29/3/2019 The Person Who is Clever and Lazy Qualifies for the Highest Leadership Posts – Quote Investigator

The Person Who is Clever and

Lazy Qualifies for the Highest
Leadership Posts
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder? Erich von Manstein? Kurt von Hammerstein-
Equord? Douglas MacArthur? Frederick the Great? Apocryphal?

Hammerstein03

Dear Quote Investigator: In self-help books I have repeatedly seen a two-by-two

matrix used to evaluate individuals. The four elements in the matrix were labeled:
Brilliant & Lazy, Brilliant & Energetic, Dumb & Lazy, and Dumb & Energetic.
Curiously, the brilliant and lazy were extolled above all others.

Sometimes a different vocabulary was employed. Brilliant was replaced by smart,

bright, clever, or intelligent. Energetic was replaced by industrious or diligent. Dumb
was replaced by stupid.

This four-class categorization has been ascribed to several German generals, e.g.,
Helmuth von Moltke, Erich von Manstein, Carl von Clausewitz, and Kurt von
Hammerstein-Equord. Would you please explore the origins of this matrix?

Quote Investigator: The earliest evidence located by QI appeared in January 1933

in a periodical called “Army, Navy & Air Force Gazette” based in Great Britain. A
passage attributed to German General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord described the
placing of officers into four classes.

The text was reprinted under the title “Selecting Officers” in the “United States Naval
Institute Proceedings” in March 1933 and in the “Review of Military Literature: The
Command and General Staff School Quarterly” in September 1933. Boldface has
been added to excerpts: 1 2

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General Freiherr von Hammerstein-Equord, the

present chief of the German Army, has a method
of selecting officers which strikes us as being
highly original and peculiarly un-Prussian.
According to Exchange, a Berlin newspaper has
printed the following as his answer to a query as
to how he judged his officers: “I divide my
officers into four classes as follows: The clever,
the industrious, the lazy, and the stupid. Each
officer always possesses two of these qualities.

Those who are clever and industrious I appoint

to the General Staff. Use can under certain
circumstances be made of those who are stupid
and lazy. The man who is clever and lazy
qualifies for the highest leadership posts. He
has the requisite nerves and the mental
clarity for difficult decisions. But whoever is
stupid and industrious must be got rid of, for he
is too dangerous.”

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

In 1942 Viscount Swinton (Philip Lloyd-Greame) spoke in the House of Lords in

London as recorded in the Hansard. He described the four classes of officers and
credited an unnamed German General: 3

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I do not know whether your Lordships are

familiar with the saying of a German General
that there are four types of officer but I think
that it is relevant to what we are discussing. He
said that there are four types of officer: the
clever and lazy, the clever and industrious, the
stupid and lazy, and the stupid and industrious.

The clever and lazy you make Chief of Staff,

because he will not try to do everybody else’s
work, and will always have time to think. The
clever and industrious you make his deputy. The
stupid and lazy you put into a line battalion, and
kick him into doing a job of work. The stupid and
industrious you must get rid of at once, because
he is a national danger.

A compact instance of the saying appeared in the World War II diary of General
Henry H. ‘Hap’ Arnold. An entry dated November 16, 1943 presented the lacerating
words that General Douglas MacArthur used to comment about a subordinate: 4

“You can use the brilliant but lazy man as a

strategist, a brilliant but energetic man as a
Chief of Staff, but God help you with a dumb but
energetic man”: MacArthur’s estimate of GB
[George Brett] one of the most charming damn
fools I have had the pleasure of meeting.
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Lieutenant General George Brett was reassigned to the less important Caribbean
Defense Command during World War II primarily because of MacArthur’s negative
opinion.

In 1953 LIFE magazine printed a condensed version of the analysis and ascribed the
words to Hammerstein: 5

General Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord, head of

the German army from 1930 to 1933, defined the
difference this way: “Officers who are clever and
industrious I appoint to the General Staff . . . the
man who is clever and lazy qualifies for the
highest leadership posts [Command]. He has
the requisite nerves and the mental clarity for
difficult decisions.”

In 1966 the “Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations” compiled by Robert Debs
Heinl included an instance of the quotation: 6

I divide officers into four classes—the clever, the

lazy, the stupid, and the industrious. Each officer
possesses at least two of these qualities. Those
who are clever and industrious are fitted for the
high staff appointments. Use can be made of
those who are stupid and lazy.

The man who is clever and lazy is fit for the

very highest command. He has the
temperament and the requisite nerves to deal

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with all situations. But whoever is stupid and

industrious must be removed immediately.

Attributed to General Kurt von

Hammerstein, c. 1933

By 2004 the scheme for sorting officers was being ascribed to General Erich von
Manstein in a book called “Living the 80/20 Way: Work Less, Worry Less, Succeed
More, Enjoy More”: 7

German military chief General von Manstein

said:
“There are only four types of officers.

First, there are the lazy, stupid ones. Leave them

alone, they do no harm.

Second, there are the hard-working intelligent

ones. They make excellent staff officers, ensuring
that every detail is properly considered.

Third, there are the hard-working, stupid ones.

These people are a menace, and must be fired at
once. They create irrelevant work for everybody.

Finally, there are the intelligent lazy ones.

