No matter how smart you are, brains provide no warranty against arrogance, stupid decision making or the need to self-destruct just when things seem to be going great. For instance, if you’re so smart, why do you lose sales that ought to be in the bag? The answer may be obvious, according to industrial psychologist and business consultant Mortimer Feinberg, if you understand the ways intelligence can drive and then undermine success. In his recent book Why Smart People Do Dumb Things (Simon & Schuster, 1995) Feinberg documents dozens of examples of the best and brightest senselessly sabotaging their own accomplishments.

From such high-profile contretemps as presidential candidate Gary Hart’s arrogant challenge to reporters to just try and catch him fooling around and John Sculley’s ill-fated departure from Apple Computers, to more everyday examples of powerful business executives whose arrogance led to dubious decision making, Feinberg shows that no one is immune to the pitfalls of self-sabotaging idiocies.

Being smart can get you pretty far in life, but above-average brains can also lull you into a false sense of security. Even the savviest sales executives can make prodigious errors, leaving their colleagues to shake their heads in disbelief at such unfathomable blunders. It’s a phenomenon Feinberg calls the Self-Destructive Intelligence Syndrome, or SDIS. After years of analyzing the blunders of the high and mighty, Feinberg points to a variety of contributing factors that lead smart people to make dumb decisions.

“Odd as it may seem, intelligent people are constantly at risk of self-destruction caused by their own brilliance,” Feinberg says. “The SDIS virus flourishes within strong intellects. Using the same brainpower that helped them get ahead, supersmart people can become overconfident, arrogant and blind to reality so that they ignore the red flags that might tip off less intelligent people about a poor decision. And while everyone with above-average intelligence possesses the SDIS virus the good news is that it can be caught and brought under control.”

Salespeople at risk

Feinberg notes that some of the root causes of SDIS are particularly prevalent among salespeople. For instance, success in sales often breeds arrogance. But arrogant sales executives are often likely to abandon the very traits – preparation, attention to customer needs, active listening, etc. – that brought success in the first place. Instead they try to rely on a more ego-driven approach, feeling that they can produce results through sheer force of personality. And while Feinberg admits that for a short time this approach may succeed, he says that these salespeople are at the greatest risk for a fall.

“The four pillars of stupidity are hubris, arrogance, narcissism and the unconscious need to fail,” Feinberg explains. “These four factors typically overlap but in virtually any case of SDIS elements of at least one are involved. In salespeople we typically see the role played by arrogance and narcissism. They become overconfident which blinds them to the reality of how they should handle customers, colleagues and their managers.”

As an example of arrogance breeding blindness Feinberg cites Stephen Chao, a rising young executive in Rupert Murdoch’s media empire. Chao was speaking at a 1992 management conference involving dignitaries from both public and private life when his lecture was interrupted by a male stripper who disrobed next to National Endowment for the Humanities Chairwoman Lynne Cheney. After the shock wore off, it was discovered that Chao himself was responsible and his career with Fox TV was quickly over.

“People always say, ‘How could such a smart guy make such a stupid mistake?'” Feinberg says. “But the fact is that only supersmart people are capable of the mental gymnastics necessary to rationalize such boneheaded moves. Let’s face it – Stephen Chao must be pretty smart to come up with a plausible reason for hiring a stripper at such a high-level management conference.”

Few sales professionals ever have the opportunity – let alone the audacity – to make prodigious blunders on the scale of Stephen Chao’s. But even if your mistakes don’t send shock waves through an industry they still hold the power to derail your career. One mental error common to smart salespeople, Feinberg says, is selective listening. Customers might voice both praise and objections to a sales presentation, for instance, but SDIS salespeople might hear only what they want to hear. They have a unique ability to turn negatives into positives.

“This is frequently a problem with performance reviews,” he says. “Reviewers tend to take the edge off of criticism, sometimes sandwiching a criticism between two positive comments. But fertile narcissistic minds place much more importance on the praise, almost to the point where they ignore the criticism entirely.”

Identify risk factors

Feinberg says that salespeople suffering from SDIS can be identified by how they respond to failure. Everyone makes rationalizations to some extent, he says, but these individuals never assume responsibility for negative outcomes.

“If you’re constantly blaming others,” Feinberg says, “then that’s a definite red flag. These salespeople say things like, ‘The customer doesn’t know what he’s doing,’ ‘They just don’t understand their own needs’ or ‘My manager just doesn’t give me the support I need.’ They use rationalizations because they think that if they admit an error then their whole defense system will collapse.”

