04 September 20XX
How important is intelligence compared to social skills in most organizations?
It turns out that there is a whole school of study devoted to precisely this question. Whether looking at a general interest publication devoted to “6 minute reads” like fastcompany.com (Duestchendorf) or the Financial Post (Williams) or a prestigous professional publication like the Harvard Business Review (Ovans) articles abound. A google search for “intelligence vs social skills in business” returned 12,000,000 hits. The issue of social skills in business even has its own jargon. It is referred to as “emotional intelligence.”
The conclusion is that social skills, defined very broadly to include, per Ovans, self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation (also known as “doing what you love” in the vernacular), empathy for others and social skills (specifically “managing relationships and building networks”) are actually more important than sheer intelligence or technical expertise in working one’s way up the career ladder. Deustchendorf tends to put it in the inverse. Careers tend to get “derailed” for those lacking emotional intelligence. Sheer brainpower and technical expertise are important to be sure. But it is emotional intelligence that helps careers. Or, as Williams puts it, intelligence matters but it is how you are intelligent that is the real determinant of success.
How then to square that with a list of the richest people in America? Forbes, the source for such information, lists Bill Gates as number one with Warren Buffet second, Larry Ellison third, Jeff Bezos fourth and Charles and David Koch fifth and sixth. Of the top 5 then, all demonstrate genius in one form or another. Bill Gates was the programming wizard who brought an “Apple look” to personal computing via his Windows programs. Warren Buffet has an almost mystical ability to choose winning stocks. Larry Ellison founded computer giant Oracle, Jeff Bezos founded Amazon and the Koch brothers are manufacturing geniuses. And Mark Zuckerberg, at seventh richest is, of course, the programming genius that made social networking possible.
What can we conclude from this? You can get to be Vice-President of Seven Boring Things for a Fortune 500 company on the strength of your social skills. If you want to achieve the pinnacle of wealth, though, you had better be a genius with a world changing idea.
2. Was Mark’s success accidental? Why or why not?
The success was the product of hard work. But the level of success was at least partly luck. Nobody remembers “myspace,” but there were competitors in the early years of facebook. To reach the level of seventh richest person in a very rich nation requires at least some luck.
3. Do you have to be as smart as Mark Zuckerberg to start a successful company? Why or why not?
Of course you don’t. There are successful companies up and down Main Street in any small town in America. The people who fix your lawn mower or your automobile, who sell you insurance, who handle your legal work or who provide your dinner are all successful. If, however, the question is “do you have to be as smart as Mark Zuckerberg to become one of the 10 richest people in the nation then the answer is “probably.” It does take something beyond a “good” idea to achieve that level of success. You can be a brilliant programmer like Bill Gates (“How good were Bill Gates and the late Steve Jobs at programming?”) or a brilliant visionary like Steve jobs. A “brilliant” idea is a good starting place. And then it must be backed up by years of hard work. Then, with some luck, you can break into that Fortune list.
Works Cited
Deutschendorf, H. Why Emotionally Intelligent People Are More Successful. (2015, June 22). fastcompany.com. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/3047455/hit-the-ground-running/why-emotionally-intelligent-people-are-more-successful
Forbes 400. Forbes. (2016). Retrieved from http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/list/#version:static
King, P. How good were Bill Gates and the late Steve Jobs at programming? (n.d.). quora.com Retrived from https://www.quora.com/How-good-were-Bill-Gates-and-the-late-Steve-Jobs-at-programming-1
Ovans, A. How Emotional Intelligence Became A Key Leadership Skill. (2015, April 28). The Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2015/04/how-emotional-intelligence-became-a-key-leadership-skill
Williams, R. The biggest predictor of career success? Not skills or education - but emotional intelligence. (2014, January 1). Financial Post. Retrieved from http://business.financialpost.com/executive/careers/the-biggest-predictor-of-career-success-not-skills-or-education-but-emotional-intelligence