They are suited for the highest office.”
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By 2005 the categorization method was being credited to Helmuth von Moltke. There
was some ambiguity because there were two German Generals: Helmuth von Moltke
the Elder and the Younger. Here is an example from a website post in 2005: 8

Legend has it that Prussian General von Moltke

had a very simple, but elegant, conceptual
framework which underlied his approach to
leadership and management. He classified all
individuals on only two dimensions —
intelligence and drive — which he considered
key independent variables. According to General
von Moltke, people are either smart or stupid
and they are either active or lazy.

What often surprises observers is the relative

value General von Moltke assigned to these four
categories of people. Although most people
would reflexively assume that the “Smart
Actives” would be the most prized — it was
actually the “Smart Lazies” that are the most
valuable.

A 2011 book about military strategy attributed an instance of the four-fold

classification system to Frederick the Great: 9

Frederick the Great’s typology of officers

provides a hint of how one might best think
about the issue of military competence. The
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Prussian king suggested that there were four

types of officers. First were the brilliant but
lazy. He suggested such officers had the
attributes to function at the highest levels of
command.

Second were the brilliant, but diligent. They

made the best staff officers. Third were the less
intelligent but lazy. They made good battalion
officers. Finally, there were the less intelligent
and the diligent. They were the most dangerous
to the proper functioning of any military
organization, in both peace and war, because of
their penchant for confusing process and work
for product.

In conclusion, this was a difficult expression to trace because it was complex, and it
could be articulated in myriad ways. Currently, the earliest example located by QI
appeared in English in 1933 and was credited to Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord.

If the 1933 citation was accurate then the expression appeared in German in a Berlin
newspaper in 1932 or 1933. QI has not yet located this instance.

Image Notes: The table graphic was created by QI.

Update History: On March 31, 2014 the March 1933 citation was added to this article.

(Special thanks to Dave Hause who noted the existence of this saying attributed to
Helmuth von Moltke the Elder during a discussion of the “lazy man” quotation
attributed to Bill Gates. Great thanks to Dan Goncharoff who noted the ascription to
Erich von Manstein. Also, thanks to the other ADS discussants: John Baker, Fred
Shapiro, Jonathan Lighter, and Victor Steinbok.)
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Notes:

1. 1933 March, United States Naval Institute Proceedings, Professional Notes:

January 1 to January 31, Section: Germany: Selecting Officers, Start Page 437,
Quote Page 448, The Institute, Annapolis, Maryland. (This document states that
the material from “Army, Navy & Air Force Gazette” was published January 19)
(Verified on microfilm)
2. 1933 September, Review of Military Literature: The Command and General Staff
School Quarterly, Volume 13, Number 50, Section 1: Abstracts of Foreign-
Language Articles, Selection of German Officers, (Excerpt from “Army, Navy & Air
Force Gazette” of UK; dated January 18, 1933), Quote Page 23 and 24, Published
Quarterly by The Command and General Staff School Library, Fort Leavenworth,
Kansas. (Special note: QI has not yet seen the issue of “Army, Navy & Air Force
Gazette” containing the excerpt; this data is from “Review of Military Literature”)
(Verified with scans from Combined Arms Research Library Digital Library)
3. 1942 February 24, Hansard, United Kingdom Parliament, Lords Sitting, “War
Situation”, Speaking: Viscount Swinton (Philip Lloyd-Greame), volume 122, cc1-60.
(Accessed hansard.millbanksystems.com on February 26, 2014) link
4. 2004, American Airpower Comes of Age: General Henry H. “Hap” Arnold’s World
War II Diaries (Volume 2) by General Henry H. Arnold, Edited by Major General
John W. Huston, (Diary entry dated November 16, 1943; location Atlantic Ocean),
Quote Page 78, (Footnote 38: Page 113 and 114), (Reprinted from 1998 edition),
University Press of the Pacific, Honolulu, Hawaii. (Google Books Preview)
5. 1953 June 1, LIFE, Volume 34, Number 22, Al Gruenther: The Thinking Machine
Who Bosses NATO by Robert Coughlan, Start Page 78, Quote Page 79, Time Inc.,
New York. (Google Books Full View) link
6. 1966, Dictionary of Military and Naval Quotations, Edited by Robert Debs Heinl,
Category: Officers, Page 223, Column 1 and 2, United States Naval Institute,
Annapolis, Maryland. (Verified on paper)
7. 2004, “Living the 80/20 Way: Work Less, Worry Less, Succeed More, Enjoy More”
by Richard Koch, Quote Page 72, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, London, England
and Boston, Massachusetts. (Google Books Preview)
8. Website: Sacred Cow Dung, Article title: “What is a ‘Scalable’ Business?”, Date on
website: June 18, 2005, Website description: “Mythocracy in Venture Capital,
Technology, Healthcare, Media, Internet, et al (Chief Dung Analyst: Christian
Mayaud)”, (Accessed sacredcowdung.com on February 4, 2014) link
9. 2011, Military Adaptation in War: With Fear of Change by Williamson Murray,
Section: Introduction, Quote Page 29, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
England. (The word “topology was changed to “typology” which is used in
adjacent text)(Google Books Preview)

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 February 28, 2014  garson  Douglas MacArthur  Douglas

MacArthur, Erich von Manstein, Frederick the Great, Helmuth von Moltke the
Elder, Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord

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