Why attitude is more important than IQ

• Travis Bradberry, LinkedIn

 Sep. 15, 2015, 4:17 PM 

Scott Barbour/Getty ImagesSuccess lies in how you handle defeat.

LinkedIn Influencer Dr. Travis Bradberrypublished this post originally on LinkedIn. 

When it comes to success, it's easy to think that people blessed with brains will inevitably leave the rest of us in the dust. But new research from Stanford University will change your mind (and your attitude).

Psychologist Carol Dweck has spent her entire career studying attitude and performance, and her latest study shows that your attitude is a better predictor of your success than your IQ.

Dweck found that people's core attitudes fall into one of two categories: a fixed mindset or a growth mindset.

With a fixed mindset, you believe that you are who you are and you cannot change. This creates problems when you're challenged because anything that appears to be more than you can handle is bound to make you feel hopeless and overwhelmed.

People with a growth mindset believe that they can improve with effort. They outperform those with a fixed mindset, even when they have a lower IQ, because they embrace challenges, treating them as opportunities to learn something new.

Common sense would suggest that having ability, like being smart, inspires confidence. It does, but only while the going is easy. The deciding factor in life is how you handle setbacks and challenges. People with a growth mindset welcome setbacks with open arms.

According to Dweck, success in life is all about how you deal with failure. She describes the approach to failure of people with the growth mindset this way,

"Failure is information—we label it failure, but it's more like, 'This didn't work, and I'm a problem solver, so I'll try something else.'"

Regardless of which side of the chart you fall on, you can make changes and develop a growth mindset. What follows are some strategies that will fine-tune your mindset and help you make certain it's as growth oriented as possible.

Don't stay helpless

We all hit moments when we feel helpless. The test is how we react to that feeling.

We can either learn from it and move forward or let it drag us down.

Countless successful people would have never made it if they had succumbed to feelings of helplessness: Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star because he "lacked imagination and had no good ideas"; Oprah Winfrey was fired from her job as a TV anchor in Baltimore for being "too emotionally invested in her stories"; Henry Ford had two failed car companies before succeeding with Ford; and Steven Spielberg was rejected by USC's School of Cinematic Arts multiple times.

Imagine what would have happened if any of these people had a fixed mindset. They would have succumbed to the rejection and given up hope.

People with a growth mindset don't feel helpless because they know that to be successful you need to be willing to fail hard and then bounce right back.

Be passionate

Empowered people pursue their passions relentlessly. There will always be someone who is more naturally talented than you are, but what you lack in talent you can make up for in passion.

Alex Wong/GettyWarren Buffett uses the 5/25 technique to find his passions.

Empowered people's passion is what drives their unrelenting pursuit of excellence. Warren Buffett recommends finding your truest passions using what he calls the 5/25 technique: Write down the 25 things you care about the most. Then cross out the bottom 20. The remaining five are your true passions. Everything else is merely a distraction.

Take action

It's not that people with a growth mindset are able to overcome their fears because they are braver than the rest of us; it's just that they know fear and anxiety are paralyzing emotions and that the best way to overcome this paralysis is to take action.

People with a growth mindset are empowered, and empowered people know there is no such thing as a truly perfect moment to move forward. So why wait for one? Taking action turns all your worry and concern about failure into positive, focused energy.

Then go the extra mile (or 2)

Empowered people give it their all, even on their worst days. They're always pushing themselves to go the extra mile.

One of Bruce Lee's pupils ran 3 miles every day with him. One day, they were about to hit the 3-mile mark when Bruce said, "Let's do two more." His pupil was tired and said, "I'll die if I run two more." Bruce's response? "Then do it."

His pupil became so angry that he finished the full 5 miles. Exhausted and furious, he confronted Bruce about his comment, and Bruce explained it this way: "Quit and you might as well be dead. If you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it'll spread over into the rest of your life. It'll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there; you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A man must constantly exceed his level."

Archive Photos/Getty"Quit and you might as well be dead."

If you aren't getting a little bit better each day, then you're most likely getting a little worse — and what kind of life is that?

Expect results

People with a growth mindset know they will fail from time to time, but they never let that keep them from expecting results. Expecting results keeps you motivated and feeds the cycle of empowerment. After all, if you don't think you're going to succeed, then why bother?

Be flexible

Everyone encounters unanticipated adversity. Empowered people with a growth-oriented mindset embrace adversity as a means for improvement, as opposed to something that holds them back. When an unexpected situation challenges empowered people, they flex until they get results.

Don't complain when things don't go your way

Complaining is an obvious sign of a fixed mindset. A growth mindset looks for opportunity in everything, so there's no room for complaints.

