Remarkable summary

Intelligence takes many different forms. Some people find it easy to pick up on social dynamics, for instance. Others have a gift for languages, music, or logic. Yet early on in life, nearly everyone is taught to measure intelligence by a single yardstick: academic achievement. 

Excelling in school is all about absorbing complicated ideas. It’s a never-ending cycle, with each new concept building on the last. In this environment, the standard measure of intellectual ability, IQ, is a pretty good predictor of success. 

Business, however, is different. To thrive in this environment, you need to grasp a limited number of basic concepts. Once you’ve learned them, you can apply them time and again. Business intelligence isn’t about mastering theoretical insights – it’s the fruit of experience. In other words, IQ isn’t a predictor of success. 

The key message here is: You need experience, not genius, to be successful in business. 

In schools and universities, success comes down to a single skill: the ability to master lots of new information and integrate it into increasingly complex abstract models. IQ is a measure of this mental faculty, so it’s no surprise that in academic settings, people with higher IQs outperform their peers with lower ones. 

But many of the problems you learn to solve in school have black-and-white solutions – if all the angles of a triangle don’t add up to 180 degrees, you’ve made a mistake. In the business world, on the other hand, there are lots of shades of gray. There’s rarely a “right” or a “wrong” answer. Instead, there are risks and rewards – few of which can be fully understood in advance. As the saying goes, the proof is in the pudding. 

“Book smarts” alone won’t cut it in this environment. Instead, you need to integrate lots of different skills to achieve success. What kind of skills, though? 

Well, you need to be good with people – and for that, you need interpersonal and communication skills. You also need leadership skills, which enable you to articulate your goals and motivate people. Finally, you have to be committed, dedicated, knowledgeable, and creative. These skills are hard to teach because they’re honed over the course of a career spanning years, not semesters. Business, in short, is all about learning by doing. 

Put differently, there’s no shortcut around hard-won practical experience. But here’s the good news: you can expedite the learning process. And these blinks will help you do just that.