太聰明的人爲何不適合創業

One of the most counterintuitive traits that can hurt entrepreneurs is smarts. Yes, the more successful you are and the more talents you have, the harder it is to run a business.

創業者的一些品質可能會成爲其成功路上的絆腳石，其中最有違常理的一種——便是聰明。你越成功，越有才華，便越難經營好一家公司。

While you may think that being smart, motivated and talented would logically make someone the best possible candidate for entrepreneurship, unfortunately, this is often not the case.
你可能認爲，按照正常邏輯，聰明、有進取心和有才華的人，應該是創業的最佳人選，但很可惜，事實並非如此。

The ‘I’m better than everyone at every task’ challenge.
“我事事都要比人強”的挑戰

The smart-people problem starts back in school when the dreaded “group projects” are first assigned. Knowing the 80/20 rule for work (80% of all work is done by 20% of the people), what do you think happens in every group project? The smartest and most talented people in each group decide that they are going to do the lion’s share of the work. They don’t want to risk their grade in the class by dividing the work equally and hoping that Timmy (the guy who is absent from class two days a week on average and sleeps through class on the other three days) does his part well, if he remembers to do it at all. In school, there isn’t any benefit in trying to get Timmy up to speed quickly. Forget that — the smart people just take over and do the whole project themselves.
聰明人的問題，早在老師當年分配令人厭煩的“小組項目”時就開始出現。我們都知道職場中的80/20規律，即20%的人完成80%的工作，你認爲小組項目會是什麼情況？每個小組最聰明的學生決定完成大部分工作。他們不想平均分配工作，以免自己的成績受到影響，並且他們也不敢指望蒂米（那傢伙平均每週有兩天逃課，另外三天則在課堂上睡大覺）能做好自己那一部分，要是他還沒有把任務忘得一乾二淨的話。在學校裏，讓蒂米儘快跟上進度，是不會帶來任何好處的。算了吧——聰明人會接管一切，自己完成整個項目。

And thus begins the smart-people work cycle. The smartest people do just about everything better than most everyone else. They write better, plan better and reason better. They are better, until it comes to running a business. Then, they are not better; they are screwed.
聰明人的工作週期由此開始。最聰明的人做任何事情都比大多數人出色。他們更擅長寫作，更擅長計劃，更擅長推理。他們各方面都更加出色，除了經營公司。這時，他們不再出色；他們會陷入麻煩。

There are only 24 hours in each day and a person does need to sleep, eat, shower and do certain other things. So, each day, this smart person tries to do everything himself, because he can’t stand someone else doing a job badly. Then, he is stuck with the one-man band “job-business” and ends up not being able to grow.
一個人每天只有24個小時，而且需要騰出時間睡覺、吃飯、洗澡，還要做一些其他事情。但聰明人由於忍受不了別人把事情搞砸，於是決定凡事一肩挑。最後，他的企業也就成了一個人的獨角戲，無力繼續發展。

Why slackers can reign supreme as entrepreneurs.
懶惰者爲什麼能夠主宰創業界？

It is interesting, but actually, some of the slackers are better suited for entrepreneurship than the “smart” people. Why? They figured out early on to surround themselves with smart people who would do the work. They know how to delegate and sometimes, how to manipulate other people into doing things that they don’t want to do.
有些懶惰者比“聰明人”更適合創業，這聽起來很有趣，但卻是不爭的事實。爲什麼呢？因爲他們很早就學會了讓自己身邊圍繞着一羣聰明人，替他們完成工作。他們知道如何分配任務，以及如何操控其他人做他們不想做的事情。

You’re only as smart as you can automate.
讓公司實現自動運轉纔是大智慧

Ideally, smart people would just be able to convey their talents to others. But since the smart people are so used to doing everything themselves, they don’t learn the key skills for making their business successful, including automating and delegating as many tasks as possible. As a smart person, you need to use your smarts and talents to boil down their essence in an easy to follow format that anyone can replicate.
理想情況下，聰明人應該將他們的才能傳遞給其他人。但由於聰明人習慣於大包大攬，他們無法學到帶領公司走向成功所需的關鍵技能，包括讓公司自動運轉和授權儘可能多的任務。聰明人應該用一種易於遵循的格式，總結出其聰明智慧的核心，讓其他人可以複製。

Too smart for your own good.
太聰明不是好事

Smart and talented people also often have a flair for the unusual, complicated or different. They don’t like to follow the KISS principle (keep it simple, stupid), which is required to make a business succeed.
對不同尋常的、複雜的和與衆不同的事情，聰明人通常都頗有天分。創業史，他們不喜歡遵循KISS原則（即保持簡單，直接），但這正是公司成功的必要條件。

