Conrad Hake sometimes writes for this blog as a Kansan in Silicon Valley. His latest is below.

What’s Your Stupid Quotient?forrest-gump-wallpaper-1-800.jpg

by Conrad Hake

I’ve got enough IQ. No one ever says that (with good reason), but I’m breaking the taboo for a very specific purpose. Mention of your own IQ is taboo, because we have forgotten that it is an artificial invention of the human mind trying to understand itself, not a God given supernatural score so that the ego can say, “I win! I beat you by three points.” Besides, in practical human affairs, the IQ isn’t very important!

You are born with the essential IQ (Intelligence Quotient) that you are going to have going through life. It is a measure of your brain’s potential to master academic matters, to reason. Unfortunately, having the horsepower to work through Relativity or Quantum Mechanics is irrelevant in most life situations. If I just want to take a trip to the grocery store, I’m probably better off taking my Honda station wagon than taking that Ferrari I have in the garage (fantasy is also part of the brain’s activity). I need more groceries day-to-day than I do conversations with colleagues on spatial dilation as the speed of light is approached. Most daily activities leave me with IQ to burn! Add to that the fact that I can’t really change that IQ much (although I can leverage it with education). I’m pretty much stuck with the cards dealt!

When it comes time to play that hand you’ve been dealt, there is a much more important factor in most situations. I recently worked my way through a very important effort to keep a top faculty member at my daughter’s school, an effort that ended in the Superintendent’s office around a conference table with the key players from the school district. A large number of people had failed to bring the situation to a resolution until it had devolved into full crisis. I went into the situation with only one determination -a total refusal to be stupid! Not to have day-winning insights, not to dazzle anyone with intelligence, hardly to use intelligence at all. 100 IQ points was plenty for this situation. The dogged refusal to be stupid won the day!

Let’s contrast that with the behavior of some very intelligent people in the news. Larry Craig and his “wide-stance” nudging of the cop’s foot in the Minneapolis Airport – stupid! The clothes police busting Terry Francona in the middle of a baseball game because he was wearing a pullover in the dugout due to a medical condition that causes him to become chilled – stupid. The Chinese Shaolin Temple (and, indeed the Chinese Government) are demanding an apology from someone who wrote in a blog that the warriors of the Shaolin Temple were once beaten by a Japanese Ninja, saying that they “strongly condemned the horrible deeds” of the user – stupid. Jimmy Carter, with a posted IQ of 175, a few years ago telling the press in Mexico that he was suffering from Montezuma’s Revenge – stupid. Now, as we said, there isn’t much you can do about your IQ, but your SQ (Stupid Quotient) is something that you can actively change. It is a matter of attention and discipline. You really can refuse to be stupid, thereby lowering your SQ. Forrest Gump was right when he said that, “Stupid is as stupid does.”

So, let me give the kids out there some advice. The next time you find yourself in a job interview or around the conference table working on a project or sitting in front of the boss, do the things GL has been advising you all along. Be positive. Be friendly. Be prepared. Let your ideas and your creativity flow. But, in the midst of it all, REFUSE TO BE STUPID!

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