Being in the Silicon Valley, I routinely encounter exceptionally bright people who come to me as clients with a request for help in their career or in their venture. In my current pool I have a few clients who are Gold Medalists, Ivy-Leaguer valedictorians, and those who graduated at the top of their class. What is common among them? Apart from their academic achievements, the common problem they all share is that they are stuck in their jobs and are not able to get traction to move forward and advance their careers. They feel insulted when their immediate boss is a graduate of a local community college. What is puzzling to them is that despite their credentials, acknowledged smarts, and great contributions at work, they are often overrun by their “lesser” peers!
How is this possible?
In the corporate world what is important is not how you can solve a problem, but it is how you get the results and how you get things done through others. As I have written in my previous blogs, the correlation between IQ and academic grades is nearly 100%, whereas, the correlation between IQ and professional success is only about 20%! One common factor among these exceptionally gifted people is that they are unable to graduate into the realities of the professional and corporate world.
So, what is that reality? In those blogs I also espoused that there are five “Qs” that define our value proposition in the corporate world: IQ, EQ (Emotional Intelligence), PQ (Political Intelligence), CQ (Cultural intelligence), and XQ (Contextual Intelligence). From this list only the IQ is the nature’s gift to us; the rest are all nurtured attributes that one can develop by being aware of them and by practicing behaviors that are learned. For example, Emotional Intelligence has five components: Awareness of self; Self-control; Motivation; Empathy; and Communication. Each of these elements is a learned behavior. By increasing your EQ you are able to build better relationships with others and it is these relationships that help you leverage your leadership to get things done. Unless you are able to influence through your emotional connections with others no amount of intelligent thought or idea is going to move that person to see your leadership.
Similarly Political Intelligence (PQ) helps you drive your agenda by understanding others’ agendas and by being politic (shrewd) about how to subsume your agenda with someone else’s, who carries some clout in your place of work. People often mistake PQ with more nefarious dealings and the shenanigans that go on in any organization. This is a reality for any organization and cannot be separated from the workings of any business where people come together to work.
The Cultural Intelligence (CQ) deals with understanding how to deal with people with different cultures and working with them despite mutual cultural differences and Contextual Intelligence (XQ) deals with understanding the overarching context in which you need to act to create the right and effective outcomes. Beyond that they do not need much elaboration, as they are self-explanatory.
So, how does one marshal these attributes and forge ahead to get things done?
Those with IQs in the “gifted” range must be particularly careful about how they “sell” their solution to those who must implement it. My experience is that what is obvious to these gifted minds often becomes abstruse to their less-gifted colleagues. So, unless they are able to simplify their reasoning and solution to a point where it is more easily understood by others they really do not have a workable solution. They may be able to impress their boss with the brilliance of their approach or the elegance of their solution, but when the boss tells them to go ahead and implement that solution, they fail to deliver; often, because they fail to sell that same solution to those who must make it work and to create value from it. Socializing a solution is often a missing step where their stunted Emotional Intelligence (EQ) does not help their cause. They also often fail to find Early Adopters of their thinking who would help them socialize that solution before it becomes a working solution.
So, what is my prescription for the smart clients to be effective in their work? Here is a summary of what I recommend to them:
1. When you have a brilliant solution to a problem, first try to reduce your complex analysis into understandable chunks that “average” people will find it easy to understand and digest. Here, analogs and metaphors often work well. Instead of mathematical equations try using proven analogs that work to covey your ideas.
2. To create a groundswell of support to your approach or solution you must come across as a leader. A person is not a leader unless they have at least one follower. Try to recruit a follower who is also a thought leader, who can communicate well, and who can champion your idea for you. It is this follower that defines your leadership more than almost anything else. Nothing is more powerful than someone championing your idea and recruiting more followers to create greater awareness and followership for your solution.
3. Do not take your raw idea to management unless you have built a groundswell of support. The problem with management often is that they have already decided that you are a smart fellow, so they will blindly agree with you and ask you to go ahead and implement that idea. But, without a solid support from those who can make your idea work, it is more than likely become a failure because now they are following orders from the higher-ups, and not doing something because they are excited about it.
4. When developing support for your idea at the working level try telling stories and anecdotes to fortify your precise analysis. Analyses are often based on assumptions and mathematics. So, if the underlying assumptions are untenable no mathematical wizardry will salvage your brilliant solution.
5. Leverage the collective wisdom of the team to fortify your already brilliant solution to make it workable and sellable to those who are willing to pay for it or those who see it as value. If you belong in a team, chances are that there are others in that team who may be almost as smart and who can make your solution even more brilliant!
6. Give credit to others for their contributions. You get credit by giving credit. Don’t be a credit hog!
7. If others in your team are slow to cotton with your idea do not belittle them. You need their support to make your idea work.
8. Do not show impatience if it takes longer than you think for others to implement your idea and to make it work. Remember, an idea is useless unless someone executes it and unless others see its benefit.
9. Even though you may not be leading the charge to make your idea work, provide the needed support to keep the team’s morale. Do not let minor setbacks derail the team’s efforts.
10. Above all, when it is all done thank everyone who made it a reality and let them take the spotlight!