Bringing it all together

By keeping track of how you respond to the little things, you can work every day to keep yourself on the right side of the chart above.

Do you have a growth mindset? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Travis Bradberry is the award-winning co-author of the #1 bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, and the cofounder of TalentSmart, the world's leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training, serving more than 75% of Fortune 500 companies. His bestselling books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries. Dr. Bradberry has written for, or been covered by, Newsweek, TIME, BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company, Inc., USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and The Harvard Business Review.

Behavioral Event Interview (BEI) Technique

BEI is now widely used as an interview tools to predict the behavior of the candidate to perform certain function effectively and efficiently. The answer or reply to any of the BEI interview questions should be based on STAR or Situation or Task, Action and Result. However, it's not easy to 'dig' the experience of each candidate if he or she could not focus to one particular example of his or her past experience. There's tendency for any candidates to share his or her wide and general experience if the interviewer could not 'control' the candidate. Candidates must understand that what are expected from them is to share their very specific experiences that had happened earlier in their life. They need to be focus to that one particular event and share their experiences based on the specific event or situation only. They have to share and 'walk through' their specific experiences with every details that had happened with the interviewer and finally to inform the results. In order to assist the interview panel as well as the candidates, the panel should lead or assist the candidate to focus on one particular event or situation that he or she had experienced earlier by stating the person who were involved, where it occurred, when and what was his or her role in that particular event or situation. Statement such as 'generally', 'usually', 'normally', 'I like to...', should not be mentioned at all during the experience sharing session. In addition, futuristic statement such as 'I hope', 'I'd like to..' should also be avoided. Opinion statement such as 'I think...', 'I guess', 'I am sure that...'and 'I know very well that...' should not be discussed during the interview. Since the interview is about the candidate who attended the interview, word to reflect many such as 'we', 'us' or everyone' should also be clarified further. It should be about him or her and all statement must be reflected to what he did before, unless it's about teamwork or others.

Managing HR Using Social Media

I bet in some developed and open minded countries, some HR are already managing using fb as one of the most powerfull tool. Why? Because most young people (and also older ones) are expressing themselves through fb either directly or indirectly. Furthermore, HR and the bosses can actually understand their staff better, their interest, their feelings and also their family members. You can do a lot of communcations, surveys and stuff using new media. Employees can share their photos and employers also can upload some promo videos about the company or products and get instant respond from their employees. They can also discuss topics of their interest that HR or management might want to know not to punish but to improve and meet the employees needs and wants.

But really, it requires great courage for the HR and employers to really be open and transparent. And it depends on the respond whether it's good or bad.

Talent: Be at right time & at right place

I believe in the above statement....

No matter how excellent you are if you happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, your will be nobody. And of course with a little know how and know who, and being at the right time and the right place, you may end up somebody!

For instance, real example, Tun Hanif Omar, ex CPO of Malaysia. He was very young when he was appointed as CPO because the incumbent at that time was killed, he was made the CPO at a very young age (28 if i could remember it well)...because no one else more capable than him was identified....how lucky.

The recent son of a leader of a communist country was made the successor after his father died...how lucky he is at the age of 28, he was made the head of state. Our PM was also appointed as the youngest Chief Minister (was it 23?) when his father passed away long time ago. Well, not a very good example right? But the CPO case was truly the case of being in the right place at the right time.

The point is, somehow you need someone as your mentor or sponsor to promote you to higher authority especially if you want to be promoted fast. To be in the fast lane requires you to know where to go, and whom to click with. Tun Daim for instance, had a few mentees he personally developed, and now they are millionaires. But hope they'll not forget who they were before and contribute back to the nation.

In a lot of companies now, there's a special Unit namely Talent Management to manage the high flyers. The Unit is responsible to identify, manage, develop further or create more opportunity for the selected talent within a company to excel and to create better or accelerated path for them to grow. Nowadays, the system or process is getting better and better, and if you can perform well and has teh potential as a leader, you can get special treatment by your company. However, you need to be at the right place and at teh right time too to get in the system. You have to compete and to find someone who is passionate enough to take care of you as a mentor and develop you further as well as create you the opportunity to be selected as talent. And if yiu were selected, you also need to perform and get someone to assist you to performa and retain you as a talent. Life is great but it's not easy....

Transit & KAFA for School Kid at Office Area

I decided to open a Transit for school kids and KAFA class at our office complex in Taiping after our success with the childcare centre in 2000. Main reason? My kids needed KAFA education and i didn't have maid at home :D; but then again, it actually benefited almost 180 students and 120+ parents near the office complex...the respond was unbelievable!

