Translator: Krzysztof Wiankowski
Reviewer: Nadine Hennig Imagine we're sitting in a conference room
of a large car manufacturer with the leading Motorsport engineers, enthusiastically discussing
a new development that can help them make
their pit stops even faster - no doubt we need that, right? - until one of them stands up and says, "Wait, I'll first go to the workshop
and ask the guys there if it's actually physically possible to speed it up like this." He comes back with a clear answer: "No way. No chance. We've already reached
the peak of our abilities." That means, with this one single question, he avoided a bad investment
of 300,000 euros. Do you think that VW would be
in the current situation if there were more people who not only think about
their own duties and responsibilities but also think, naturally, beyond this, about the consequences that follow,
even for other people; people who are ready
to stand up and take on responsibility even if it's inconvenient, or even if it doesn't meet
with approval right away. I don't think so. I have a theory why there are such a few people like this. How many of you know your IQ? And I don't mean what you feel it is,
but the actual results from a test. (Laughter) That's a damn few, as expected. I think that's also one of the reasons we started using other indicators for it, and that fits in with
what we promote in our society, that is knowledge. We promote it so we can focus
as early as possible on building up more and more
specialist knowledge in order to be bestowed
with the corresponding titles, to gain fame and honor, corresponding positions, and salaries to match - all that's of value and good. But maybe we should think
about what's behind all this. What do these titles actually prove? Discipline, important and right - someone got down to work
and put a lot of effort into it, and might have even gone
through difficult stages in order to achieve it. We can see someone assimilated an impressive amount
of specialist knowledge, and today we've already heard unbelievably great and exciting
specialist knowledge. But what we often forget is that there's also
a great deal of luck involved, that relating to socio-economic status, the kind of environment I was born into that was conducive
to my taking this academic path. I'm sure that if I were to ask here, we would find the vast majority
have an academic title. But I'd like to show you what it looks like outside here -
just proportionately. So, I'd like to ask all those in the last five seats
on the right side to stand up. Great, thank you very much. In our society, those are
the people, the fraction, who have a "license for cleverness," that is, people
with an academic qualification. If we compare these people, these people with a "license
for cleverness," and with it a claim for "cleverness," if we were to compare them with those in our society
who are indeed remarkably clever, we would have only
three people in this room here of the outstanding, the highly gifted,
with an IQ of 130 and above. That's damned few. That's why we're a bit more generous. We take all people
whose intelligence is above average, meaning all with an IQ above 115. I'd like to ask those
sitting in the row No. 7 - there are some little lights
in front of you, please pick them up, switch them on,
and place them on your heads, whether you sit or stand,
it doesn't matter. Great. (Laughter) These are the bright ones in our society. So you can see, there might be a match, there might not. And this can also lead
to the situation we have now, meaning we have people with a license, who look down on people
who perhaps have much higher potential. You can now sit down again! But what does this high
intelligence really mean? We talk about a high, general
ability to think and learn that applies particularly to abstract and complex
information or content. You could say, some kind
of a very fast processor in the head that can simply handle more data. So, we've seen that these are
extremely clever people, but they are sometimes
not permitted to put it into practice. Have you ever tried
to get a really challenging job that required no academic degree? From personal experience, I can tell you
that it's a thoroughly hopeless affair. And even though
there are magnificent examples: Steve Jobs and Bill Gates,
almost everyone knows, are not academics. But of their kind, there are many more. Did you know that
about Sixt? Or Dell? Or Joop? Or the Schaeffler Group,
if we go back to the car industry? All of them are non-academics
who made those brands successful. It's a matter of two different things. And if we ask ourselves
what makes them so special, different? Usually they're passionately inquisitive. They can collect a lot of knowledge, but their inquisitiveness also leads to their putting together
a lot of knowledge of different subjects; they enjoy lateral thinking,
they enjoy linking up ideas, they enjoy seeing
what can be done with them, they often look at how
they might be applied practically. From personal experience, I can say these are usually extremely dedicated,
enthusiastic and very likable people, these lateral thinkers. Additionally, since they think so quickly,
back and forth, they also see faults
in their strategies and concepts, and they are ready and willing to stand up and make it known. One might also say: defiant. We're in the right place for that. If we think about what the perfect job
