9/06/2005

Perseverance, is this the Key?

Intrigued by our class discussion on what produces business success and the amount of a disscussion that followed, I decided to research the topic further. I found an interesting article that prescibed all success to "Perseverance." A women named Helga opened her first jewelery store only to have it fail. Undaunted, she continued to try, "persevere," and now is the owner of three successful stores. Supposedly, her success came through perseverance. What is perseverance? The author of the article calls it, "stick-to-itiveness." Well, what is that? Stick to what - the unsuccessful business plan, the poor location choice, and the unreachable market? Sure, she persevered and opened three other stores which are now successful, but was it persevarnce alone? NO! She obviously evaluated her failure, made important ramifications to her business plan, decided on different locations, and probably targeted her market more effectively the second time around. "Perseverance" is an extremely broad answer to success. Those who use it probably can't logically describe in specifics what has actually made their businesses successful, maybe no business owner can. understanding trade-offs, oppertunity costs, marketing, and management are all important, and even crucial to business success. To put is simply, one word answers to the question just don't answer the question!

1 comment:

Dr. Tufte said...

-1 on Logan's post for no link.

-1 on Bob's comment for poor punctuation.

Wow. I think Logan has hit the nail on the head about what is wrong with most analysis of business decision-making in the popular media. I do like Bob's addition though - perseverence can help overcome the fact that bad luck happens.