Social Intelligence

There’s one kind of intelligence that matters way more than any other.

The only one that’s deeply, consistently rewarded when displayed.

And no matter how much we love telling ourselves otherwise, it sure-as-shit’s not logical, technical, academic or any other high-mindedness.

Really, it’s social intelligence that drives just about everything. It’s the ultimate human currency – something to which money is incidental.

How we’re able to make people think and, way more importantly, feel, is paramount. It’s a prime mover that directly shapes reality. The other intelligences almost always only do this indirectly, and nowhere near as well. They’re supporting cast… distant runners-up.

That’s not to say they aren’t important. They are… vitally. Civilization would literally crumble and collapse without them (think Idiocracy)…

… but we’re at a strange crossroads in our evolution.

We get off on seeing ourselves as these super-advanced awesomes who greatly value intellectual curiosity, deep thought, hard work and other-orientation. And sure, we love the end results of all that noble stuff. We excitedly point to them and go “Wow! Look how badass we are… how amazing the human mind is!” We revel in just how much more sophisticated we are than all other life we know.

… But let’s be real: we love those end results, but we don’t love dealing with the tedious bulk of thought and detail that goes into producing them. Like, at all.

Actually, we tend to avoid it at all costs… whenever we can.

High-minded details bleed feeling from the moment. They aggressively disinterest people, often to the point of pained boredom. They may be necessary for getting shit done and making things better, but that’s life’s dirty work… not the good stuff people want. It’s what’s discussed when it has to be… not when there’s a choice.

… so displaying those intelligences rarely goes over well. Actually the opposite – it usually comes off as dry, boring, try-hard and a lack of ability to talk about anything better. It’s basically social poison.

The good stuff people want is what social intelligence does. It’s how we get them to want to be with and help us, regardless of what we can potentially do for them. It’s how we truly connect with others – how we choose our people.

It’s most true in our personal relationships. At our core we’re emotionally-driven beings who crave feeling and connection… things higher thinking is really bad at inspiring (and if anything diminish).

So without social intelligence a person’s… pretty fucked. If they can’t effectively understand what others want, appear confident, compellingly small-talk, read & use body language correctly, control their voice, touch the right ways, stoke the right feelings, know when to engage and when to pull back, stay emotionally-disciplined, drive narrative and otherwise guide the interaction – they’re gonna be real lonely. The best they’ll get is unreliable acquaintance, passionless friendship, professional contact and/or transactional relationship.

What’s really weird, though, is that it’s also true in the professional world… where it really shouldn’t be.

Not always, and not as often as in the social world, but a scary number of people are able to climb the competitive ladder relying primarily (if not entirely) on their social intelligence. How good they *actually* are at their jobs or how hard they *actually* work (not pretend to work) is incidental, if not irrelevant to their success.

It’s even true in the most technical/academic environments, where it really, really shouldn’t be. In his social epic “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” Dale Carnegie cites several studies concluding that even in such technical lines as engineering, only about 15% of one’s success is due to technical knowledge, while about 85% is due to skill in human engineering, to personality and the ability to lead people – i.e. social intelligence. My decade working in Silicon Valley has loudly echoed these findings.

On one hand, this is good.

Human civilization is the ultimate team sport, so knowing how to effectively understand, interact with and lead people is crucial. Awareness of human nature, relationships and politics is vital to knowing the difference between what’s possible, what’s probable, and what’s folly.

…but on the other, awkwardly-bigger hand, this is really, really bad.

Social intelligence is incidental to the other intelligences… which means it’s independent of them. It’s also incidental to morality. 😬 But the real kicker’s that the rules of social intelligence aren’t just different, but mostly opposite from the rules of the others.

Academic/technical/logical intelligences are driven by discipline, thinking, planning and results. Social intelligence is driven by fun, feelings, improvisation, perception and the moment.

… So the idea that the modern world is somehow a meritocracy where the best, brightest and most devoted consistently rise to the top to better-shape humanity is, at best, misguided. It happens sometimes, in better-case scenarios… but we wouldn’t be stuck in the same-shit-different-day loop we are if this was the rule (rather than the exception).

Things will improve when what and how we reward improves. And it makes sense to reward the intelligences we claim to value most.

Unfortunately right now what makes sense doesn’t win much.

What feels good wins.