If you think of the assembly line in a fantastic manufacturing plant or the global presence of McDonald’s, they both seem complex, but in reality, they are a series of incredibly simple functions. Every single task is broken down into easy-to-follow steps. The assembly line worker repeatedly performs a few tasks that are specifically defined. So does the McDonald’s cook, cashier and drive-thru order taker. There is little input from these individuals, as everything has been standardized for them.
你或許認爲，一流製造工廠的組裝線，或麥當勞這類全球性公司的運營工作，都要遵循一套非常複雜的流程，但事實上，它們都是由一系列非常簡單的功能組成的。每一項任務被分解成易於遵循的步驟。組裝線上的工人重複執行一些被明確定義的任務，麥當勞的廚師、收銀員和得來速(drive-thru)訂餐員也同樣如此。個人不需要太多投入，因爲每一件事都已經被標準化。

Some of the largest, most successful businesses in the world aren’t staffed in their majority by the smartest people. They are actually staffed in large part by regular, average (and sometimes, stupid) people. These successful entities have just a few people who are smart enough to standardize, automate and delegate the majority of the tasks in a way that can’t be screwed up by their average employees.
許多全世界最大最成功的公司，並未將最聰明的人作爲主力。事實上，這些公司大多數員工都是普通人，有時候甚至是有些蠢的人。這些成功的公司只需要少數聰明人，他們的任務就是將大部分任務標準化、自動化並進行授權，保證普通員工在工作時不會陷入混亂。

So, being smart or talented isn’t going to help you unless you can use those smarts to figure out a way to simplify those tasks that will make a business successful. This isn’t easy, because it goes against everything that you have ever done and is counter to how you were taught to think. However, it is necessary for a business to succeed and why smarts and talent alone don’t predict entrepreneurial success.
所以，如果你不能利用自己的聰明才智，找出一種簡化工作任務的方法，最終實現成功，那麼你的聰明就不利於你創業。當然，要做到這一點並不容易，因爲這與你此前的行事和思考方式截然不同。然而，這是一家公司能否成功的關鍵，正因爲如此，僅僅具有聰明才智並不預示着創業必然成功。

Too much to lose.
聰明人創業的機會成本太大

Another issue with the smart people starting businesses is that they often have the most to lose. The smarter you are — unless you have the social graces of a wild ape — the more options you have available to you. You will be able to make a lot of money in a variety of fields and have room in your career to become promoted and make even more money.
聰明人創業的另外一個問題是，他們經常會因爲選擇創業而失去太多其他機會。越聰明的人，就會面臨越多的選擇，除非你像未開化的猿人一樣不懂社交。聰明人可以在衆多領域領取高薪，而且有很大的升遷機會，從而賺到更多錢。

This means that when you start a business, you have a lot more to risk than someone who makes less money and has fewer career options. This is often referred to as the “golden handcuffs” dilemma. Because you have more to risk, this means that you need to have a business opportunity that is going to provide an even bigger reward for it to be worth it to you.
這意味着當你創業的時候，你將比收入更低、職業選擇更少的人面臨更多風險。這種情況通常被稱爲“黃金手銬”困境。更大的風險意味着你的商業機會必須能帶來更多回報，才值得你去付出。

If you make $250,000 a year (or have an opportunity to do so), your business is going to have to be five times more successful than the business of someone making $50,000 a year to get the same return. Additionally, it is a lot harder to found a business that will double your yearly profit when you make $250,000 a year than it would be if you make $50,000 a year.
如果你的年收入爲250,000美元（或有機會達到這種水平），相對於年收入50，000美元的創業者，你的公司必須創造超出後者五倍以上的業績，你才能獲得相同的回報。此外，如果你的年收入爲250,000美元，你很難創建一家年利潤翻番的公司。而如果你的收入爲50,000美元，實現這個目標則要容易得多。

So, with the most to lose, a wide range of other options available and the penchant for more intricate, complex endeavors, don’t be surprised when the person “Most Likely to Succeed” from high school ends up in corporate America and it is one of the more average students that finds success in his or her own business.
總而言之，聰明人創業的機會成本太大，他們完全可以去從事其他對智力要求更高，更錯綜複雜的事業。所以，如果上高中時大家一致公認“最有可能成功”的那個學生正在爲一家美國公司打工，而一位不起眼的學生卻成功創建了一家業績不俗的公司，你千萬不要感到意外。

This blog is adapted from my bestselling book, The Entrepreneur Equation.
本博客改編自作者的暢銷書《創業者公式》。