Mauboussin: Senior executive decisions depend far more on luck than entry-level work
Michael Mauboussin · #28 Michael Mauboussin: A Decision Making Jedi · Jan 23, 2018 · at 8:43
Michael Mauboussin discusses the luck-skill continuum in corporate organizations and how decision frequency, importance, and luck change across seniority levels.
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“Usually when you're a lower level worker, your job actually tends to have a higher skill component, right? So you're doing something, you're on an accounts receivable clerk and you're collecting accounts receivables, right? We can measure what we're doing. It's pretty much skill based, but as you move up through the organization, it's not uncommon for the frequency, the types of decisions you make to go down. But the importance of the decisions to go up and also the luck of the outcomes related to those decisions to go up.”
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