Outcome = (Strategy * Execution) ^ Luck

After talking with dozens of entrepreneurs, business owners, and people with big ideas, it became clear that there’s a great divide in opinions.

One group is passionate that execution beats strategy any day. They have their heroes, case studies, and best practices.

The other group is passionate the strategy beats execution any day. They likewise have their heroes, case studies, and best practices.

What unites them? A strong belief that luck has very little to do with it.

Maybe it’s playing Settler’s of Catan one too many times, but I’ve found that luck has an incredibly outsized effect on outcomes. The issue with that is it’s easy to look at people’s choices and determine it must have been a good choice because it resulted in a good outcome. It may have been very poor in strategy and execution, but the incredible amount of luck turned it positive.

Likewise, it’s also easy to dismiss people who made very good decisions that resulted in poor outcomes because of poor luck. It becomes a case study of what not to do even if it really was the best choice available.

Try as we may, luck will always have an outsized effect on our outcomes. Strategy is our direction, execution is our power, and luck will magnify, depress, or distort it into whatever it pleases. But… continually making good decisions will increase the likelihood that luck will turn in our favor.

Business isn’t a one and done bet - it’s a continuous series of bets over time. Are you betting well every time?