As I emphasized, brainpower is the most important and sole criterion for an affirmative decision for a job offer—nothing else matters as much! It is essential to understand exactly what it means. There are two different dimensions that define brainpower in the context of a business career: (i) Relative Reference Groups, and (ii) Specific Intellectual Ability.
Relative Reference Groups
In the business world, one’s brainpower will always be a comparative measure. Your brainpower will be “measured” relative to others. In job interviews, there are two groups of people you will be compared to. You know of one group—the other candidates who are competing with you for the job. The ones ranked closer to the top will have the greatest advantage and opportunity for an offer.
However, you and all the other candidates will always be measured relative to the people already working for the company. When looking to hire, a company will have a profile that is representative of the brainpower resident within its employees. No candidate will be deemed acceptable unless they are thought to meet that representative level. The representative level varies widely depending on the job description, job title, group, department, company, nature of business, and so on. This is an obvious observation, but it serves to elucidate my earlier comment that one always competes against other candidates.
Specific Intellectual Ability
This refers to one’s cognitive and intellectual abilities, those colloquially referred to as comprising a person’s IQ level. I’ve already referred to it in the book using the word “smarts” and “brainpower.” I will continue to use these words in a generic way to include all types of intelligence. In general, the levels are subjectively described as extremely smart, exceptionally smart, very smart, above-average smart, average smart, below-average smart, and so on.
I contend there are two different types of smarts, which are important in the business world. Each plays a decisive role in a person’s career, but in different ways. The difference may appear to be a subtle one; however, the implications are not. One needs to understand the difference and subtlety to know how to best try to influence an interviewer’s judgment. I find that most people confuse the two and as a result suboptimize the way they are perceived by interviewers.
The most prevalent misconception is the belief that command of subject expertise is how smarts are evaluated in job interviews. It is not. Others believe that their previous job performance (assuming it required a certain amount of brainpower) is proof enough. It is not. Yet others believe that their apparent higher IQ would suffice to prove smarts. It does not!
I refer to the two types of smarts as (i) raw cognitive smarts, and (ii) interpretive smarts. By way of a metaphor, imagine a powerful sports car. The car may be capable of reaching a speed in excess of 150 mph; however, only a slight amount of the power is utilized in daily, routine driving, particularly within city limits. At the same time, the driver need not be capable of intricate maneuvers at high speed. Instead, they simply must be able to find their way in the maze of city streets and alleys, drive defensively while constantly looking in the mirrors, back up and park in tight spaces, avoid traffic jams, and so on. I refer to the former as “raw potential” and the latter as “interpretive” power. The same concept applies to brainpower, particularly as related to business challenges. One’s IQ is a measurement of raw cognitive smarts, while the “interpretive” smarts represent not the raw potential, but rather how brainpower is applied in unique situational analyses and specific applications.
The two may be correlated, but not necessarily act in tandem. One can expect that a person with a high IQ will also score reasonably high on the interpretive type scale, but it is not necessarily the case. In other words, someone with a genius IQ may or may not score at a high level on the interpretive smarts scale. In fact, in spite of the very high IQ, the interpretive ability may fall way down the scale, say, a smidgen above average. This may be an example of someone who is “book smart” in that they possess a very high IQ but not an impressive degree of brainpower otherwise. The same is true in reverse. A person who scores very high on the interpretive smarts scale may or may not score very high on the IQ scale—this may be an example of someone who has “street smarts.” It is this subtle difference that captures the essence of the different role each type plays in interviews.
The real difference lies in the timing of when each of the two types plays a more dominant role. They both are critically influential, but at different times. The raw cognitive smarts play a dominant role in the initial screening that lands one an interview, and only a secondary role during the interview itself. The interpretive smarts play no role in the initial screening, but become the dominant factor during interviews.
There is another difference between the two types. Although both are inferred from proxies, the raw cognitive smarts are much more readily measured, and probably accurately so. Interpretive smarts are more difficult to measure, and accuracy is not guaranteed.
