I read a LinkedIn article a while back about how Google considers GPA to be irrelevant when looking at whether their employees are successful (they did notice a correlation within the first two years of employment, but that goes away). Here's a quote from Google's then SVP of People Operations, Lazlo Bock, about the issue:
“After two or three years, your ability to perform at Google is completely unrelated to how you performed when you were in school, because the skills you required in college are very different,” he said. “You’re also fundamentally a different person. You learn and grow, you think about things differently. Another reason is that I think academic environments are artificial environments. People who succeed there are sort of finely trained, they’re conditioned to succeed in that environment. One of my own frustrations when I was in college and grad school is that you knew the professor was looking for a specific answer. You could figure that out, but it’s much more interesting to solve problems where there isn't an obvious answer. You want people who like figuring out stuff where there is no obvious answer.”
I find the second sentence regarding the employee fundamentally being a different person particularly insightful. I have no idea of whether Google analyzed this aspect in their research, but I believe understanding a candidate's history of learning how to learn is THE critical factor in finding a good employee, either right out of school or over the course of a career. Mr. Bock notes how professors wanted specific answers and how it's "much more interesting to solve problems where there isn't an obvious answer." Many times, the right person is that person that can figure out such problems.
Can the professor/boss asking for a specific answer/result and solving problems be connected?
I regularly tell my two sons that it doesn't matter if you know Martha Washington's birthday. However, if you know how to figure out how to find that information and then learn more about her, that is more important. The teacher may want the answer. In the end, however, she's really hoping you've learned how to obtain information, process it, expand from it and move forward.
I met with a recent college graduate with an English major who has completed an internship with a fantasy football company and is looking for a permanent role. I gave him likely interview questions and why he felt he would be better at marketing/copywriting than someone else. His answer was that he has critiqued several works and has developed techniques that allow him to offer suggestions on what could be done to improve a work product.
So what, right?
What this graduate accomplished was that he figured out how to learn what an author was looking to project as a message, who the audience was and how effectively that message reached the consumer. He applied that learning process in his internship to recommend changes to the company's content philosophy. He learned how to learn and adapted his knowledge to situations at hand. He will find a good job because he now knows how to learn how to answer the interview questions better and is prepared to take on the challenges that will face him in his career.
Do all professors/bosses just want the right answer?
When I taught international finance at Hamline University's MBA program, I started by class with a question:
'How many of you are looking to become CFOs?'
Hamline's MBA program was not structured to develop such people; that was reserved for a different school in town. What I was hoping the students got out of my class was enough of an understanding of the discipline of international finance to understand potential issues and ask the right questions of the right people. My students weren't going to be dealing with international finance every day and wouldn't need to know formulas and ratios.
We talked about real world situations and I asked for opinions and substantiation for the opinion. Could the students figure out how to learn about this topic, think logically about the situation and figure out next steps? If they did, I did my job.
Correlating learning with performance
As a leader of a team, I looked to hire people that wouldn't just accept what I would say or dictate, but come up with arguments as to why another course was warranted. The best bosses I've had have allowed me the freedom to question them and bring up justification to move in a certain direction.
In my 10 plus years of coaching and consulting, I've seen that the more effective leaders are the ones that open themselves up to fact they don't have all the answers and look for the critical thinking other members provide. I've worked with many leaders who've built this portion of their practice after being challenged on it, possibly for the first time. They've learned, and are continuing to learn, how to pull information and insights from a variety of areas, critique and question assumptions and go in directions they may have not seen initially. The impact of this Respecting has changed businesses, enabled more impactful strategies and improved results.
So, whether you are trying to impress a company to hire you, looking to hire good people or trying to improve the work you do and enhance your chances for success in business and life, your ability to learn and honing your learning processes will lead to positive results and success.
What are your opinions on this subject. I'd love to hear them.