Book Smart VS Street Smart
As anyone who is in Singapore would know they are finally showing Season Three of The Apprentice. (Yes, in Singapore it is very slow.) So the main theme of the show is as the title stated, a team of people who are Book Smart, means they have achieve a high level in academics but not much business experience. The other group of people is Street Smart. They have tremendous experience in real business but did not attain much in academics.
In my opinion, there is no absolute. I feel both of them are as important as each other. We need knowledge from the book to prevent us from making predictions or decision too far off the actual response to a solution. For example, a rival decide to offer the same service as what you are offering but at a lower price. Knowledge from book would let you know that starting a price war, what type of pros and cons it bring to the table or if you practice differentiation what are the types of pros and cons it bring then and so on.
What is needed here is then Street Smart or actual experience doing it to make sure, you are able to get the precise measurement (like timing and exact resources needed) to get the desired response you want from your solution. Continuing from the above example, your decide to differentiate instead of a price war because you can effectively segment the market into two different group and each of you can serve them each profitably, but you must pick the correct timing to push your services and effectively separate the market.
This is the reason why I said both Smarts are as important. Not one is more important than the other.
Another comment I want to make here is that out of the two, the easiest to have would be Book Smarts because all you have to do is to buy books and study it, making mental notes where possible.
Street Smart would be difficult to get because one thing, we have to be in the thick of the action which would require our own resources like time, the stakes are high if we make the wrong decision (most of the time, our mind would focus on failure so much that we do not carry out the strategy or solution we have formulated) and it requires a large investment to be in a position to attain it.
So in my opinion, for those who are interested in being their own boss but do not have the resource as yet to attain Street Smarts, why not read voraciously and attain as much Book Smarts as possible so that you are able to reduce the mistakes you may make when you are in the process of attaining Street Smarts.
Cheers!
In my opinion, there is no absolute. I feel both of them are as important as each other. We need knowledge from the book to prevent us from making predictions or decision too far off the actual response to a solution. For example, a rival decide to offer the same service as what you are offering but at a lower price. Knowledge from book would let you know that starting a price war, what type of pros and cons it bring to the table or if you practice differentiation what are the types of pros and cons it bring then and so on.
What is needed here is then Street Smart or actual experience doing it to make sure, you are able to get the precise measurement (like timing and exact resources needed) to get the desired response you want from your solution. Continuing from the above example, your decide to differentiate instead of a price war because you can effectively segment the market into two different group and each of you can serve them each profitably, but you must pick the correct timing to push your services and effectively separate the market.
This is the reason why I said both Smarts are as important. Not one is more important than the other.
Another comment I want to make here is that out of the two, the easiest to have would be Book Smarts because all you have to do is to buy books and study it, making mental notes where possible.
Street Smart would be difficult to get because one thing, we have to be in the thick of the action which would require our own resources like time, the stakes are high if we make the wrong decision (most of the time, our mind would focus on failure so much that we do not carry out the strategy or solution we have formulated) and it requires a large investment to be in a position to attain it.
So in my opinion, for those who are interested in being their own boss but do not have the resource as yet to attain Street Smarts, why not read voraciously and attain as much Book Smarts as possible so that you are able to reduce the mistakes you may make when you are in the process of attaining Street Smarts.
Cheers!
posted by Strategist at 12:01 PM
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