for such a horizontal thinker would be, one who has views on many subjects
and insight into them, but has no well-grounded
specialist knowledge in any subject, then almost any type of leadership. Who actually gets these jobs? Those with the vertical
specialist knowledge. And in no way am I saying that one is more or less
valuable than the other. These are just two different perspectives that we should perhaps
take into account more often: when we need which perspective, and when which potential is required. And somehow the question still remains: If they're so clever, why don't they just study
in order to get this license? Because sometimes life gets in the way. We've already heard,
mentioned several times, what could possibly stop us. And then it's a matter
of when one comes to it in life. And sometimes, there are
really sad stories behind it. I'd like to tell you one,
just as an example. Imagine an eleven-year-old girl, a bit pale, delicate,
and who hasn't smiled in a long time. It shouldn't come as a surprise
because her mother is in hospital suffering from cancer
in an advanced stage. And after many months, the expected happens,
although no one wanted to believe it, she dies. The father is hopelessly
overwhelmed by the situation and escapes into alcohol. But there's a neighboring family
that looks after her. But over time, their care
gradually turns into aggression. The man, however, shelters her,
tries to protect her, and then takes advantage
of the trust forming between them in order to abuse her sexually. All the while, she continues school and passes her university
entrance level exams. She gets pretty bad grades, but still. Despite having been absent many times, she still managed
to get out of the situation. What does she do afterward? Obviously, she goes to college. But missing gaps become noticeable, episodes of depression become
ever more frequent and ever longer. So, she gives up on her studies, moves to a different city
to gain distance, and starts an apprenticeship. Is that something you can understand? Will you ever find that in her CV? Does it change her IQ in any way? What will you judge her by? Probably by her poor
school-leaving exam results and the fact that she dropped
out of college. This is probably a harsh story, but any kind of traumatic event is exactly as unique
and harsh as this one. And if you think this is rare,
then, no, unfortunately, it is not. Almost half of you in this room
can tell stories like this one, whether you believe it or not. We usually don't, because we know that the people
around us won't handle it very well, and because we feel we would rather not be defined
by such a story, we've really so much more to offer - especially if we can
just manage to get past it. And it might be difficult to believe, but these stories
can give rise to great things. I am not joking. I can tell you
with the greatest conviction: I would not wish it on anybody, but I'm grateful because
it has made me who I am today - and it's something I've already heard
from very many of these people. And if we think about what we need in order to cope with such a situation,
to get back out of it, we have to delve pretty deep
into our own psyche, in order to understand ourselves, to understand our feelings, to take a hold of them
and bring them into perspective. It's self-awareness in
the truest sense of the word. No one can deny
the value of this ability, right? What we also need in order
to get there is forgiveness: often by ourselves toward ourselves, which is a bit irrational, but common, but also toward the people
who did us harm, or those who didn't help us
to get out of the situation. To do so, we need to see it
from their perspective and for sure not set them
against our values and without prejudging them. It's something that can be learned,
and it's called empathy. In our professional life, when we deal with colleagues,
employees or customers, it's of unbelievable value. Once we've achieved these two things, we'll perceive things
in a broader context, no longer look at individual stories, but at their commonality,
how they interconnect. This leads to a great deal
of independence and, thereby, also to resilience, to being able to deal better with stress because we see the bigger picture
and don't focus so much on the trivial. And a whole load of those people
who have experienced such a trauma develop a heightened sensitivity. Heightened sensitivity
means having fine antennas for things that haven't
presented themselves and aren't so very obvious yet: you might say seismographs
for conflicts and problems. How valuable it would be
to be able to see them and solve them before they actually confront us. And if we put those attributes together, we may already be quite close
to what we consider to be wisdom, and no one will deny that this is a very special
type of cleverness. You could also say,
just like Schopenhauer did: "Intelligence can replace
almost any level of education, but no education
can replace intelligence." And that which prevents an intelligent
person from getting an education, which, as we all know,
is extremely valuable, that sometimes leads to totally
different qualities and potentials, and, as a society, it would be stupid
of us not to use it, wouldn't it? With this in mind, let's be clever! Each in their own way. We need to complement each other,
we need to come together. And if we all do that together, we can overcome
even the biggest challenges. Thank you. (Applause)
