Skills versus Knowledge

By Gao Peng

Once,a millionaire recounted in his autobiography that he has four talents,which all sound so simple:

I know how to type and do it well;

I know how to communicate effectively and convince people;

I know how to guide others to do their work well,though I don’t know how to conduct those detailed processes;

I know how to sell products to customers and let people understand my ideas.

That’s all.He said,“I can also taste which dish is cooked by my wife.Except for the above,I know nothing else.”

It is merely these four capabilities that allowed him to create a great enterprise with hundreds of branches,spanning from insurance to cosmetics and other fields,with an annual profit of up to 100 million US dollars.

I once invited him to give a lecture to my institution,where the audience was 200 students from the University of Pennsylvania,with an average age of around 21.

As he stepped up to the podium,he opened with a question:

“Boys and girls,just tell me that if you’re asked to land a job tomorrow morning,will you have the confidence to apply successfully?”

Someone answered,“Yes.”

He then asked,“Tell me why.”

The discussion thus began.Throughout his 40-minute speech,he focused on one theme that it is more significant to strengthen certain abilities than to acquire profound knowledge,hoping that young people would commit to cultivating three or four skills,or one that is good enough.With such skills,it will be hard for you to lose your job.

(FromDestiny,Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House.Translation:Qing Run)

有一位百萬富翁在自述中說，他擁有四種才能。聽起來都特別簡單：

我知道怎么打字，并且打得很好；

我知道怎么進行有效溝通，并且說服人們；

我知道如何指導別人把工作做好，雖然我不懂得操作那些細節流程；

我知道怎樣把產品推銷給顧客，并且讓人們明白我的理念。

僅此而已。他說：“我還能品嘗出哪道菜是我妻子的手藝，其他的，我一樣也不會。”

就是這區區四種能力，讓他創造了一家偉大的企業，旗下擁有幾百家分公司，跨越從保險到化妝等多個領域，年盈利高達一億美元。

有一次，我請他給我的機構做一次講座，對象是200 名賓州大學學生，平均年齡只有21歲。

他走到講臺上，開口問的第一個問題就是：

“同學們，請告訴我，假如突然讓你明天早晨就找一份工作，你們有沒有自信應聘成功？”

有人答：“有。”

他接著問：“說說原因。”

討論就這樣開始了。他在40分鐘演講中，始終圍繞一個主題：強化自己某些能力，比獲得淵博知識更重要。他希望年輕人重點打造三四種技能，有一種足夠優秀的技能也可以，有了這些技能，你就很難失業。

（摘自《命運》江蘇鳳凰文藝出版社）