Raw, Cognitive Smarts
The most common proxy used to make a judgment on this category is a person’s academic performance. One’s grades and the reputation of the schools attended are the most determinative aspects. The better the reputation of the school and the higher the grades, the higher one will be perceived in this criterion. Grades are not viewed linearly; rather, they are lumped in categories: top 5 percent, top 10 percent, top quartile, second quartile, average, below average. Schools are ranked in similar categories. One gets the highest score in the raw cognitive smarts category if one achieves top grades at top schools. This will most likely greatly influence such a person’s chances of being invited to an initial in-person interview. Such smarts also play an important role during the interviewing process itself. They are not dominant, but meaningful.
As soon as an interviewer scans the academic record of a candidate, a bias sets in based on the candidate’s grades and schools attended. The bias could be positive, neutral, or negative. Bias tends to influence how the interviewers will react to what they see and hear during the interview session itself. Everything else being equal, the interviewers will more easily accept observations that confirm their bias, and will be more “forgiving” when observing what might contradict such bias, and vice versa. Although not dominant, it still is a meaningful advantage.
This is why a successful academic record is so important; it will open so many more doors into so many different opportunities over a person’s career. The more the opportunities, the greater the likelihood for success. It is also nice to start any interviewing session with a strong positive bias.
There is another reason for the importance of past academic record. It plays a major role again in the third and fourth categories of interviews, which are those for very experienced professional and higher-level managers. I don’t cover these categories in this book, but bring this dimension to your attention for the sake of completeness. For those categories of interviews, the most determinative factors are the candidate’s expertise, work experience, and record of career advancement. Assuming one’s factors are as attractive as those of the other candidates, the academic track record will then become the next greatest influencer on an interviewer’s judgment, even though it might not even be discussed in the interview itself.
Interpretive Smarts
This category is the most highly regarded type of smarts in the business world, beginning with the interview process and throughout one’s career. The business world, at all levels, is constantly facing changing opportunities and challenges. Therefore, the ability to anticipate them, analyze the implications, and draw the right conclusions becomes a highly sought-after skill. This ability is most commonly referred to as the analytical skills (as in the ability to analyze).
As I mentioned earlier in the book, those changing opportunities and challenges do not have black-and-white solutions. Rather, there is only a relative measurement scale, from better to worse. Each alternative for any recommended action will be measured relative to some other alternatives or benchmarks. The one deemed to be the better overall will likely be selected. Only after the fact is one able to tell to what degree a solution has been effective.
This has major implications for an employee. Those employees who are deemed to contribute the most in this cycle of analyses, resolutions, and recommendations will likely be more highly rewarded. There are three dimensions at play with the analytical skills: (i) one’s brainpower, innate and developed through experience; (ii) the methodology used in the analyses—the thoroughness, techniques, and correctness of all the steps involved in the process of identifying, analyzing, drawing conclusions, and making recommendations; and (iii) creativity, or “thinking outside of the box.”
One can measurably improve the first dimension, but clearly it is limited to the upper bounds of one’s innate abilities. The second dimension is almost independent from the first. The methodology is something one can be taught and one can eventually master. Because of its importance, I dedicate an entire section (section VII: “A Sound Methodology for Business Analyses”) to it. The third, creativity, is also an innate skill and also difficult to change much. However, one can sharpen their creative skills and apply them more effectively through observation, practice, and experience. Creative skill, like anything with brainpower, is not an all-or-nothing proposition. It is just a question of how much of it a person possesses, or doesn’t, and how they use it.
At Booz Allen, we separated talent based on how creative they were. One could not do well without the first two capabilities—brainpower and methodology—but could succeed without the third, creativity. However, one with more highly developed creative skills, meaning one who was more able to think outside the box, stood a much greater chance of providing more inventive solutions to a client and being recognized for this within the company. We differentiated the two by referring to one as the “pedestrian thinker” and the output as “pedestrian analysis” versus the “creative thinker” and the output as “creative analysis.”
Note that the distinction between pedestrian analysis and creative analysis is how different from the “obvious” the analysis and thinking are. The closer to the “obvious,” the more pedestrian the analysis. The less obvious, therefore, becomes the product of the more creative thinker. Notice the commonality between the creative thinker definition and how I defined “insightful” thinking—they are practically one and the same.
Needless to say, if one is blessed with innate analytical brainpower and is competent at applying the proper methodology, one would be greatly rewarded over time. Add to it the third dimension, creativity (or insightfulness), and one has the greatest opportunity to stand out from the rest and enjoy an accelerated career.