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Excellent point. That's why the truly wise people use "results" in terms of judging wisdom. If your thought is coherent, when you put it to practice - it works. And if it works - the desired result is produced. Doesn't mean all thoughts that lead to practical desirable results are borne of wisdom, but empirical success is a necessary, but not sufficient condition.

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Right. I read a ton of business books in my day, many of them with great ideas, but when I came across Andy Grove’s High Output Management, it just hit different. Andy Grove being former CEO of Intel spoke from experience actually doing hard things, whereas many of the other books were written by people who were peddling wisdom to sell books. Not bad wisdom, just untested and not generalizable.

Working Backwards is another book full of practical wisdom that has actually been battle tested.

I've read Grove's work, and I agree with the "output" aspect being important. But I wouldn't consider "output" the only thing that connects to wisdom. I've heard of people I consider to be "wise" criticizing many of Andy's approach as well (I tend to agree). For me - say someone like Lee Kuan Yew - was quite a wise and practical man. Highly developed intellectually, socially, both pragmatic and respecting of scholars, etc. Wisdom can be considered a cluster of qualities if you will, of which "ability to get results" is a big factor.

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