whyifailed.com Blog

Be A Great Player AND Likable

Penelope Trunk (Brazen Careerist link off my page) has spot on advice with this Guy Kawasaki Q & A.

I’ll get to her answer to the question “How much money does it take to be happy?” in a moment, but here’s question two:

Question: Is it more important to be competent or likable?

Answer:
People would actually rather work with someone who is incompetent and
likeable than competent and unlikable. Most people nod in agreement
when they read this. It’s the unlikable people who form arguments in
their head.

But there’s more. At work, if you are unlikable,
people start thinking you are less competent. So stop thinking you can
skate by on your genius IQ because you can’t. You need emotional
intelligence as well. This situation is so pronounced that there are
special-education classrooms rife with kids who could read when they
were three. Social skills matter as much as intelligence when it comes
to long-term success, even for the geniuses.

I couldn’t agree more. Complete jerk musicians rarely succeed despite the rumors, TV shows, Late Night talk show hosts or movies. The exceptions are unbelievably talented artists that got lucky despite their attitudes and personalities. That will NOT be the case for you.

Be sure to read the answer to 10, 11 and 12 too (especially #12 – there’s no reason for you to WORK with a jerk either).

And question #1? The answer is $40,000.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 17th, 2007 at 12:40 pm and is filed under Life, Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.