Who-Luck 😃

In Great by Choice, Jim Collins talks about something I love – Who Luck!! Or return on Luck in chapter 7.

He alludes – everyday our lives have the possibility of changing dramatically. This is because of the decisions we make, or the decisions others make favorably towards you. The chapter opens with a grueling, heart wrenching story of two mountaineers and how their lives dramatically changed when they slipped and fell and the order is described in much detail in the opening of the chapter Their rescue was described as a luck event and I could agree more. Its amazing how they were rescued and all the various elements that went into the planning of their rescue.

Ok so here is where we dig a little deeper, is it luck or is it skill that gets us a foot in the door for any big opportunity and we have many sayings that allude to this –

“Luck is where preparation meets opportunity”

Thomas Edison

“Luck is the residue of Design”

John Milton

But these are imprecise ways of understanding luck. They are not precise enough to actually analyze the role of luck, so in the chapter Jim expands the definition to allow us to engage with the word in a way of understanding, and creating a luck event.

We define a luck event as one that meets three tests: (1) some significant aspect of the event occurs largely or entirely independent of the actions of the key acts of the enterprise (2) the event has potentially significant consequences (good or bad), and (3) the event has some elements of unpredictability.

Jim Collins

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