But (S)He's So Intelligent!

When individual performance issues are being discussed and the conversation consistently ends with, "Yeah, but (s)he's so intelligent," there is a problem.

For years I've watched clients try to figure out what to do with high potential, growth-stunted people. Most of the companies I've worked with have invested huge amounts of time, money, coaching, and education in an effort to prompt behavioral change in some "exceedingly intelligent" people. You've no doubt seen the same thing.

Do any of these situational factors look familiar?

Global Operations Director who hits all of the monetary goals but no one wants to work with her. They don't trust her because she withholds information and doesn't include other managers in decisions that impact how they do their work.

Brilliant Vice President of Finance who can't conduct meetings, doesn't like to plan, and knows more ways to help the company earn money on its money than its bankers do. Up for promotion for top job. Really doesn't want it. People love working with him because they learn from him. He wants to continue developing investment methods and models.

Director of Regulatory Compliance. No one explains new (regulated) products to the government better than this guy. So what's the problem? To the company it means the difference between a commercial product or nothing new to sell. His direct reports described their feelings toward him as "hate" (never a real good sign). They say he is a "bully," "condescending," and "has no patience with anyone he thinks is less intelligent than him." When offered the possibility of being a high-level individual contributor, the director digs in his heels and says, "No. I want to be a manager."

What are we seeing here?

It's actually easy to explain: we simply cannot believe that someone who is "intelligent" could actually act so "stupid." What we're doing is responding to a single, outstanding talent or skill automatically ascribing  other attributes that we think must certainly be there. We then look at academic credentials and technical performance and believe that, somehow, we must be wrong. (Otherwise, why would we have hired and then promoted the person? Here it becomes a little self-defensive on our part, but who wants to look at that?:-)

It's Not Smart to Misunderstand Intelligence

It's easy to make the mistake of believing that making great presentations, investments, operational decisions, or engineering breakthroughs is a sign of superior intelligence. These certainly indicate an outstanding ability to think and reason within given circumstances and topics. However, take a look at just a few definitions from those involved in intelligence testing and research over the years:

"The capacity to learn or to profit by experience."
(Dearborn, 1921)

"A global concept that involves an individual's ability to act purposefully, think rationally, and deal effectively with the environment."
(Wechsler, 1958)

"A person possesses intelligence insofar as he had learned, or can learn, to adjust himself to his environment."
(Colvin, cited in Sternberg, 1982, p.30)

Learn, adapt, adjust. None of our managers is willing, able, or both. So we need to stop praising their "intelligence" and start recognizing an inability or unwillingness to adapt and learn.

What to look for and what to do

If you are trying to manage situations similar to those above, here are some field-tested tips:

1. When "intelligence" becomes the mantra-of-excuse after you've coached and counseled a person, you are stuck. Stop looking at what you think they are and start defining what they actually do well and where they are refusing to learn.

2. When you've defined what they do well, talk with them honestly about where they'll fit best over the long run. Yes, they may not see it that way and leave.

3. When you find that 90% of your energy is spent trying to figure out or explain 10% of your stunted performers, stop. Look at what you want from performance; compare it with what you are getting; and avoid explaining away the gap. We've all done it. We want people to succeed. And if they are likeable it's even harder. Fact: We aren't being helpful to them or the organization.

4. If it's a manager, remember this: bad managers are toxic. It's easy to believe we're dealing with a single performance issue. We're not. Toxic managers are impacting the performance of everyone around them.

5. If you think you can't live without someone, you can. What would you do if, God forbid, they dropped over tomorrow? It could happen. And life will go on.

What about our friends in the examples?

The Global Operations guru will soon become an individual contributor and technical advisor. It will work well.

Brilliant Finance Whiz has become the Chief Economic Officer (newly created role) of a major global enterprise. His second-in-command, a good manager, got the top job. Everyone is satisfied with the outcome and performance is top-notch all around.

Regulatory Compliance bully: we don't know yet. The company is still willing to invest in professional development.

Do you have a "But they're so intelligent. . ." story?

Can't wait to hear it.

www.researchinformation.info

Comments

[Eric D. Brown]

Steve - Great insight.

