Word on the street is that Malcolm Gladwell is putting his finishing touches on his third book – the sequel to Blink and The Tipping Point. Gladwell’s recent talks have focused on the way we perceive talent and, subsequently, genius. More specifically, it has focused on how we are not particulary good at predictiing either one of these phenomena. The character traits and performance indicators we use to assess our children are not predictive of future success.

In 2005, Gladwell delivered a talk at the New Yorker Festival entitled “On the American Obsession With Precociousness.” The primary thesis of this article was that precociousness as a child rarely correlates with genius as an adult. To introduce this point, he referred to the case of the Hunter College Elementary School. The school only accepted the best of the best – or at least, the best of those age five to six.

The Hunter College Elementary School got its start in the early forties, during the triumphant reign of the IQ test. While I’m sure there are a few overzealous parents residing on the Upper East Side who would beg to differ, I’d venture to guess that very few five or six year olds have a resumé or curriculum vitae worth mentioning. Hunter turned to the IQ test to set the bar that decided who got in and who didn’t.

Years later, a follow-up study was conducted. Researchers tracked down graduates of the Hunter College Elementary School to see how they were doing. It was an academic “Where Are They Now?” if you will. Most were relatively happy with their lives. They had moderately successful careers in professional fields. The researchers, however, were underwhelmed. This was the cream of the five year old crop they were looking at.

Gladwell’s thesis is that precociousness as a youngster is a terrible predictor of future success. Talent, as found in children, tends to drop off during adolescence. There is something that does, however, correlate to success: work. Case studies have been done that take the opposite approach taken by the researchers who looked at the Hunter College Elementary School. Researchers take well-known, successful people and work backward.

Many were not precocious. Einstein was the classic example. If he was in school today, he would have an IEP and be receiving special education services. Bob Dylan didn’t just sit down and belt out a few folk songs on the first time. He spent countless hours toiling away at the guitar and harmonica. Jimi Hendrix was known for excusing himself from any and all forms of recreation with his band mates, the Isley Brothers.

Mozart is often cited as the quintessential child prodigy. He was touring around Europe as a child and allegedly composing pieces at the age of five. Malcolm Gladwell argues that this had less to do with precociousness and more to do with an overbearing father. Gladwell dubs Mozart’s father, “the biggest little league dad of all time.” Some studies of Mozart’s life suggest that he had practiced the violin for thousands of hours by the time he was in the equivalent of third grade.

It’s the amount of dedication that seems to be the primary predictor of success. How much dedication? 10,000 hours is the agreed upon number by researchers.

Having followed Gladwell’s work for the past year and dipping back into the archives of his work, I predicted that his next book would focus on the social construction of genius. Apparently, talent and genius have been relegated to a sub-topic under the larger umbrella of “the workplace of the future.” Report on Buiness conducted a fascinating interview with Mr. Gladwell. I’ve included an excerpt that I found particularly interesting:

Unfortunately, it seems like we’re heading in the opposite direction in terms of test scores and math literacy. How do we turn that around? There’s a cheap solution, which Canada has actually excelled at, which is simply to import your brains. As the son of an Englishman who came to Canada to teach math, the Gladwells [and myself] are part of that earlier cheap solution. So that’s one route, and we can continue to do that, there’s nothing stopping us. And Canada will not become less desirable over time; I suspect that 10 years from now, Canada will be an even more desirable location for lots of people from less-developed countries. But you can’t keep doing that forever. At a certain point you have to address what’s going on with the people who are already here. … We have to look at models of other countries that have successfully taught those kinds of skills to a broader percentage of the population, like Korea and Japan. If you look at their education systems, they have shown it is perfectly possible to create a much more mathematically literate work force.

A number of different people have made the argument that school curriculum is not appropriate for modern society. We do not teach personal finance – a topic which may have proven beneficial to some sub-prime borrowers. We also do not teach the organizational systems that are crucial for being able to keep your head above water in the information age.

Considering that we are relatively bad at predicting future success through school success. Perhaps we are using the wrong measurement system. I suspect that in order to compete in the growing knowledge industry we will have to completely rethink the way in which we approach education from the earliest age.

Resources for Further Research

• Genius 2012: Gladwell’s Talk at the 2007 New Yorker Conference
• The Myth of Prodigy and Why It Matters
• The Talent Myth - Are smart people overrated?