I later decided to open a transit for school children, and later negotiated with Majlis Agama Islam Perak to open KAFA class since we have mosque in our office complex in Taiping. We appointed 2 teachers, Tahfiz AlQuran to run the KAFA school. I apponted one old lady to do the housekeeping (to make sure the mosque was always clean with so many kids around, not to distrupt the mosque). The parenst could also opt for lunch provided by the KAFA school management (and pay extra) or just pay for the KAFA class without lunch/food. So if their kids went to morning school, they could come back after school straight to KAFA class or in the morning before they went to school, they would go for KAFA class in the morning, take bath there and went to school direct after KAFA class if their school were in the afternoon.

Initially I observed that the kids were playing a foll when praying with adults. I discussed with the ustazs and requested that all KAFA students to pray separately with the ustazs to observe their movement during the prayer. At the same time, I asked the ustazs to asked the kids to recit the doa and surah clearly all at once so that everybody especially the smaller kids could follow. One of teh older kid was made the Imam to lead the prayer. Ustazs were supposed to observe and taught them the right way to perform teh prayer step by step.

They were also asked to recite Yassin and I challenged them to remember (hafaz) Yassin and other simple Surah by reciting those Surah loudly togather. Kids like to learn that way, loundly and with everybody, not one to one. And they will remember better when they hear and say especially when everybody was doing it. In a short period, they could 'hafaz' a few Surahs already and I was greatful to contribute to their success in 'hafazan', even a few simpel Surahs and Yassin, Alhamdulillah.

Establishing Childcare Centre

I had the opprotunity to manage and administer directly Childcare center at our office when i was in Taiping (our regional office for Northern Region). I was there from 1998 till 2002. It was a great experience managing the centre. When i started my job there (that was not my only task), the childcare centre had about 5 staffs and 15 children. The stiuation was not satisfactory at all to me.

After a while, I found out that the food was ordered from our cafeteria operator, and interestingly it was foods for adult, hot and spicy. The kids were given very limited access to the food coz the staffs would reserve some for them to take home (fringe benefit i guess...). There were not many activities and teh supervisor was not very friendly (at least to my expectation) and was in control of the whole situation. In fact she was the stmbling block for me to improve the situation.

The number of kids were reduced coz parents were not happy at all with the whole situation. I kept the situation for a month and close the classromm for a while. These situations had supported me with strong reason to let go the supervisor and her good friend cum follower and the rest remained.

What did i do to improve teh situation after a month? I appointed new supervisor from my existing office staff and changed the menu immediately to child-friendly menu, with some extra foods for adult (enough for them to have lunch and definitely not to take home). I splitted the childcare into two units as per guidelines by teh welfare department, for kids below 2 years, and kids between 2-6 years. There were dedicated staffs to handle these groups and it was based on their preferences/choices. I also hire one staff as housekeeper, to do the cleaning and stuff, so the childtakers were specilised in their jobs without having to do the cleaning and other house chores. My focus at that time was to improve teh situation especially for below 2 yrs old category and between 2-4 yrs old category. There were no preschool due to lack of manpower and expertise to handle.

The new supervisor handled the situation well and the childcare staffs were given a timetable. All kids need to follow the timetable with activities suitable for kids. We made it fun by having a 'swimming' session in a small moveable pool, sing a song time and video time after bathed in the afternoon and play outside when waited for their parents to pick them up (prior to that kids were not allowed to play outside because parents were complaining their children were not tidy up and clean when they picked them up...what?? Yo parents, kids need to play ok? If you don't like my way, take the hiway!! Haha...

All their work were then posted in a simple gallery outside of the place where parents normally came to fetch their kids. Before this all their works were palced nicely in a folder and to be handed over to their parents at end of year....what the hack? The parents would not appreciate those when they were ready to for holiday at end of year and then to prepare their kids for new school. So we capture the parents there and then. They were then allowed to bring home their work daily. So parents could then see their kids progress daily. Every month we even invited our panel doctor to visit us and provide medicine to teh children if necessary. I didn't allow teh childcare staffs to give teh kids medicine themselves without teh supervisor around and with the parents permission.

Kids were happy and parents talked to other parents, there were a lot of request to enroll their kids. I needed to expand. I then decided for the childcare to move to a bigger place. there were a bungalow for teh Office Complex Manager but nobody wanted to stay there. So we moved to the bungalow after it was renovated and fire escape staricase was built for safety.

There were parents who sent their kids as early as 630am in the morning and picked their kids after 730pm. I issued a circular for parenst to pay to the childcare staffs thru supervisor overtime claim. They needed to compensate the staffs tehmselves. Some parents were not happy but wh wanted to work for FREE?? Later the parents stopped sending his kids early at 630am and instead took his kids for brakfast and sent them around 8am (actually the mother worked in Ipoh so to make his (the father) life easy, he sent his kids straight to the childcare after sending his wife to the bus station to take express bus to Ipoh...).

