Takeaways from book "The formula: the universal laws of success by Barabási, Albert-László" (PDF CN)
The five laws:
1. Performance drives success, but when performance can’t be measured, networks drive success.
- If performance can be measured easily, then performance and ambition is a key factor to the success, e.g. best school ≠ best education, it’s because the good students keep the school better
- The more difficult to test the performance, the less important performance is
- When performance can not be measured, it is driven by network. e.g the value of an art
- Success is not about your performance, but the perception of others.
- Once you've made it, it's in everyone's interest to keep you “made”.
- The ones succeeded were the ones didn’t give up and always kept trying
- Performance need be activated by opportunity.
- Try getting connecting with the hub nodes in the network
- Social and career network (not only geographic location) are determinant factor for success. There are full of opportunities within the network. Partially because there are many strong connecting dots within the network, which are connected by those who are very good at building relationship. These people want to use their relationship to support those can create value. They are very good at discovering the precious opportunities that others usually miss.
2. Performance is bounded, but success is unbounded.
- There is limit for performance. As we near the upper bound, performance is simply not the deciding factor.
- Among the top performers, the selection is always random or biased. E.g. The later performer usually has a higher chance to win.
- To be an economic “super star”, your performance need to be able to generate scalable effect
- Superstars suppress you if you compete against them, but they may boost you if you cooperate with them.
- Hopelessness, not superstars, is what's so defeating. If we don’t view the superstars as threat, like how they look at us, we still stand chances to compete with them
3. Previous success × fitness = future success.
- Success, not failure, brings success. Success can self-generate, growing in proportion to its size. If you win once, you'll win again. And again. And again.
- Knowledge breeds knowledge, skill breeds skill, expertise breeds expertise. And each of these leads to success, which builds on itself.
- More initial support virtually guaranteed success.
- When a product has fitness and previous success, its long-term success is determined by fitness alone.
4. While team success requires diversity and balance, a single individual will receive credit for the group’s achievements.
- Credits is not related to contribution
- Rarely success is done by a single individual
- Those who get most reward usually are not the ones contribute most
- Giving credits to team work does not depend on performance/contribution, but on others’ view on it.
- The credits usually go to those persistent in the task, or recognized by others
- If you are given an opportunity to work with a celebrity in the field, in short term you will get some benefits such as learning opportunities, recommendations, networks. But in long term it can be risky because you will stay in his shadow for the work you do together. You should try starting your “preferential attachment”, building your own reputation, and getting independent at some point.
- A team success need balance and diversity, but also a leader. Some study shows in team with better performance:
- Individual capability is not key factor for team performance. Everyone in the team is top performer won’t make the team work, because usually each’s value proposition is incompatible When we handpick for talent, prioritizing individual accomplishment over team achievement, we rarely get the results we hope for
- The more the team were dominated by a single leader, the more successful they were
- If some team members have above-average skills at recognizing other’s emotion, it is more likely to success
- With team harmony, everyone can fairly evaluate their contribution.
- The communication is not dominated by few members. In other words, in team discussion, everyone’s opinion can be heard
- Teams have some female members compared with those without
- Face-to-Face chit-chat is extreme critical for team performance.
- The top team performance happens when individuals do not care who get the credits
5. With persistence success can come at any time.
- Creativity never expires, but success do. When it comes to the patterns of creativity, geniuses are no different from us
- S=Qr：The success of a product or a deal, or the impact of a discovery, will be the product of a creator's Q-factor and the value of idea r.
- Q-factor does not get improved as time goes by. If you keep failing on your way to look for a break-through, most likely you are on a wrong direction. Once you find the career or field that perfectly matches your q-factor, the only thing you need do is keeping doing it. Do not bet your success on luck. As long as you find the match, your chance of success will be greatly increased.
- Those who truly embrace uncertainty will choose ideas again and again.
- The key to long-term success is quite obvious: keep creating opportunities for pursuing success. Those good characters that builds your Q-factor will naturally bring desired outcomes.
- Another smart way to use Q-factor is Cooperation. Take advantage of you network to help you deliver projects. Even you don’t get expected results, cooperation will push you keep trying and keeping using your Q-factor. Teamwork has motivation effects.
