Abhijit Bhaduri | Apr 22, 2009

Richard Nisbett

Most of us inherit most employees at the workplace. We do not raise them in the strict sense that parents raise children. Parents lovingly will potty train their progeny, teach them language skills, pass on core values and give them unconditional love despite the pranks and bad report cards. They will willingly cart them around for soccer matches after school, suffer them through teenage tantrums and beyond. Is it even fair to expect managers to do somewhat similar stuff for their team members? Unlike parents who choose to have kids most managers do not necessarily choose every one they need to manage. They hire some of them, some are inherited and some join teams as a result of the shifting sands of time. So is it fair to expect a similar kind of almost evangelical commitment towards their team members. If they did all that for their team members, would it really matter? Do we all need to live with the natural level of intelligence that we are born with or can this level be influenced by the environment we grow up in. Is it Nature or Nurture? A psychologist had answered a journalist by asking her to choose what impacts the area of a rectangle, the length or the breadth

If you planted corn in two different fields, one with rich soil and the other which is less fertile, the differences in the height of the plants in the same field would be what people call Nature and the differences in the height of the plants which were planted in the field with rich soil would explain Nurture. Over the years the debate on intelligence has primarily been divided into these two schools. So when parents tell their child that our family always excelled at/ struggled with Science, they are voting for Nature. This view tells you that any number of after school tuitions or coaching classes will do little to improve Science grades. Those psychologists who vote in favor of Nurture will tell you that given the right environment, it is possible for an individual to go beyond the limits that Nature built in.

Intelligence is the ability to “figure out” and make sense of the world around us as we go. So why should one aim to be intelligent? There is research that shows good schooling correlates particularly closely to higher I.Q.’s. Be warned the kids who abandon reading books and intellectual activities during the summer vacation will come back with a few IQ Points dropped – honest ! So keep them busy is the advice to parents and teachers.

The author of the book INTELLIGENCE AND HOW TO GET IT – Why Schools and Culture Count, Richard Nisbett’s research interest has for long been in understanding how laypeople make sense of the world around them. That kind of explains that he would eventually start examining the whole concept of intelligence ie how to make sense and figure out the world as we go along. His book is based on three premises:

1. The right interventions especially in school can make people smarter

2. The changing culture and educational environment is making the population smarter. Around the world IQ points have been rising by three points every decade.

3. It is possible to reduce the gaps in IQ that economic inequality creates.

His book talks of four things that impact intelligence of children: 1. praising effort more than achievement 2. teaching the children delayed gratification 3. limiting reprimands and using praise to stimulate curiosity as the way to boost the intelligence of the children. Can the same principles be used to boost the intelligence of the employees in an organization? Is the intelligence boosting behavior that works for children different for adults or is there an overlap? One can logically infer that limiting reprimands and praising effort gets employees to be more innovative? What would the expert say? I thought of asking the man himself.

I interviewed Dr Richard Nisbett, the author of this book. He is at the Research Center for Group Dynamics of Univ of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research

Richard Nisbett

AB: If the culture of the schools impacts intelligence of children – is it possible to raise an intelligent workforce? How would you define a intelligent workforce in the context of an organization – one that is financially growing or is innovative or the one that attracts the brightest performers.

Nisbett: Nations can choose to have an intelligent work force. Equality helps: countries with the most economic equality have the brightest workforce. Ireland set out a generation ago to greatly enhance education. There were many factors that went into its economic growth in the ensuing years, but the greatly improved education system was undoubtedly one of them. We know how to provide pre-kindergarten programs that result in greatly improved academic performance for poor minority children. Ditto for elementary schools. I don’t know how to define an intelligent workforce in the context of an organization that would differ from the intelligence of its members separately. Just looking for intelligence in employees — as opposed to who can produce results — was probably related to the downfall of Enron.

AB: What are three quick things that any organization can do to impact employee intelligence? Praising effort more than achievement, teaching delayed gratification, limiting reprimands and using praise to stimulate curiosity – that works for children, do they also work for adults? Or does that differ?

Nisbett: The contrast I make is between praising effort and praising intelligence. The former is surely better than the latter in an individual context and I would assume in an organizational context. Praise for intelligence makes people conservative in their choice of tasks and goals — they don’t want to lose their reputation for intelligence. Praise for hard work results in people taking on difficult tasks where their effort is likely to make a difference. Praise for performance is undoubtedly important in an organizational context as it is in a developmental context. I’m not quite sure how one would teach delay of gratification specifically in an organizational context.

AB: In the debate of nature vs nurture, you clearly side with the latter. Can all limitations of what one is born with be improved with the right stimulus?

Nibett: No. Biology establishes limits within which socialization and culture can make a difference. I differ from many intelligence experts in believing that those limits are quite wide. A person who would be average in an average environment can have intelligence substantially increased by an optimal environment. And an extremely poor environment will leave the individual intellectually impoverished.

AB: How long does it take before we see the results?

Nisbett: We know that very poor environments are reflected in poorer intellectual performance as early as infancy.

AB: Finally, what is the next big shift in societal thinking on intelligence?

Nisbett: I think it will be away from an emphasis on IQ and toward an emphasis on characterological traits such as ability to delay gratification, preference for hard work, and social intelligence — or ability to “read” other people and get along with them.

You can read more about Richard Nisbett’s work at http://sitemaker.umich.edu/richard.nisbett/home