After much discussion, wedecided to open preschool and later appointed 2 teachers for 5 yrs old preschool and later 6 yeras old preschool after we had enough kids enrolled. We also hired part time english teacher,  mandarine teacher, ustaz to teach AlQuran and computer teacher to teach the kids computer, all were scheduled in the afternoon. So in the morning the went for normal cyllibus. I also sent the teachers to attend fast learning technique in Ipoh to learn about the new technique. The preschool was also a success.

Overall, based on the respond, I would consider my effort a huge success and in fact, we had to reject some kids due insufficient space. What a great experience indeed... :D

Industrial Casses

I had the opportunity to handle a few industrial cases last time and it was really interesting and taught me a lot about life. Summary of cases that i handled and what actually happened:-

1) staff asked money from potential customers - amazingly he lied to his own neighbors and collected money from them as potential customers while the promotion didn't state that employees could collect money from anyone including customers without authorization. His case was investigated but his neighbors (almost all of them involved) refused to become our witnesses. We would not have a case without any witnesses. However. luckily during the day of the inquiry, we managed to get support form the witness's superior (government agency) to force the witnesses to testify in our domestic inquiry. He was then dismissed based on two witnesses and one other charges were dropped since the witness named did not turn up. For me, even one witness testified against him would be more than enough. It's not the amount in question but the honesty and trust. He then filed his case at Industrial Court and this time I stand as witness. It was not a good experience even though you only stand as witness because you will be questioned by not only the company's lawyer but also by the defense council appointed by the claimant (ex staff). I managed to answer all questions and luckily the Chairman of the Industrial Court was with me when the defense council asked loose questions which I refused to answer. It required skill, knowledge and experience to avoid you from being trapped by the lawyer. I was confident that the company won the case, and we did!

2) My colleague replaced me to represent a company during conciliation at Industrial Department in Ipoh. When he came back, he told me he was screwed by the Industrial Relations officer in charged for not well prepared for the session. Somehow the session was postponed coz the union who was supposed to attend did not turn up. I attended the next session and the IR officer summon me to be in his office. He was surely not very nice and arrogant/stuck up. I responded seriously and acted arrogant too coz i did not see any reason for him not to treat me well. I responded to his question by saying it's company's right to terminate him and we did all it required by law to provide him natural justice. We had witness and he pleaded guilty, and the punishment (dismissal) was justifiable and just coz it involved money. There were no more trust between him and the company and the punishment should serve as example to other employees. Even tough we did not charge him on criminal breach of trust, CBT (coz if we did we had to proof him guilty beyond reasonable doubt, and our objective was not to charge him a criminal charge, but enough to serve him well and set example to others. The IR officer mellowed down after that (he knew I was an experienced IR manager myself), and requested for reschedule coz the union failed to attend again. I refused coz that was second time and the union did not even call to request for postponement. I told the IR officer I was wasting company's time and wasted company's money by attending the session twice when the union as if refused to attend. The officer agreed with me and I left the office after that. I did not receive any more letters from IR office related to that particular case again after that.

3) I had the experience negotiating with an ex employee I terminated due to poor performance. He was a senior manager when he was not confirmed to the position and terminated due to poor performance. The IR officer called me to negotiate settlement but I told him direct that there would be no settlement coz the company had taken the rightful and necessary action before he was terminated. I knew already he'd not ask for reinstatement even though conciliation at IR office was for terminated employee to claim for reinstatement. I did not mention about compensation at all during first meeting however the IR officer asked me to reconsider. I used delay tactic by saying I was not willing to consider settlement at all coz there was no case. He initially claimed 6 month salary as compensation but for a service of less than one year, the amount was ridiculous. He asked me to consider and I told him I needed approval to agree on any monetary settlement. In the next conciliation meeting about almost two months later, I told him that we only agreed to pay him 1/2 month instead of 6 month salary he demanded. That was only a token and I did not really agree that was a settlement. After much discussion, we finally agreed with only 1 month as token, which was indirectly also agreed by the IR officer. The case was finally closed.

There were a  lot more cases I had the experience to handle, and each case was unique. I helped my company to settle a lot of cases either at IR office or out of court if the case was already registered with the IR court by convincing the claimants and his lawyer not to prolong the case further. Some cases took more than two years of hearing and still not settled. Furthermore, almost all cases involved low rank employee, hence settling out of court was not a big issue/amount of money. We pay more to lawyers than compared to the settlement amount :D. I was quite successful and lucky when I handled IR matters back then, Alhamdulillah.