I see this often within organizations. A Recent experience is a perfect example:

The CIO of the organization is impatient, acts like a bully, doesn't think about strategy at all and has absolutely no respect from anyone within the IT group. Everyone is stressed out and the word 'hate' is mentioned fairly regularly when people are talking about their jobs and the CIO.

Even though this CIO is not respected and 'hated' by most in the organization, he is allowed to continue in the role because he 'is so intelligent and has a great vision'.

I argue with them on both counts. I don't believe he's more intelligent than anyone else in the organization and his vision isn't terribly innovative nor strategic. I have a feeling that his vision has been built by reading CIO.com and hearing buzzwords.

This one person has created an environment that makes people dread coming into work. Morale is low and output is even lower.

But....he's so intelligent.

[Steve Roesler]

Eric, that's a classic.

Now you've piqued my synapses. Looking back, I have to say anecdotally that I've encountered this dynamic (the bully factor) much more in I.T. and Operations roles than in other parts of organizations. Could be just coincidence. But IT folks in some places seem to hold sway due to some mystical, imagined power: (S)he works in an area that we know nothing about and can't possibly ever understand.

Thanks for adding the real-life story...

[Tom Haskins]

Steve: Your approach to handling these individuals seems wise and effective to me. I encountered this issue as a "system level problem" when consulting the merger of two hospitals. After interviewing 60 docs, administrators and Board members, I realized there was a pattern of extremely intelligent professionals generating problems like the turnover of valued talent, chronic inter-departmental turf battles and breakdowns in the merger itself. Several were mortified when I painted the big picture they had been blind to by being so good at their jobs. They seemed to be "products of the system", as well as caught up in their exceptional intelligence. The hospitals were breeding grounds for these problems.

As I compared them with their colleagues who did not have a the problem, there were several consistent differences. Docs with ownership interests in private clinics outside the hospital did not have this problem. Their genius was contextualized by having customers, marketing concerns and multiple bottom lines. Docs with teaching duties or clinical specialties that were "inpatient only" -- appeared to be "too smart to do the right thing for the whole situation". Their world view was insular, caught up in intense professionalism and clueless about other contexts, issues and repercussions. Those with entrepreneurial involvements seemed resourceful and resilient amidst conflicts, misunderstandings and setbacks, Those with academic or professional allegiances seemed over-sensitive and in need of being handled with kid gloves. I compared them in my presentation to all being ice skaters going for the gold in the Olympics, performing on the same ice. Yet some were figure skaters who excelled in individual performance and others were a hockey team that won the gold together. The merger forced everyone to consider multiple frames of reference, internal customers and unintended consequences of professional excellence.

[peter vajda]

Terrific post, Steve and thank you.

I was called in to work with “Jane”, an exceptional, intelligent instructional designer, a member of a 14-person design team. Her work was first rate – much admired by her colleagues, her bosses, and the company’s clients. That’s the good news.

The bad news - she was hated, publicly and privately, overtly and covertly. She became a pariah, no one wanted to work with her, socialize with her, give her the time of day. She was rude, disrespectful, demeaning of others’ work, others’ perspectives, other’s creative abilities. You name it, she found fault with everyone – the creative team, external subject matter experts and external clients.

Folks held their breath whenever she had to engage with a colleague or client. She hijacked every conversation, felt it was her responsibility to “educate” everyone (even those who didn’t need educating) and otherwise teach, train, and tell everyone she could how and why they were “wrong, or prove how she was “better” – whether the conversation was about “things instructional”, hockey, or places to go on vacation.

She would “one-up” everyone. She became unbearable in conversations, in meetings, in interpersonal interactions where she would, 99% of the time, hijack whatever the conversation was and "make it her own", with her own spin, her facts, and, yes, her criticisms of whatever anyone else said. She felt she just knew more, and often she did...BUT it was her behavior that was egregious and inappropriate.

She was pulled back from client interactions as she was such an embarrassment. Folks put up with her toxicity because she was “intelligent.”

She didn’t have one friend at work – “…no one who ever comes to talk to me..." etc. And, she couldn't understand why.

Finally the internal pain (literally and figuratively) became so bad that something needed to be done. I was asked to provide coaching support.

The kicker here is that Jane was totally unconscious of her off-putting behavior. She was just doing what she does and incivility was part of it. Unconscious.

Some background: Jane grew up in a family situation where, for years, she was given was given $.25 at dinner every night (read: every night) for whatever she could recite from the encyclopedia on any/every topic for a half hour. Well, moving into adulthood, she became "insufferable ". She was always "on", “reciting” in some way, shape or form. She was a verbal bully and an expert at "one-upping" everyone, needing to set others straight, etc.

Because she identified basically with her mind, her intelligence, she grew into an individual who felt that her mind and her intelligence would cover for any deeper feelings of insecurity she was experiencing.

Basically, she was filling a "hole of emptiness" with her need to talk, perform, act out, always be "right", etc. Silence, for her, was akin to being irrelevant, invisible and unseen...anathema to her self-image of "being smart," being intellectual" being intelligent", being a "know-it-all", "being somebody."

What's interesting, for me in my work, is how much people are tied into self-images they don't know they have and it's not until they become conscious of these destructive self-images that the light goes off.

IMHO, this is an important piece of working with “difficult people.”

Often in my coaching work with folks, most are initially unaware of the self-images and values they created when they were children and now bring to their adult life, self-images and values which lead to experiences which are more often than not unpleasant, self-destructive and self-sabotaging.

So, we ask the important question, “Why would a well-meaning, rational and intelligent person act in a way that is demeaning and deleterious to their own (career) health and that of the organization?”

Sincerely, honestly and self-responsibly answering this question is the doorway to change.

BTW, Jane has transformed well. She has friends at work, is quite respectful of others and collegial, engages in a great deal of face time in front of clients and is “quieter”.

No one gets up in the morning and says, “I’m going to be a jerk today.” The challenge is how to support “difficult people” to not be “difficult” rather than spend precious time and energy colluding to ignore them, or creating stories that contribute to their being difficult.

[Dana Zurbuchen]

Great post!

I always wonder why leaders/business owners keep these people in place. I agree they are justifying that person's intelligence. But, what is the hold up on the part of the leader? What is their real fear about making a change?

I find so often with my clients that there is a much bigger reason - the fear of what their peers will think, what team members will think.

And YES to your comment about the leader's choice in hiring that person. Nobody wants to say "oops, my bad."

It has a similar flavor of any negative relationship - they are so accustomed to the behavior they can't see past it. And, they are afraid of letting go of one incredible behavior (and many poor behaviors), even though they could find the perfect person who can offer ten just slightly less than incredible things.

Move ego out of the way, entrepreneurs and trust your gut. It knows what you should do. Listen to it.

[Eric D. Brown]

Steve - I think your are right. IT and Operations are more prone to these types of folks because many high-level leaders don't try or can't understand what the person actually does. They feel that the person must know what they are saying because they don't understand them :)

[Jo]

Steve, how many, or what proportion of these kinds of impasses do you think can be solved by negotiation?

Looking at the interests behind positions and reframing the group position to allow people to follow their own interests and other people's interests simultaneously?

And whose responsibility is that - to establish what can be done by negotiation? And whose responsibility is it to establish that methods other than negotiation may be used in any instance?

A West Point phrase rings in my ear: we don't choose whom we go to war with. Who has authority to decide that we don't have to get along? How many levels up, in this instance, for example, had the responsibility of reviewing the solution?

[Steve Roesler]

Tom,

I like the ice skating example; it' the kind of simple, practical image that people can latch onto in these situations.

Your observation of the relationship between outside, entrepreneurial activity and customer focus makes sense to me. One has to wonder if this is a "chicken or egg" thing? Did the docs with an inherent customer, big picture orientation gravitate toward that kind of practice? Or, did the situation prompt them to learn the importance of systemic thinking? Perhaps a bit of both.

Lately, there have been a number of articles in the media about medical schools requiring participation in courses related to emotional intelligence and customer service. Your experiences apparently weren't isolated ones and your expertise may receive even more recognition now.

