A New Kind of Smart

Many of the smart people I know are over-achievers: They speak more loudly with their performance than with their mouths.  Yet, while no one disputes that one of the most important elements in a hiring situation is that the person being hired can do the job, candidates need to first get to the interview stage before they can demonstrate those accomplishments.

"Smart" is an entirely relative term that means different things to different people in much the same way "success" does.

In politics, for instance, you can be "smart" like a policy-wonk without being "smart" at messaging and vice versa.  

The person who cuts pushes to the front of a line or rushes through lights can be considered "smart" in that they're getting ahead, but stupid in that they're creating a mess behind them.

You can be really competent at sales without having the slightest ability to create anything new to sell yourself.

Just as you can be an innovative genius who spins out ideas with ease, but have zero natural ability to sell yourself.

As we face a growing number of structural problems and as cracks are showing in everything from doctor performance to polling results to communications in the age of social media, we're recognizing that somewhere along the way, how we sell has replaced what we do as the thing that's attracting attention.  

You can't sell unless you have something to sell.  Creating doesn't put food on the table unless what's created gets sold.

Of course there's no reason everyone should be great at everything - that defeats the whole purpose of specialization.  In fact, recruitment as a profession is on the rise again, as is an emphasis on leaders reaching out rather than waiting, laissez-faire, for people to come to them.

You put these folk together, you've got something special.  It worked for Apple and Microsoft.

If you really want to be smart, think collaboration.