Being Smart is Not Enough

I would not bet on me. I mean that if I were looking at another version of me, a kid today who as a digital native is deemed “gifted,” I would not regard his prospects for success as all that great. The reason is that I was predicted to be an academic star, perhaps a prodigy, according to standardized testing forty years ago in the American Midwest. Yet in my actual performance, I consistently did less well than I should have, a pattern that in retrospect is not surprising.

I have a hypothesis about my failing to live up to my potential. It also offers a lesson to the next generation.

Allow me to share. There is a technical reason, not insignificant, for the discrepancy. All of the multiple choice questions that made me appear exceptional were only predictors. My ability to answer accurately and rapidly, with reading comprehension that went off the scale early on, shows that I could play a game, not that I was superior in life. These predictors have limited value. Many people overperform and underperform; no matter what instrument is used for assessment in advance, a distribution of outcomes is normal.

A digression about “the model minority” stereotype of Asian Americans. Some time later, as a teacher, I was confronted by a student who told me that the grade I had given her (an A-minus, no less) could not be right, since she had a virtually perfect LSAT score. I could hardly keep from laughing. At that level of cleverness, she should have realized her argument was not at all persuasive, especially since every one of her colleagues could have made the same boast.

So here is why I consistently disappointed my parents. It’s simple. IQ is not enough. EQ matters.

More than that, I am weak on everything else that “EQ” represents. EQ generally is understood to refer to how we interact with others: are we able to read social cues and respond accordingly. Someone with Asperger’s Syndrome is low on “EQ;” a winning politician, likely high on “EQ.” I also lacked perseverance and resilience. Although I was good at abstract logic and applying information to new circumstances, that doesn’t necessarily mean I had practical use for problem solving.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not criticizing myself to the extent of celebrating idiocy. My point is more subtle. We, some of us in the era of helicopter parents preparing kindergarteners for the Ivy League, are too enamored of a list of competencies that is incomplete. There is nothing wrong, and much right, about being book smart. Yet any of us, and all of us as a society, ought to appreciate that that is necessary but not sufficient.

Yes, I skipped a grade in school, and I graduated high school at 16, college at 20 (Johns Hopkins, ranked at just about the median of the class). That is nothing. Once you compete among those who are geniuses, not in the hyperbolic rhetoric we apply, it seems, to anyone displaying proficiency, you realize that the individuals who are brilliant are extraordinarily so. But even they need nurturing.

I remember reading a magazine article about twenty years ago — and it isn’t remarkable I can recall that, either — memory can be exercised, and real masters can one-up me by an order of magnitude. The piece described the daily lives of persons whose intelligence gains them entry to clubs that only a handful of Mensa members would be invited to. Verging on caricature, perhaps to assuage the feelings of those of us who rate as morons in relative terms, it relieved me. The inability of these persons to relate to others suggests there is a negative correlation of some sort.

If you ask me, the so-called “soft” skills are much harder to develop than “hard” skills. At every level of sophistication, an employer can buy as much as it needs of STEM capabilities. Even the most esoteric forms of research eventually attracts enough supply of credentialed people to meet the demand. But it is difficult to locate, measure, and cultivate leadership. To manage others effectively is the rare expertise. In my book, as revised thanks to experience, coaching a team in sports to a championship or causing an audience to laugh as a stand-up comic, to use two dissimilar examples, are at least as impressive as a top SAT score achieved in adolescence.

The reason I document my imperfection in such public terms is to warn my peers. I now am at the age my father was when I was in college. If you, my friend, have a child of whom you are proud, because his aptitude is in the top one percent on some exam, neither you nor he should be overconfident. There is much more to success, however defined, than you suppose.

A multitude of personality traits are called for. Put down the devices: exercise, socialize, play, work the room — and flourish.

This essay originally appeared at The Huffington Post.