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Why is it that many of us who are fairly smart do stupid things? While doing research on why CMOs fail, I came across a book that has some relevancy, Why Smart People Can Be So Stupid, by Robert J. Sternberg, IBM professor of psychology and education at Yale. The most interesting chapter is by Harvard researcher David N. Perkins, who believes that you can be really smart but not know when to engage your smartness, and the extent to which this happens is “stupidity.”
Perkins highlights eight deadly sins of the stupid smart person:
- impulsiveness (doing something rash)
- neglect (ignoring something important)
- procrastination (actively avoiding something important)
- vacillation (dithering)
- backsliding (capitulating to habit)
- indulgence (allowing oneself to fall into excess)
- overdoing (like indulgence, but with positive things)
- walking the edge (tempting fate)
While I’m early into the research, my hypothesis is that CMOs fall into stupid territory most often by engaging in #s 1, 5 and 8.
Your thoughts?
I can easily buy all of these things (and have done them all myself). But, I guess what I don’t understand is what makes “smart people” more prone to these than less smart people?
George,
Maybe the assumption is that smart people should be smart enough to recognize these behaviors and check them. I agree that they apply to all of us. Dieting is a multi-billion dollar business because of impulsiveness, procrastination, indulgence, dithering and backsliding!
Lois