Better to be Wise or Smart?
December 16th, 2007 by 
Administrator
(1 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
Loading ...A year ago, I wrote that it is better to focused on hiring wise people rather than smart people.
Just today, I saw a quote saying it is better to be wise than smart.
However, the last few days have given me experience that made me not too sure…. We need people to constantly make decisions fast , even in the face of incomplete information, and to have a bias for action - which tends to be in the province of the definition of being smart rather than wise ( too much contemplation and consideration).
Wise or smart?
Maybe let me put it this way — in life and in business, the most important thing is the ability to move forward and accomplish ( the bias for action is being smart) what you believe are the most important things in your life (the understanding of what is most important to you is being wise)…
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Posted in FrontPage, On Life, on Business | 
December 17th, 2007 at 2:38 pm
Wilson,
Joel Spolsky, in his Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing, offers the following advice: get someone who is smart and gets things done.
I suppose the “wise” people are the smart people who don’t get things done. There’s a difference between a doer and a thinker, and a wise person, nomatter how nice their thoughts are, are useless until they convert these to action.
This is likewise a self-realization for myself, it is easy enough for me to think and speak and write down thoughts but it’s hard for me to do things no thanks to me attention-deficient mind.
December 23rd, 2007 at 7:38 am
Very interesting article - one that makes you think twice of what you thought you knew about being smart and being wise.
In the light of the operational definitions made here with regards to being smart versus being wise - i would say that an ideal employee should possess the ability for snappy execution (or tactical decision making) and the ability to strategically think.
In most cases though, you seldom see one possessing both of these. And yet one should also consider, that even if one do possess both - it will then be about understanding that only in the light of the circumstance should one decide whether it is necessary to be make the quick and snappy decisions - or it would be necessary to think it over.
February 21st, 2008 at 12:11 pm
The solution of course is to let the smart employee do the initial work. Afterwards the wise employee can finetune/modify the work of your smart employee.
March 3rd, 2008 at 8:54 am
Yes, you may be right.
there is a place for both the smart and the wise in the company. Something like necessity of strategy and necessity also of tactics.