In the business world I’ve noticed that three characteristics generally determine success: smart, hard working and charismatic. Sure, the definition of success widely varies but for the purposes of this post, I’ll define it as, “the ability to achieve lofty goals.”

If you have one of these characteristics above you can get by fairly well. The smart, lazy, boring gal who manages to muddle away at her corporate job, she’s doin’ alright.

If you’ve got two of the above characteristics you are in the top quartile of successful people.  The dogged, friendly sales guy is makin’ it rain but won’t get to CEO.

But the ladies and gents who really crush it, are the ones who are intelligent, relentless and likable. While smarts can’t generally be picked up, the other two can be cultivated.  Work harder then everyone else, make sure you genuinely care about the people you work with (never sacrifice relationships for individuals project deliverables) and you’ll get to where you wanna be.

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  • danielgabrieli
    Strike fear into the heart of your opponents and take what you can, when you can. Like Shaq.

    I'd write more but I need to muddle in my cube some more.
  • @sandip - i do believe charisma can be cultivated to some extent. more important though is demonstrating to the people that you actually care about them. that's more important

    @elroy - while I agree that working is smart is better then working hard, though from my experience it's the guys (and gals) who work effectively and longer then everyone else are the ones that really make it big. perception is also a tricky one, there are tradeoffs between making sure your team gets credit and you do as well. in the end i feel like it's better to try and push off most credit to the people around you. also perception of hours (although shouldn't) seem to matter. by just being there, sitting in your desk for long hours, seems to earn you respect (i hate this)
  • Like the post. One more aspect which I think is important to be successful in business is having a vision. At times even the smartest of people loose sight of the larger picture of what they are doing.

    Buy the way are you sure someone can really cultivate a quality like "CHARISMA"?
  • Simply put. Cheers!
  • Nice thoughts. Agree with most of them, accept maybe the hard work part. I’ve never been a fan of working hard, especially harder than anyone else. For me the benchmark is more of whether I can work smarter than anyone else, do more effectively in lesser time than anyone else.
    I guess my mantra for success is more a combination of smarts and charisma only. Personally, I’d say, put in the hours that you need to do the job well, ensure that you like and maybe at least respect the people that you work with and of course ensure that you do it as “smartly” as possible.
    In addition to this, if you can take on additional tasks, definitely do so. I found a whole new level of learning and growth from taking on such tasks.
    Of course, all this is pointless if at the end of the day people don’t perceive you as having done it all. That’s the last bit in the success formula, being perceived correctly as having done what you have done.
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