The Mathematics of Success

What you need to know to climb the corporate ladder

I run an informal group on LinkedIn for ex-regulars of the Singapore Armed Forces and, from time to time, I am asked for career advice. Having been a Human Resources Officer, and having overseen talent management and succession planning, I have seen first hand how officers are promoted through the ranks.

One clear observation I have is that while talent is important, it alone does not guarantee a person’s career success. Even without talent, hard work coupled with being in the right place and time brings success. As such, counter-intuitively, time and space is determines a person’s career success more than talent.

[ Talent + Hard Work ] x [ Time x Space ]

Let’s work through some of the math and you will see what I mean ….

(0 + 1) x (1 x 1) = Success

Hard work can make up for the lack of talent.

(1 + 1) x (1 x 1) = Success

Hard work adds to talent.

(1 x 1) x (0 x 0) = 0

Talent and hard work are worthless if time and space are zero.

(1 x 1) x (0 x 1) = 0; (1 x 1) x (1 x 0)…