Intelligence and LO LO9795

Debbie Broome (debbieb@linux.plano.gov)
Fri, 6 Sep 1996 09:54:38 -0500

Replying to LO9757 --

Replying to INVS Raju who wrote on 9/5/96:

>Replying to what Debbie Broome wrote in LO9638 Valdis said this:
>
>> Yes! How many of us have been back to a high school reunion and been
>> totally amazed at who is successful? Yes, the Valedictorian and his/her
>> court all probably have 'better than average' jobs/careers. But who is
>> running their own mult-million dollar firm? Who is a world-famous
>> researcher, doctor, musician, journalist, consultant, humanitarian? It's
>> usually those people who were not particularly 'noticeable' in high school
>> [they were neither cute, athletic, or very brainy].
>
>Reading this gave me an idea which I what to share with you all here.
>Those pupils who were not particularly "noticeable" in schools who have
>eventually become researchers, doctors and so on should make it a point
>that in their life time they go to the schools they studied in and share
>their experience to the students and teachers.

M. Raju I think you make an excellent point about successful people
sharing what they learned with the schools they came from. However, I
wanted to clarify my point in my original message. It wasn't about
sucessful people in high school not being as successful in later
life...and the "nobodies" turning out to be the successful ones. My point
was that highly intelligent people are sometimes so focused on abstract
ideas or concepts or are so far ahead in their thinking that they
sometimes cannot relate to the rest of us or what is going on around them
in a practical sense. In other words, some of the social and
communication skills may not be developed as well. I was surprised by Ben
Compton's comment that he thought Microsoft indeed had an usually large
number of highly intelligent people (as stated in Bill Gate's objective)
and that's why they moved forward so quickly. If systems thinking is a
highly intuitive process, when we slow down long enough to employ the
tools of systems thinking--how much of a role does intelligence play.

I have been re-reading parts of the Fifth Discipline for a project here at
work. In Senge's examples (particularly the Beer game), it seems that
failure or failing to move ahead was the result of myopic vision and not
lack of intelligence. Learning couldn't occur because of a one-track
focus and not a systems approach. Other examples he uses of company
failures indicate that leadership is provided by highly intelligent
leaders who are focused in one area, i.e. sales, advertising, etc. and
again get that myopic view of the world as opposed to a systems approach.
I think intelligence is important in learning organizations, but a blend
of all skills and a heavy does of intuition probably plays a bigger role.

-- 

Debbie

Debbie Broome | P.O. Box 860358 Assistant City Manager | Plano, Texas 75086-0358 City of Plano | e-mail: FAX: 214-423-9587 | debbieb@linux.plano.gov

Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>