Comments

Agree 100% - and another timely reminder of the same thing on iGoogle today;

'I prefer the company of peasants because they have not been educated sufficiently to reason incorrectly.' - Michel de Montaigne.

Posted by Trevor Gay at June 25, 2007 6:25 PM

Perfect! After studying years learning applied physics and industrial design I really need people to go about and say intelligence and engineering are overrated... Thanks Tom ;-)

Posted by Rik at June 26, 2007 4:55 AM

I don't think this is an intelligence problem. I think it is an attitude problem. I have encountered quite a few people who are streets ahead in the intelligence stakes and yet because of their humility and general way they treat others can use that brain power very effectivly. Now I don't know if you are more likely to get poor behaviour from a high intelligence person or if it just a case that you notice it more?

What is also interesting about Higgins is who he did hire (anyone really black, white, male, female) - he didn't care as long as you could do the job

Posted by PaulH at June 26, 2007 6:35 AM

Paul, you took the words right out of my mouth. I think it is more often a case of attitude over intelligence. As a society we seem to anoint highly intelligent people as somehow superior to everyone else from a very early age. They are told that they are better than everyone else and often grow up believing it. The result is that they rest on their intelligence laurels and wait for the world to serve them.

I happen to belong to Mensa - so what! To me it's kind of a novelty credential and most people don't even know I'm a member. The interesting thing, though, is it seems every time I get in a conversation about Mensa, the person I'm talking with has a story to tell about another member - and they are rarely flattering. Most are about the person who flaunts their membership, constantly talks about their "high IQ" and treats everyone as inferior. It's their attitude that drives people nuts, not their intelligence.

I know what I know and I know what I don't know. I've always believed in finding, working with and hiring people who know more than me. It works very well and seems like the smart thing to do.

Posted by Andrew Hayden at June 26, 2007 10:09 AM

If any of you would care to re-read Edward de Bono, you'll see that he pointed this problem of the "intelligence trap" out years ago...

Posted by Mick Coleman at June 29, 2007 3:37 AM

Being intelligent and being educated are two different things. I was astonished at how, well, dim, a good number of people were I encountered at the rarefied British university I attended: they had been 'schooled' in how to get into Oxford or Cambridge, but were by no stretch of the imagination intelligent. In fact, they were dangerous because they had been educated to believe they were smarter than they were. Being educated so you feel you are an expert in a subject is similar to that old problem ascribed to training - As soon as you train someone in how to do something, you take away the possibility that they will figure out a better way of doing it themselves. Ken Robinson, the educationalist, says we educate people to live in their heads, and slightly to one side. Real intelligence would include constantly holding in your head the acceptance that the solution your highly intelligent head has come up with may be completely wrong and someone who appears less intelligent or educated than you may well have the right answer - and the willingness to instantly abandon your own position and accept theirs if your highly evolved brain tells you that is indeed the case.

Posted by Phil Dourado at July 6, 2007 3:50 PM

High IQ is most definitely not a prerequisite for effective leadership. However it has been proven that leaders have a high level of emotional intelligence (EQ) over at least six of the main eight areas. Coupled with EQ is Social Intelligence so it's not like leadership doesn't require intelligence at all.

Posted by Daryl Close at September 2, 2007 10:40 PM