#2 Response to "The Talent Myth" by Malcolm Gladwell

I was significantly disturbed by the Enron hierarchy star system discussed in the reading.  Going into the reading prior to discussion, I was already somewhat biased on corporate America and how people are employed and kept in the system.  I feel that if a department is only putting out mediocre work and performance, that employees should not be let go or it be assumed that the lack of IQ has anything to do with it.  In my career field, IQ and book smarts has nothing to do with whether or not you get a job.  In Industrial Design, you are hired solely upon your portfolio, communication skills, and personality.  DAAP (School of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning) is a top level school which has very high acceptance standards, in other words it was required to be top 15 percent of the graduating class, exceptionally high SAT & ACT scores, and a rich resume of each individual accepted into the program.  In high school I was an award winning artist and very good at what I did.  Had I not spent a year in Fine Art with nothing less than a 3.8 grade point average all year plus several impressive awards after graduation, I probably would not have been accepted into my major currently.  My portfolio was impressive and I just barely fell under a 3.5 in high school.  So you're probably thinking that I am contradicting myself, where I originally said I don't agree with the performance corresponding with scholastics, then I attend a high performance school and emphasize the importance of grades, however I am not.  After acceptance into Industrial Design, grades no longer matter.  Only your developed portfolio holds the weight.  The reason DAAP filters out the less impressive GPA is because most jobs and businesses correlate good grades with good work performance.  According to Malcolm Gladwell, Enron expressed this same connection.  However, DAAP uses it as a test to see whether or not someone can handle the amount of work load. This is where I found the article uncomfortable.  Enron consistently gave raises and praise to those who had the top education or documented intelligence.  They referred to this as "talent" yet grades are only learned and acquired through one's own sense of studying, or shear fact of natural intelligence.  

I believe that grades show commitment to your learning or profession.  But in a business environment, people should be focusing on what they are good at, their real talents rather than world wide intelligence to keep their position.  In many fields of business people are required to constantly be learning new things, things that are relevant to that field.  People should always have a craving to learn as much as possible, but it should not be to impress "the man."  As a human being, we should have the opportunity to do what we do best everyday.  How are we going to figure that out if we are under constant pressure to advance our education in any or every field just to keep a job?  All to often natural talents go unnoticed or discovered.  Businesses and companies are all to focused on fixing their shortcomings and developing the strength of the name of the business.  These are all key elements to success, however one cannot expect the company to flourish if only the A group is acknowledged for their intellectual success.  According to Gladwell, this was Enron's own personal road to failure.  

A company should be a community of communication, responsibility, and an interaction of healthy idea sharing and networking.  Not this segregated A group B group C group nonsense.  It does not take a scientist or a person with an outstanding IQ to figure out why the companies who followed this system failed.

A couple ideas I am throwing around for the Classical Argument assignment go as follows:  Ideas behind the American teenager and issues concerning thier lack of moralistic values, loss of religious values, mannerism, cliques, and so forth,  the whole genre of understanding racism, understanding human sexuality, the question of is it learned or inherently natural, the media and how it affects the American Teenager (facebook, advancing technology, role models), thoughts on pornography and how it relates to the dominance of men across the globe (women on girls gone wild claim it liberating like the women of 60's burning bras when I question the ideals behind that statement, these women are not gaining any liberation or even compensation from performing nude on GGW, the feminists of the 60's burned their bras to gain equality with men in work rights and constitutional rights.  Performing in soft core pornography is not exuding confidence in equality in sexuality with men.  Is there a Boys Gone Wild?  If so I would like to be informed about it.  Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy).