Success IQ and Termites

If there is one thing which people across cultures, countries and continents have hankered after since ages, it's Success. Yes, that elusive entity which sometimes comes to those who least expect it and evades those who long for it their entire lives. Given this massive affliction for Success, thinkers, academics, psychologists have forever mulled over that one definitive ingredient which can guarantee (or seem to guarantee) success. One such ingredient was intellect. High intelligence, even today, is equated to higher chances of success.

When I think of this tryst between success and intellect, Lewis Terman's famous experiment is what comes first to mind. Terman, a Stanford psychologist was the leading authority in intelligence testing back in the middle 90s. Just like us, he too had a passion for studying gifted and genius kids. In order to create his own Umbrella Academy of intellectually genius kids, he set forth to catalogue the brightest minds across America. Having filtered the seemingly less intelligent kids (the ones with IQs only as much as an Einstein) he compiled his list of "Termites" or the Smartest Kids in America and perhaps the world. Each of these kid's reading on the IQ scales was off the charts. They were in the true sense of the word, Genius.

Theoretically speaking, these whizkids, should have been the paragons of success, and to a limited extent, they were. Terman divided his lot of geniuses into 3 groups, in order of eventual success. Group A had the lawyers, doctors, engineers, you know the successful lot. Group B had people who had managed to do just about all right, the mediocre lot. Group C had, what Terman considered failures. Now the mere presence of a group B and C belie the dictum that intellect leads to success.

Today we see, parents, haranguing their kids over this notion of intellect. This overbearing stress on intelligence looks over the fact that while important, intellect measured primarily on academic yardsticks cannot by any means guarantee success. Group B and Group C termites all had an IQ which rivalled Einstein's and surpassed many noble laureate's but how many of them actually had groundbreaking discoveries or a litany of prestigious awards to their name, none.

Malcolm Gladwell, in his seminal work "Outliers", talks about a similar predicament. He too takes the example of Terman's Termites along with a host of other geniuses and traces their journey so as to understand how such achievers got what they did. He talks about the importance of hard work (the widely quoted 10,000-hour rule was coined by him), family nurturing, cultural legacies etc. All these help us get a grip on the slippery Success and make us understand that intellect is just one variable in a pretty large equation. Peter Drucker, management guru, talks about how just by realising one's strengths, personalities and skills even ordinary (you know with a normal IQ) can be exceptional performers and leaders in their industry and personal lives.

Terman's Termites might be grandparents today. It is possible that their progeny might have some IQ boosting DNA transferred from their termite grandfather or mother, but to succeed in the real world, to be an achiever worth his/her salt, it sure takes a lot more than intellect. Be like Professor Utonium in the lab. Use sugar, spice, everything nice and when all that is done don't forget your unique chemical X and hopefully success would be in the offing.