Do you need to be educated to succeed in business?

[made4success]

Do you need to be educated to succeed in business?

Research found the scope of failure attributions as wide-ranging as the perceptions of the nature of failure. Causes can be broken down into two major groups.


1) Reliant on factors external to the entrepreneur, therefore, uncontrollable (misfortune)

2) Internal to the effort and ability of the entrepreneur (mistake)

The misfortunes discovered centered around several ideas, notably: the undue influence of (external) cultural values and their impact on the success of a business market forces (including the economy). Acting in a way that harms the foundation of the venture, and the lack of available funding, when attributed to the unwillingness of venture capitalists to initiate or continue funding.

Conversely, mistakes were most often ascribed to flaws in the business model, regarding either the concept itself or in its planning, mismanagement, or entrepreneurs’ unrealistic expectations about the nature and course of starting a new business.

Non-Educated VS Educated

The first 1900 years of excepted opinion of mankind existence upon this earth. We find that the non-educated entrepreneur out succeeded the educated entrepreneur. This was overwhelmingly due to the culture rather then all other aspects and conditions combined. In the past 40 years we see a trend to the further education of society. However, this has changed little to raise the success rate of the educated entrepreneur. Non-educated entrepreneurs still overwhelmingly out succeed when it pertains to starting new business ventures.

When you take all the findings from the more then 350 modern studies performed, the evidence shows a clearer and definite finding. Non-educated have a more profound outlook, labeled "money over education". The drive to succeed when the option of going into debt to further their education is out weighed.

CONCLUSION

While we know that small, new ventures are quite susceptible to failure (Stinchcombe, 1965), we do not yet know much about those failures. This study focused on the attributions for failure made in newspapers, in order to help shed light on the social and cultural context within which entrepreneurs operate.

Cultural views of failure, particularly the propensity to blame failure on misfortunes versus mistakes, are not universal and should be carefully modeled and measured in future research.

[SSM]

I'd say the smarter you are the more chance you have at succeeding at anything over a dumb person. Dumb people rely on "the big break" and "luck" while smart people rely on intuition, know-how, and experience.

[Sam Barona]

The cases proposed here are fundamentally flawed.

Education does not translate into intelligence nor drive, which are two key drivers in the success of any entrepreneurial venture (look at studies carried out by Harvard on this, which researched over 5,000 of the most succesfull businesses in the world over 5 years to reach its final conclusion).

Success in academia, thus, is not a key determinant of success in business.

The case, thus, is more appropriately posed like this:

Is applied knowledge a key driver in business success?

The answer, undoubtedly will be a resonant YES.

Sam

[Nigami Enterprise]

I personally believe that there isn't one successful entrepreneur out there who isnt educated. Whether it be from formally education or from a self taught prespective.
Where i believe alot of people go wrong is when they think they need a certificate or degree to have learnt something.
All successful entrepreneur's will educate themselves on the mission ahead.

[made4success]

I agree, success comes from hard work, facing promblems, and over comming. Degrees are great, I have three, yet find the lack of risk taking is from my Education. In the real world it is better to learn "Hands On" then to try and draw gainful knowledge from your education.

I wish everyone to have the education level you desire, yet more then that for you to achieve success in your business endeavors


Taken from FORBES
You cannot run a business only like Captain Kirk in Star Trek -- full of passion -- because passion ebbs and flows and the fires burn out. You can start a business on that. But at some point there's just some cold number-crunching that comes in, and you need a degree for that. An entrepreneur is full of passion, and you need to have a degree around to temper that.

Jim McCann President 1-800-Flowers Do you need a degree? Not necessarily. The smarter we get, the more things we know we cant do. I probably wouldnt have had such good fortune with 1-800-Flowers if I were smarter. I would have thought too much about why the deal couldnt be done.

Bill Claypoole Former field sales executive Most Business Degrees -- by the way, I have an M.B.A. -- have no respect or regard for the field salespeople. They suffer under the delusion that by analyzing market research they can develop marketing strategies that will motivate the unwashed masses to break down their doors.

When their brilliant analysis of the market research fails to produce the desired sales result, they huddle in the executive wing of the building and develop a new strategy. Usually it doesn't work either.

Kick these 20+-year-old geniuses out of their offices and put them in the field where they learn what a customer looks like and what he wants. Leonard Lauder Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Este Lauder Cos. Inc.

We dont hire M.B.A.s. Most of the people who work here started out at lowly jobs -- behind the counter selling our products or working in the office as secretaries or assistants. These people are running the business now. They know what the customer wants. Jon Huntsman Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Huntsman Corp.

I went to night school to get an M.B.A. I should have utilized that time to set up more businesses. True entrepreneurs get out of school as fast as they can and get on with life.

Weve never asked anyone [if he has] an M.B.A. Its more important to find out if someone has a work ethic than to find out how educated they are. If they dont know how to work, [they are just] educated fools. Ian Bruce Eichner Chairman Continuum Co. (real estate development)

Innovation is not going to come from people who sit in the classroom and undergo an organized thought process. An M.B.A. stunts creativity. Arthur Taylor President Muhlenberg College (formerly president of CBS and founder of the A&E channel)

[MsNadi]

Folks are looking at education solely from one-side: formal 4 year college/univeristy.

