As we’ve discussed, a particular set of cognitive abilities differentiates star executives from their peers, but until now, the only cognitive skills that could be measured were those that were originally identified to predict the academic performance of schoolchildren. These are the skills commonly assessed by traditional IQ tests, and though these instruments do, to some extent, predict work performance, they assess only a fraction of the total number of cognitive abilities that exist. And, more important, the aptitudes measured by traditional IQ tests are not necessarily the ones most crucial to business success.
Historically, we’ve had to rely upon IQ measures to sort executive candidates—either ...