I see a marketing blitz on the horizon:-)

[Steve Roesler]

Hello, Peter,

Given the circumstances you described, that is quite a turnaround and should offer hope to those in similar situations.

Something I've become aware of is that frequently I, as the "outside" coach/consultant, am the first person who lays out the entire scenario to the individual. They have received bits and pieces along the way, but no single person has confronted them with the totality of their behavior and the severity of its impact.

I understand that that is a difficult conversation to initiate for many if not most people. The conclusion that I've reached is that the totally honest description is often enough to prompt a change in people who want to be successful. When I get constant denial or excuse-making, it's fairly evident that this is someone who isn't prone to want to do anything differently.

I guess what I'm saying is that "success" can often be determined at the "name it" stage.

Have your experiences been similar or different?

[Steve Roesler]

Dana,

I'm with you all the way on this.

Interestingly, psychological statistics show that about 70%-75% of people don't trust their gut enough to act on what it is telling them. As a result, they need to gather much more concrete data to affirm the cause of their feelings before making a decision.

The result of that phenomenon allows difficult people to remain in place much longer than is desirable.

Perhaps there is an additional element: the legal system isn't prone to supporting the accuracy of one's gut feeling in the even papers are filed in court by an employee.

[Steve Roesler]

Eric,

Exactly.

In those instances become baffled and re-baffled :-) The same people who drill down with meaningful, probing questions in other areas of business don't seem to carry that laser-like probing when dealing with IT issues.

For the non tech-savvy, perhaps it seems like a whole other world where the same questions somehow don't apply.

I'm relying on your professional background and expertise on this one...

[Steve Roesler]

Jo,

These are more a matter of making a personal choice than an issue of negotiation. When people get information about their impact--along with a time frame for making some changes--it falls into the personal realm.

There may be a negotiation element if the individual is unwilling or unable to make adjustments. A boss may point out the value of certain talents and, at the same time, explain that the career path will be different absent the desired shift in behavior. In that case, there may be some give and take until the two parties are satisfied--or not.

[Tom Haskins]

Steve: We're so in sync! I got to thinking about the "chicken & egg" dynamic right after writing my comment and reading Peter's about "Jane". It seems very likely that the hospitals (and elected med school specialties) were not breeding grounds, rather blossoms for bees and carcasses for flies. The entrepreneurial temperament probably appeared as kids in those docs that created private clinics in partnership with the hospital. The docs that obstructed the merger were likely uncooperative (little stinkers) with their siblings in their youth.

It's great to hear the med students are getting a dose of "customer service" thinking before they intern. That may create more benefit for serving "internal customers", turf battles, etc - than actual customers who already pose a threat of malpractice lawsuits and investigations by third party payers.

[Wally Bock]

Probably the best current and public example of how being "so intelligent" isn't enough is Jerry Yang at Yahoo. (http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2008/06/20/see-the-yahoo-executives-see-them-run-see-them-run-for-the-exits.aspx).

Yang is about as bright as members of our species get, but that hasn't prevented him from ignoring some basic business and economic facts as well as his own fiduciary responsibility.

One problem for very bright people is that they're treated from an early age as if being bright is an achievement and not an attribute.

[Nancy Lewis]

After years of teaching gifted children who also exhibited emotional disturbance, I termed them "severely gifted." I have worked with many gifted adults who are emotionally stunted - thus "severely gifted."

[Steve Roesler]

Tom, it's surely a step in the right direction.

The awareness of the issue finally got to the point where someone who was both action-oriented and customer-oriented used their "juice" to get something rolling.

[Steve Roesler]

Wally,

This is why I always read your stuff:

"One problem for very bright people is that they're treated from an early age as if being bright is an achievement and not an attribute."

The distinction indeed has huge implications.

[Chris Young]

Steve - POWERFUL POST! I've selected this as one of our Rainmaker 'Fab Five' blog post of the week which can be found here: http://www.maximizepossibility.com/employee_retention/2008/06/the-rainmaker-f.html#more

Be well!

Chris Young

[Steve Roesler]

Thanks, Chris; I'm honored and delighted!