Lucky, lucky, lucky

Some interesting data:

• Those with last names earlier in the alphabet are more likely to receive tenure at top Economics departments.
• People with easy to pronounce names are judged more positively than those with difficult-to-pronounce names.
• Females with masculine sounding names are more successful in legal careers.
• Being tall appears to be correlated with income and success in life

The 'alphabetical discrimination' of the first case seems to arise from the norm in the economics profession of ordering credits alphabetically on joint publications - so some people consistently come to attention more often than others.  The other cases likely rest on well-known cognitive biases.

What all these (and there are plenty more cases like this - see here) have in common is that they mean that luck plays a great role in individual success. But luck's often not visible at the level of the individual, where in the success = talent + hard work + luck equation we tend to neglect the third element in favour of the first two.  But in fact, luck may play a very large factor.

This is especially true in very competitive environments, where, for example, many talented, hardworking people have to compete for success.  In these cases the difference in quality between the best of the best is only minimal, and so, as journalist Michiel de Hoog argues the consequence is that a highly skilled participant experiencing a little bit of bad luck will lose to a slightly less skilled participant who is luckier, [and] so in a hyper-competitive economy, chance determines who wins more often than not....so much so that the best candidate only wins in a small number of cases. 

I am thinking of recent appointments for roles where we have 150 applicants (apparently Google have 1 in 500); of selective universities that accept 1 in 20 of excellent student who even make their academic cut-off (and all of whom are already in the top few percent); and I am thinking of the students vying for 45 IB points.  In all these cases, the role of luck is likely significant, but likely hidden.  There are social and individual reasons for this. 

Socially, the recent ascendent emphasis on the cult of the individual means that the belief in one’s own ability, in the self-made nature of achievement is at an all time high.  Perhaps more interestingly, as philosopher Robert Franks writers: if you’re biking into the wind you’ll feel the difference right away. You have to pedal harder, you’re sweating, you’re getting tired. If you have tailwind, it feels different: after a while, you don’t even notice its assistance anymore. We all know the pictures of people heading into a strong wind, but it’s far more difficult to capture an image of the wind at your back – almost as if it were invisible. (Just try and google it. It’s true).

In short: you tend to forget the luck factor and the wind at your back; you do not forget the headwind and the hard work.  Tragic theatre and literature exists to remind us of this wind, and the way that it can, at any moment, change.  And it's true that few can resist a blizzard of misfortune. On the other hand great things will rarely done by people who see themselves as powerless according to the whims of fate; and likely will not want to hear about it.  As EB White put it Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.  

So how to talk about this when even raising it can alienate people?  The solution, Frank says, is not to frame successful people as just lucky. Elizabeth Warren and Barack Obama did that in their campaign commercials in 2012. You built a factory – nice work Warren said. But you transported your goods on the roads that we all paid for. Self-made people responded with rage.    It is better, Frank says to ask successful people about the moments when they were lucky. “Their eyes will sparkle. Before you know it, you’ll be discussing how we (...) can also give others the opportunities to be successful.” 

Framing it right is the trick, as so often.  David Brookes summarises it in two beautiful sentences:  You should regard yourself as the sole author of all your future achievements and as the grateful beneficiary of all your past successes...  As an ambitious executive, it’s important that you believe that you will deserve credit for everything you achieve. As a human being, it’s important for you to know that’s nonsense.

Related Posts

• Should we really really get what we deserve?
• Valuing what's important: Service, Luck, Privilege and Gratitude

References

• Brook, D. (2012) The Credit Illusion New York Times.
• de Hoog, M (2020) Successful people rarely admit how lucky they were. Here’s why they should. The Correspondant .
• Frank, R (2016) Success and Luck. Princeton University Press
• Kaufman (2018) The Role of Luck in Life Success Is Far Greater Than We Realized Scientific American
• Robeyns, I (2020) There's no such thing as a self-made Billionaire. The Correspondant.
• White EB (1942) One Man’s Meat