Just by acknowledging that your smarts can lead to SDIS is half the battle. To win the other half Feinberg offers a host of recommendations, starting with getting to know what your friends and colleagues think of you. This is important not because you should change to suit what others want from you but because this knowledge can help you avoid major screw-ups. Try this simple test: Write down a list of adjectives you feel apply to you. Be specific and honest, including both your best and worst features. Now make a separate list of attributes you believe a companion or friend would ascribe to you. It doesn’t matter whether you agree, just try to imagine what adjectives they might use.

“Out of this exercise should come a basic personality core on which you and others agree,” Feinberg says. “There will of course be differences but the core should be there. If not, what’s the reason? Are you just misunderstood? Probably not. The reason may be that you are putting on a deliberate performance to fool others into thinking you are someone you’re not. If that’s the case, you need to ask yourself why an intelligent person expends so much energy presenting a false picture to others.”

Another, less introspective exercise Feinberg suggests is to keep a week-long record of the situations you encounter and how you react to them. Record, either on paper, disk or cassette, what makes you happy, frustrated, disappointed, excited or however you feel about your interactions with co-workers, customers and managers. Examples might include “Finally confronted Hal about updating the McCaffrey file. He’s very frustrating to work with but I do admire his creativity.” Or “Bullied everyone in the meeting into agreeing with me. Don’t they realize I don’t know what I’m talking about?”

Review

At the end of the week review your record. Look for episodes where you demonstrated particularly strong feelings. Try to find a pattern, whether in time of day, the kind of person involved, who else witnessed or where it occurred. Now reverse roles, and try to imagine yourself as the other person or people involved. How does it feel to be on the other side? Were your outbursts justified? In light of the other person’s feelings, should you have acted differently?

“By using this, what we call the autobiographical method, to understand what really happened in a situation you gain a greater self-knowledge,” Feinberg says. “When you know what pushes your buttons you can anticipate those situations and structure work relationships accordingly. If, for example, extended contact with one co-worker raises your ire, then you can take practical steps to prevent a blow-up. This is the point of the exercise – to gain enough self-awareness to avoid situations and actions that will cause you trouble in the long run.”

Ultimately, Feinberg says, all this introspection and self-awareness should lead to greater emotional maturity and growth.

“Growth is both the key to personal success and the progressive achievement of greater emotional maturity,” he says. “Brains can actually stunt your growth. A huge intellect can overcompensate for emotional immaturity. But you can use the same smarts that might otherwise keep you from growing and instead apply it to building an immunity to SDIS.

“Growth also means learning to accept not only ourselves but others as well. If you are tolerant of others’ faults you won’t feel guilty trying to help them correct errors. With no desire in your heart to injure, you can provide genuine and constructive criticism. More than anything else, this can be the key to successful management – of yourself and others.”

Group folly

Individuals acting alone have been known to make some boneheaded decisions. But at the heart of truly colossal mistakes you will usually find a committee responsible. From Capitol Hill to Wall Street the scourge of groupthink has driven such epoch-defining catastrophes as the Bay of Pigs invasion, Watergate and the Ford Edsel.

In theory, says psychologist and professional blunder watcher Mortimer Feinberg, groups use a variety of viewpoints to put together the best solution to a problem. In practice, however, theory often flies out the window.

“Early in a discussion,” Feinberg says, “people generally feel comfortable sharing opinions and ideas. But then at some point it may become clear that the CEO favors a certain path. Dissenters face steeper opposition, which is buoyed by implied support from upper management. In the end a decision is made that may not reflect the best the group could have achieved.”

Feinberg notes that otherwise-bright group members do not all of a sudden become shrinking violets, intentionally blowing with the prevailing winds. In fact, he says, smart people let their subconscious minds convince them to adjust their thinking.

This is just one of the many ways groups of intelligent people can arrive at unsound conclusions. To avoid future group calamities, look back at previous follies. Review your organization’s record in group projects. If you feel the collaborations could have produced better results, try to pinpoint the problem areas. Ask the following:

Did you go into the project with any inaccurate preconceived notions?

In researching the decision did you ignore or alter test results to match what you wanted to hear?

Were you trying to satisfy a superior who had become hooked on good news?

Did you all overlook flaws or fail to raise obvious objections for fear of criticism or alienating others in the group?

Was there undue pressure on members of the group to conform?

Did you rely too much on experts who, perhaps because of their expertise, had formed such ironclad assumptions that they failed to anticipate surprises?

Did eagerness and dependence on set strategy cause the group to ignore core issues for fear of missing a deadline?

By determining the precise nature of what has plagued past group decisions you can anticipate and (hopefully) eliminate future stumbling blocks. As Feinberg points out, group dynamics pose some of the most complex and challenging situations in the modern workplace. And while there is no way to guarantee that a committee will generate the best, or even a good solution, taking steps to avoid the most common errors will certainly tip the odds in your favor.