There is a certain quality to quantity.
Beethoven and Mozart were brilliant composures. Their work has outlived them and will continue to be enjoyed by future generations. At least their best stuff will be.
What is less know is that Beethoven and Mozart were also prolific composers. Most of what they created has been forgotten.
Pablo Picasso additionally belongs in this league, having created an estimated 50,000 works of art. Only a few hundred are recognized today. His relentless passion produced gold from the dross.
More recently, the Beatles produced 20 number one hits in under a decade. However, they recorded 213 songs in all. Many of them are doomed to be forgotten.
Thomas Edison is recognized as a brilliant inventor. He is remembered for the light bulb, phonograph and motion pictures. However, he had 1,093 patents and the incandescent light bulb and the phonograph are both obsolete now. Edison taught us that invention is a numbers game – fail fast, succeed eventually.
Stephen King has written over 70 novels and 200 short stories. Only a few are classics, among them The Shining, Carrie and The Stand. King is legendary for his writing habit of frequently producing 2,000 words per day. There is no brilliance in a blank page.
There’s no question then that there’s a certain quality to quantity. The better question is how do we apply this idea to our own success?
The Beethoven Effect
We already observed that Beethoven was prolific. One of his most treasured classics is Symphony Number 5. Was Beethoven so prolific that he took to just numbering his works? Actually, historians and publishers assigned the numbers, but can you blame them? There were over 700 works in all.
Understand that Beethoven poured out his soul with every piece. He didn’t hold back, he wasn’t mailing it in. For Beethoven, every piece was his best. Yet a fickle public remembers only a fraction.
This is the nature of most decisions a good CEO will make. Many of those decisions are mundane and some of them even wrong. However, a few good decisions can change everything. Jeff Bezos flunked with product ideas like Fire Phone, Amazon Auctions and Dash Buttons, but he hit home runs with Amazon Prime and the acquisition of Whole Foods.
Steve Jobs founded Apple, Pixar and NeXT. His failures include Newton, the Lisa and getting fired from Apple in 1985. However, Jobs was the genius behind the Mac, the iPod and the iPhone.
Move Fast and Break Things
It takes a certain courage to invest in things that might fail. Elon Musk said it best, “failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough.”
Don’t be so caught up in perfection that every email must be scrutinized again and again lest a typo somehow damage your self-image of perfection. Don’t be so invested in analysis paralysis that you never take a flyer on buying an investment property. I own 23 different apartment buildings. Although all of them make money, only some of them are home runs. And these 23 were gleaned from the review of thousands of investment opportunities over time.
Warren Buffett reviews hundreds of investment ideas every year. Most don’t work out. The vast majority of Berkshire Hathaway’s success has been generated from his 10 best investments, like Coca-Cola, Apple, and Geico. In Buffett’s own words, “you only need a few good ideas in your lifetime.” The more at bats you have, the better chance of hitting a few home runs.
This environment means that decision leaders will have to pick themselves off the floor from time to time after a hoped-for decision doesn’t work out. Confidence can be shaken. Subordinates may question your judgement. Keep going, you don’t have to be right all the time.
The Future is a Scary Place
Everywhere, entrepreneurs are scheming. Become complacent and you are doomed. For decades, the Fourth of July has been celebrated with fireworks. Now this celebration is moving toward drone light shows that are safer, environmentally friendly, and cutting edge. If the narrow specialty companies that manufacture fireworks didn’t see this coming, they face a bleak future.
Adaptation is where the quality from quantity comes in. Keep trying new things. Anything less and you die.
Keep Adapting
IBM got it’s start in 1911 and was known for time clocks and tabulating machines. The IBM Selectric, invented in 1961, was an electric typewriter that went on to capture 94% of the market for electric typewriters in 1978. Obviously, this product was a smash hit, but you know where this story is going. The PC put the typewriter out of business. However, IBM adapted to that game too, introducing the IBM PC. The IBM PC dominated for a while, but ultimately IBM sold this business and moved on to consulting, AI and quantitative computing.
Everyone is familiar with American Express charge cards. What is less know is the path forged to get there. Amex started out as an express mail and freight service. Later, they pioneered Traveler’s Cheques, which are today hopelessly obsolete.
The most enduring businesses aren’t monuments — they’re organisms. They survive not by standing still, but by shedding skin, growing new limbs, and adapting to new climates. These concepts can be applied to the individual as well. Whether you’re riding high or stuck in neutral, that’s only now. The future is going to be different. The mighty can fail from their overconfidence and the determined can succeed despite past failures.
Come back next time to find out how the mighty – paralyzed by complacency – ultimately fell.