Word of Caution: What SATs, IQ
In short, there are many different kinds of intelligence
Tests, GMATs, and Others Don’t
Measure (Timmons, 8th ed; Chapt 2, Pp55)
Nothing in the world can take the place of
persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more
common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius
will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb.
Education will not; the world is full of educated
derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are
omnipotent. The slogan “Press on” has solved and
solved and always will solve the problems of the
human race.
President Calvin Coolidge
The following data about alumni whose careers were
followed for nearly 25 years has always shocked
second year Harvard MBA students. Regardless of
the measure one applies, among the very top of the
class were graduates who were both highly
successful and not very successful. At the bottom of
the class were alumni who became outrageously
successful, and others who accomplished little with
their lives and exceptional education. The middle of
the class achieved all points on the continuum of
success. How could this be?
America’s brightest fared poorly in the Third
International Mathematics and Science Study
comparing high school seniors from 20 nations,
according to The New York Times. In a competition
between the world’s most precocious seniors, those
taking physics and advanced math, the Americans
performed at the bottom. The article noted,
After decades of agonizing over the fairness of SAT
scores, the differences between male and female
mathematical skills, and gaps in IQ between
various racial and ethnic groups, the notion of
intelligence and how to measure it remains more
political than scientific, and as maddenly elusive as
ever.
In ancient China, the top scholar in the Imperial
Examination is called a zhuangyuan ( ), and
zhuangyuan are highly admired throughout Chinese
history. Today, people refer to students who scored
the highest points in their provincial college entrance
examinations as zhuangyuan. Being called a
zhuangyuan is still the ultimate badge of honor
for many students in China. However, results from
a study of 1,120 zhuangyuan who graduated between
1977 and 2008 were shocking; most of these top
scholars perform far below expectation in their
careers. Conversely, a study on a high-ranking
Chinese university’s outstanding alumni showed that
none of these former students were zhangyuan.
Document1
— a much greater bandwidth than most researchers
and test architects ever imagined. The dynamic and
subtle complexities of the entrepreneurial task
require its own special intelligences. How else would
one explain the enormous contradiction inherent in
business and financially failed geniuses?
One only need consider the critical skills and
capacities that are at the heart of entrepreneurial
leadership and achievement, yet are not measured by
the IQ tests, SATs, GMATs, and the like that grade
and sort young applicants with such imprecision.
Consider the skills and capacities not measured by
these tests:
✓ Leadership skills.
✓ Interpersonal skills.
✓ Team building and team playing.
✓ Creativity and ingenuity.
✓ Motivation.
✓ Learning skills (versus knowledge).
✓ Persistence and determination.
✓ Values, ethics, honesty, and integrity.
✓ Goal-setting orientation.
✓ Self-discipline.
✓ Frugality.
✓ Resourcefulness.
✓ Resiliency and capacity to handle adversity.
✓ Ability to seek, listen, and use feedback.
✓ Reliability.
✓ Dependability.
✓ Sense of humor.
It is no wonder that a number of excellent colleges
and universities eliminated these measures or placed
them in a proper perspective. Obviously this should
not be construed to mean entrepreneurship is for
dummies. Quite the opposite is true. Indeed,
intelligence is a very valuable and important asset for
entrepreneurs, but by itself is woefully inadequate.
Clearly just being very smart won’t help much if one
doesn’t possess numerous other. A fascinating
article by Chris Argyris, “Teaching Smart People
How to Learn,” is well worth reading to get some
powerful insights into why it is often not the class
genius who becomes most successful.