Luck or Hard Work?

Men think hard work determines success.  Women think it's luck.  So says Maura O'Neill from Berkeley's Haas School of Business.  And she believes this difference in attitude - and not the Opt-Out Revolution - is the real reason women aren't making it to the top fast enough. 

In her recent Forbes article Luck or Hard Work? (membership required - it's free!), O'Neill describes the results of her research on whether people attribute success in life to luck and connections, or to hard work.  Among her findings:

• There is a significant gender perception gap that gets wider the higher you look in the professional hierarchy.
• 12% more men than women attribute success to hard work rather than luck.
• Of men and women who are supervisors or higher, 30% more men than women believe that it is hard work that determines success.
• The gap in perception between men and women is consistent across countries.

Bottom line, according to O'Neill: "Many women think getting to the top job pivots more on luck and connections that on hard work.  In short, the old boy network trumps 60-hour work weeks...If hard work in a corporate setting doesn't pay off as well as a roll of the dice maybe it makes more sense to stop aspiring to deliver the best results for the company at any personal cost.  Or maybe the best decision is to stop working all together."

Personally, having worked in HR for nearly 20 years now, I truly believe that it is hard work that pays off.  In fact I have often quoted Australian entrepreneur Alan Bond's famous statement, "The harder I worked, the luckier I got."  Luck can occasionally open a door, but it will only get you so far.  But I'm not so sure that my definition of luck is a job that requires me to "deliver the best results for the company at any personal cost" anyway.

So maybe the question about that prompted this study (attitudes towards success) was a bit distracting.  Perhaps what we should be asking is what work would women be willing to make personal sacrifices for?  O'Neill acknowledges that women will make more sacrifices when it is their own business, run their own way.  Maybe it's not that we're unwilling to work terrifically hard - maybe we just want to be sure that we can be proud of what we've done when we tell our children about it.

What do you think?  Working moms (and everyone else!) please take a minute to let us know!

Comments

[Ann Bares]

Peggy:
I tend to agree with you - and with Alan Bond - that success does ultimately come down to dedication and hard work. To write it all off as luck positions us as victims, rather than active owners of our careers.
Ann

[Charles H. Green]

I think there's something big missing here.

As I read your posting, Peggy, the first mention of luck is in "whether people attribute success in life to luck and connections, or to hard work." I highlight "luck and connections," because they're not the same thing. But the rest of your post talks only about luck, as if it subsumed connections within it.

I clicked through to Maura O'Neill's article itself, and found the same thing--she quotes the study as combining the two concepts, then goes on to cite them as simply "luck." So you were correctly reporting her view.

I'm not going to go back two sources at this point and read the original study. But let me just point out that if the distinction is made, there is a very ready at hand explanation.

My hypothesis is that belief in meritocracy is something of a delusion. And belief in meritocracy is precisely what a lot of middle-management people have. No wonder, they've been told it for long enough.

The truth is not only that hard work matters, but so do relationships. It absolutely makes a difference who you know; just pick up any busines book, magazine, study and it'll testify to the power of networks and relationships. It's also true that those networks get established in ways that may seem unfair: the old boys network, white vs. black networks, alumni associations, golf games.

We can rail about it being unfair, or we can accept it for what it is and get along with life--including trying to change it.

The worst option is to live in a mindset that equates relationships with luck. There's nothing "lucky" about it.

I suspect that people who attribute success to "luck" over hard work are simply embittered because they think hard work is supposed to pay off, and it hasn't. They've been told it's a meritocracy, and it isn't, at least not in a narrow sense. This delusion is not unique to women, by the way.

The world is getting more connected, not less. The ability to network is becoming increasingly valuable, not less so. And relationships and networking are skills that women (unfairly?) are often judged to be better at. There ought to be a competitive adantage here for women. But only if they give up the delusion that relationships, aka who you know, don't matter.

They certainly do matter. Get over it, and get into it. Start by refusing to equate relationships with "luck."
___________
Charles - Thanks for your very thoughtful posting. You make an excellent point that when we conduct or report on research it's important to clarify the exact definition of our variables. In this case, assuming that luck" is the same as connections is a bit risky. I think you and I are pretty close to agreement when it comes to accepting "politics" or "connections" as a matter of fact in the workplace. I posted on it here: http://careerencouragement.typepad.com/the_career_encouragement_/2007/01/more_on_politic.html
Thanks for reading and for sharing your insights!
Peggy

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