What about the school of hard knocks? The school of life? The school of being knocked on your ass and having the where-with-all and the knowledge to pick up, re-evaluate and proceed?

My take: I don't think anyone NEEDS anything to be successful...because success is determined by a variety of factors (timing is everything - and no education in the world can make for successful timing). An education, however, can not hurt.

As a business owner an education is not necessary. However as CEO or President of a business, an education will become increasingly important as the business grows and the prospects grow with it. Hence, why many "uneducated" founders of businesses have handed over the reigns to those with formal education (i.e. Michael Dell, Bill Gates/Paul Allen, Richard Branson). I'd think we'd ALL be hardpressed to find a UBER-SUCCESSFUL business that was started and founded by the "uneducated" that is not currently managed and directed by the "educated".

Just remember, education isn't everything. It's a piece of the puzzle as are many other things.

[MsNadi]

I'd say the smarter you are the more chance you have at succeeding at anything over a dumb person. Dumb people rely on "the big break" and "luck" while smart people rely on intuition, know-how, and experience.

...and if you think even the most successful entrepreneurs didn't pray for a stroke of luck and some big breaks, you're out your mind.

The difference between dreamers and entrepreneurs is one thing: ACTION. Dreamers, dream. Entrepreneurs act on dreams.

Success is like a puzzle - there is no one thing that determines one success and no one thing that can determine one's failure.

I will say this, however, - as someone who is educated - we sure do overanalyze a whole lot, because thats what an education teaches - to reduce risk with knowledge. At some point, however, this overanalysis becomes paralysis and that IS a detriment that I think you'd be more likely to find in those people who have degrees and certificates compared to those who do not.

[Sam Barona]

The gap that separates success from failure is as thin as a cigarrette paper; I have looked at a £300M+ fortune right in the face; backed by some of the best people from companies like KPMG, Camelot and even senior British goverment ministers, but it just amounted to a set of really big lessons.

I didn't have my MBA then, but one of the lessons I learned was that the knowledge I didn't have (even though those around me did) was a danger to my success.

Timing and luck are critical; yes, I have been seen in church praying for my employees not to lose their jobs, for those who had placed their trust and savings in my care to be rewarded, etc.

I have met very successful people (billionaires) who have achieved their success wihtout any prior education (Peter Cruddas being one of them), which is something that encouraged me, but tenacity and drive are just not enough.

I would love to see a really thorough study of what has made these people great; not just anecdotal evidence, but a thorough study of the environments in which these things happened, as well as some psychological profiling.

I would be surprised if the conclusion did not attribute a large percentage of success to unquantifiable factors such as luck.

Sam

[4reignentrep2006]

The Above posts contribute to the variables that when combined are the attributes of great entrepreneurs and again as Sam said most of them are unquantifiable.

Here is my take: "being properly informed" meaning informal education.. hard knocks as people would put it and a full understanding of your field that is what is necessary. Most of the successful entrepreneurs (just to reiterate a point stated above) had started their business without college degrees and m.b.a 's. So i believe in those little points that graduate you instead of formal education.

but my question to you all is:

Being that some of You and i ( ATTENDING SCHOOL) elected to pursue such education (formal), Are we hypocrites to our own notion placing taught of
insecurity in our philosophy* . or are we good in this thinking of backing up our drive with educative formalities?

*"because if the business fails we fall back on the degree" sort a thing

Your though please.

[akula]

Do you need to be educated to succeed in business?

Good thread

Obviously, objectively speaking, startups success is all about luck. It has nothing to do with anything but luck, and it's impossible to predict success based on anything like the education or the experience of the management team (as Morten discovers to the tune of 100 mil!).

Subjectively, however, most people I know prefer to work with degree qualified entrepreneurs because degree qualified people speak the same language as other degree qualified people. It's more difficult to work with non educated entrepreneurs because they have completely different modes of thinking. They're not aware of certain kinds of vocabulary which makes their thinking foreign to someone who does have a wider vocabulary.

So yeah - it's a scientific fact that successful exits do not correlate with anything that's specific to the entrepreneur - however - most people prefer to only work with educated entrepreneurs because they're less difficult - this creates a skew in over-representing successfully entrepreneurs who are educated.

[made4success]

Well said, Sam it would shed light upon the truth behind today's business environment that produces either success, or failure.

I have known educated and non-educated business professionals who have accumulated great wealth. When I was employed as a specialized pipe fitter for a custom yacht builder, I had the privilege of meeting with the top five percent of the wealthiest in the world. I learned one common attribute that they all held in common. They refused to quit, even when faced with repeated failure.

Education was not a deterrent, or an encouragement, for any of them that I spoke with. These successful business professionals knew the ins and out's of the industry they worked. One young millionaire could tell you every aspect of his profession. He had offered me an opportunity to take part in his new idea, the disposable phone card. After looking closely at his business plan, I knew this would never work.

Six months to the day we talked about being partners, he was worth 6 million dollars, myself still working for a living in a dead end job.

One could say my lack of education within the field of the long-distance phone industry was my downfall. One must educate them self for the opportunity they wish to pursue. Not all industries, professional fields, etc. can be achieved without formal education.

One would be hard pressed to find that no education is better then education, only that it is not always a priority for success.