Run Your Career Based on Facts and Statistics ? Not Opinions

Run Your Career Based on Facts and Statistics — Not Opinions

Using Statistics And Facts Is A Much Safer Method Of Decision Making Than Going Off Of Opinion. Schools, employers, and essentially everybody else, are subject to attack when they base decisions off of opinion regarding who should advance. One cannot easily argue with a statistic or a fact.

Statistics And Facts, For The Most Part, Can Teach You Much More Than Opinions

Opinions are susceptible to change.

Opinions may be formed for self-serving purposes.

Opinions are not necessarily based on facts

The Final Job I Took As An Attorney Was With A Law Firm That Appeared To Be Incredible In All Respects. They paid the highest salaries and, perhaps most exciting of all, was that I was told by the interviewers I would get a lot of time in court. Court time is something very young litigators are always after.

When I Told My Parents Of My New Salary, They Were Very Encouraging. The law firm in general seemed to have an outstanding reputation. There were tons of opinions floating around that seemed to indicate this firm was a great place to be.

The Founder At The Firm I Was Leaving, John Quinn, Came Into My Office Before I Left And Said Something I Will Not Forget: “ I see the court filings each morning that come into the courthouse, and the firm you are going to work for hardly ever goes into court. You are making a mistake.”

His Facts And Figures Showed That There Was Not, As It Was, A Lot Of Courtroom Work At The Other Firm Unsurprisingly, he was absolutely right. In fact, when I got there, there seemed to be little work of any kind. And soon after starting there, I noticed many people were leaving the firm.

A Lack Of Work, And People Leaving A Firm, Are Definite Signs That Something Is Not Right The market’s opinion (as well as my parents’) turned out to be far less accurate than the FACTS brought up by my former boss. The truth of any situation almost exclusively lies in the facts.

One Interview Of A Guy Named Harry Markopolos Regarding Bernie Madoff Comes To Mind. Markopolos had been trying to get the the SEC to take note of Madoff’s activity for years after he conducted a statistical analysis that revealed that Madoff’s claims were utterly impossible. As I turns out, Markopolos was right, and the facts were there to show the validity of his analysis.

Here Are A Few Great Historical Examples Of Opinions Without Factual Basis That Were Eventually Disproven: Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value. – Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular? - David Sarnoff’s associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s.

Man will never reach the moon, regardless of all future scientific advances. - Dr. Lee De Forest, inventor of the vacuum tube and father of television.

People Use Opinions In Place Of Facts All The Time

Many wars have started because of opinions.

People are promoted to jobs they may not be qualified for based on opinions.

We often take a person’s title, without analyzing any facts about the person at all, in order to make a personal judgment.

Take the latter example. What if that title was gained by simple nepotism? What if that person simply married the boss’s daughter?

Consider This: If you have been with an employer for ten years, and in that time received a paycheck every 2 weeks, and received promotions and raises, take that as a statistic. When deciding whether or not you should join an unproven start up, keep that statistic in mind.

In your career, you need to make your decisions based on statistics and facts–not based on opinions.