Fooled by Randomness

I'm re-reading a favorite book of mine (Fooled by Randomness, by Taleb Nassim) that is even more relevant now, watching the current financial follies. One premise is that most of the people who we revere as smart leaders are just lucky. They happened to be in the right place at the right time. They benefitted from "survivorship bias". Someone had to take the credit for good performance at their companies and the people who did were not smarter or better leaders, they were just lucky. A few years ago many people would have argued this point, but it seems obvious now.

It reminds me of Micheal Scott of The Office. In one episode his branch outperformed, and his boss called a meeting with him to find out how he achieved such success. Of course he took full credit, then went on spouting nonsense sprinkled with corporate lingo and platitudes (not unlike Obama or Bush). How many of our leaders are just lucky? Do they really have any talent? I'm not saying they're all lucky, but I'm sure we mistake luck for ability more than we care to admit.

He goes on to demonstrate how good luck leads to confidence, which leads to an aura of success that influences other people. So maybe the root of it all was some good fortune, but the resulting confidence and leadership is a real asset. Or maybe it's all just misleading, and we have the wrong people as leaders. If we could see past the randomness we would be better able to choose people who are good rather than lucky. Just food for thought.