How to measure wisdom

My quick answer - the same way we measure stupidity? By counting how many people want to wring dumbo's neck?

On a serious note, big-name companies take great pains to filter their job candidates with things like aptitude tests. They are like IQ tests, only less mathematical. I've seen some that are designed to ferret out personality traits. Not that I'm impressed. They've never stopped the psychos from joining, or stopped anyone from turning psycho after they joined. :-)

I'm quite certain of one thing. None of these tests measure the most important thing to have at work if you are in the upper ranks. That is wisdom. Quite understandable really. How do you measure something you aren't even sure how to define?

So after reading Masterwordsmith's interesting blog entry on why some people are smarter, I left these comments:

".... In my opinion, high EQ and IQ scores are important to compete. But if its happiness one seeks, it is the wisdom score that counts. I don't see IQ and wisdom as synonymous. I have a couple of Mensa friends with IQ off the charts who are the most miserable people I ever met.

If only someone has come up with a way to score wisdom...

I've always seen IQ as quantitative and wisdom as qualitative. IQ is to structured logic as wisdom is to unstructured experience. IQ will tell us where best to drill for oil. Wisdom will tell us if we can live with the consequences of drilling. I suppose that is why engineers and decisionmakers sit in different rooms.

I think wisdom can be measured, not directly but indirectly. Its like measuring a black hole in space. You can't see it but you can measure its size from how objects near it react to its gravity. Using the same principle it is possible to infer wisdom from the effects of wisdom, things like track record. For instance how many mistakes and bad decisions one has made over time, and how many of these mistakes are repetitive (i.e. whether we have the capacity to 'wise up' or not.) As a collective we Malaysians score poorly there I would say, given how the same people are voted back to power again and again. We are not wise. But tests on adaptive learning ability can be found in any branch of AI studies I'm sure.

IMO, the thing that will fudge up any attempt to make wisdom measurement popular is culture, specifically how wisdom is attributed to things like faith, mysticism, even magic. We are taught that a) wise people are old people, b) wise people are religious or mystics. The biggest nightmare that could happen would be to measure an old well-known priest and find that all those years had done nothing to make him wiser. Think of what that could do to the faithful."

It would be ideal to have high IQ people in the technical side, high EQ people in HR and admin, and high wisdom people in senior management. Things should sail smoothly, on paper at least, until transfers, promotions and all that tip over the apple cart.

I've actually never met anyone who looked like he could score high in all 3 areas. Sharp or amiable people aren't always wise and wise people aren't always sharp or amiable. What's painfully clear to me though is that many organizations put the wrong people in the wrong place. And then they wonder why they can't fly.

Using track record and references to infer one's wisdom quotient is the easiest, if you can accept it being more art than science. The trouble with it is that looking for a job is very much like courtship and in courtship, people have a tendency to reveal only side A. Side B surfaces only after the deal is done and its too late. Yes you may have done wonders in the past but often there is no indication at what cost, especially in human and environmental terms, areas where wisdom leaves the biggest impact.

Unlike IQ, there is no such thing as the ultimate top scorer in wisdom. Wisdom is a funnny thing. It draws from past mistakes, unlike IQ and EQ which are all about being perfect and free of mistakes. IQ and EQ can give you a good start, yes, but ultimately it is wisdom that keeps us in the game long term, for its only when we can accept imperfection with patience and grace - a mark of wisdom in my opinion - is there a chance we can survive long, and survive well.