I recently completed reading the book “The Drunkard’s Walk” by Leonard Mlodinow. As revealed in the subtitle, “How Randomness Rules Our Lives,” the book is an interesting look at a statistical proof of the roles variable components of what we call luck play in determining success and failure.

Common examples helped to solidify some of the perceptions that many of us have felt intuitively. For example, we all know of a previously successful baseball manager whose team is not performing up to par. The manager gets fired, and the team suddenly goes on a winning streak. Some owners and fans like to think that the sudden changes in the team’s fortunes are the results of the wisdom of the owner and the new manager’s talent. Yet most sober-minded people intuitively know that a couple of key hits here or there or a couple of double play balls by the opposition at critical times largely determine this new and better outcome. Viewed differently, during the team’s slump, individual players were statistically performing below their norm; now they are not, and somehow the new manager gets all the credit. This certainly corresponds to the old maxim for success in coaching as the ability to get good players. If you have enough “good” players, then performance aberrations by one or two can be absorbed. But when a majority of even good players fail to perform, the very real human desire to improve the situation occurs, and now we’re back to firing the manager as the solution.

What struck me as particularly applicable to the world of entrepreneurs is the ongoing struggle that entrepreneurial managers have in attempting to control their world, the role that chance plays and the tendency to interpret ambiguous evidence as support for preconceived ideas.

We all know of instances where we form opinions and then work very hard to present or interpret other opinions as facts for support. In business this is often the case for selective interpretation of customer desires and wants. All of us carry around existing biases, and it is very difficult for us to reach truly objective conclusions. These irrational discussions cloaked in the guise of rationality can be most readily seen in the marketing and communications functions. Opinions of an approach are formed, plans are implemented, then untold amounts of energy and resources are dedicated to justifying the correctness of the plan. It is as if the need to be seen as correct replaces the need to be correct. You can easily see the damage and subsequent results such patterns produce.

The key point connecting both the awareness of performance levels and the discernment of facts from opinions is perseverance. Continuing to “stay after it” whether it is in the pursuit of sports improvement, sales opportunities, process improvement or factual information on advertising campaigns becomes a clear distinguishing feature for those who attain success. Just as we all have our own individual definitions of what feels hot or cold, so, too, do we have our individual feeling of what perseverance means. As this individual perception is neither good nor bad, just a requirement for success, each of us has the freedom to personally define it and thereby impact our personal success.

John F. Riddell Jr., director of the Center for Entrepreneurial Growth-Hamilton County, writes each Tuesday about entrepreneurs and their impact on companies and the marketplace. Submit comments to his attention by writing to Business Editor John Vass Jr., Chattanooga Times Free Press, P.O. Box 1447, Chattanooga, TN 37401-1447, or by e-mailing him at business@timesfreepress.com

07/25/2008

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