What really matters?
21 December 2017
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know, that matters”. Really? Discuss.
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know, that matters”. Really? Discuss.
Well it all depends on the person. To someone who’s biggest accomplishment could be making it as big as possible making as much money as possible. In this instance knowing people would be most important. They say "getting in is half of the job" and the key to get in is knowing someone. Now, to someone like myself who favors knowledge for the sake of knowledge, I would agree that what you know is what really matters. There is something greatly gratifying about learning something new and almost exhilarating when it just so happens to apply to your day to day life and thoughts.
There is this concept of a person who is book smart and knows a lot of knowledge in comparison to the person that is “street smart” and knows how to use their connections to help themselves out. I’m assuming that if this were true that knowledge isn’t always going to get you places, its more who you know that can connect you with a job, resource, money and more. I have always been told that networking is really important. Even though making friends one can get connected to a plethora of opportunities, wheather social or professional. That’s assuming you make friends with people that have good connections. Also in a sense knowledge can be “who you know” so they could also be intertwined subjects. If you have the knowledge about people that can get you a job and know a lot about them and are connected to them, in a sense, it’s the same thing.
What an interesting thought Laura – that there is an area of overlap between the two options, namely that having knowledge (a particular kind of knowledge?) might sometimes count as "who you know". I’d like to hear more about that.
This quote shows the corruption of the world we live in as it signifies that people favour others not based on skills and proficiencies but on familiarity with the person. When I look for a job, I will probably need to know some people in order to get hired. However, I will still be required to have knowledge about anything I will be going into, so in a literal sense this quote is wrong.
Furthermore, this can also be advantageous for many as this often leads to being favoured over other candidates that may be more qualified for something you are competing with them for.
This is quite interesting to me because my Dad and I discuss something related to this quote all the time. In the business world, I do believe that it is more important to have connections, whether it may be to land a job or make a deal. On the other hand, once you obtain the job or the deal is made, simply knowing someone will no longer do it as one is then expected to perform. I believe knowing someone helps, but then you have to follow through with knowledge, effort, and action.
Although, you could look at the quote from a friendship perspective. This shows that knowledge is not essentially the most important, but ones relationships are.
Mitch,
I see your point. And you’re probably right. But my key focus was to ask what REALLY matters, in the end. That is why I did not specify the context – whether it is business, or personal life. So we should each decide for ourselves, what really matters to us.
I partially agree with this sentence. In my opinion, nowadays, knowing a lot of important people can be very useful mostly in the job area. especially if you are a young person. But I think that a good worker or entrepreneur can be recognized by what he really knows and can do, not only because he has been helped by an important person.
In the first instance it probably does help with who you know. For example getting a job, there is likely to be a bias towards you if you know someone who could put in a good one. But in the long run, once this initial impact has warn off, it would be what you know that is actually more important.
I believe it’s who you know that can help further your career, but in order for them to help you , you have to be knowledgeable. Basically, I am saying that the more you know will benefit you in the ways that someone you know can help you. I think that both matter but in different ways. It’s all about how you market your own knowledge to others that can help gain you contacts to further you into a brighter career. "What you know" and "who you know" complement each other, and I think you need both to be successful!
I don’t fully agree with this statement. It is true that networking with professionals has the potential of landing you a great position in a company. Knowing the right people also has the potential for you to learn new information. On the other hand, you need to be knowledgeable on your own and work hard to reach the end result you’re striving for. Going through difficult times to reach an end goal is self- rewarding, a feeling and experience you’ll miss if someone hands you your goal.