Are current reasoning tests incapable of meeting the demands of the current
world??
Ever since IQ tests and their surrogates were devised, there has been a steady increase in their
use for assessing a person’s scholastic ability. IQ tests are also used for assessing a person’s
ability to perform well in intellectually demanding jobs. They seem to have done a fairly good
job till recently. But in the recent times the world has become a more chaotic place to live in
and the people at the helm of affairs seem to be at a loss to bring in the necessary order. It
seems to me that the current world scenario requires that people possess capabilities other
than the capability to think rationally only. It especially requires these abilities from people who
drive innovations in Science and Technology and in management. The innovators need to raise
their bar to a new level and more importantly possess the ability to raise the bar, to address the
problems of the world.
But we need to identify the talent that can innovate and hence some assessment needs to be
carried out. If the current crop of IQ tests seems to be failing to find the right kind of talent,
what is it that needs to be done? In my view the single most important mental trait that one
can have is not to be negatively affected by pressure either in the short term or in the long
term. This basically reflects the mental maturity of a person and hence such a person can think
with clarity and without bias. In other words thinking is totally unadulterated and hence is
unlikely to go wrong. This we call as foresight. Unfortunately the IQ tests do not measure this
trait in any way and hence ignore the assessment of what I consider is vital to know.
An intelligence test or any other assessment tool which can test the mental maturity of a
person and therefore his well roundedness rather than just his sharpness, is capable of
selecting persons who can create works of enduring nature and provide enduring solutions to
problems. Such persons will be better equipped to tackle both the scientific and leadership
problems which at present seems to be too overwhelming.
Let us take the decision to identify the right talent to lead the world by employing the right
assessment tools and then I think the problems would sooner or later disappear as right
decisions would emanate from the top.