Malcolm Gladwell reports that “the correlation between I.Q. and occupational success is between 0.2 and 0.3.” That’s more than no correlation at all but much less than something worth paying much attention to. But it seems somewhat counterintuitive. Elliott Jaques has an answer. I’m betting that one’s current capacity of work (your level or work that gets measured by the CIP process) is only loosely correlated with occupational success.

If IQ is correlated to one’s level of current capacity (and that’s a mighty big “if”), it still is only weakly correlated to one’s current capability. Remember that capacity is the level of work you might be capable of, were you fully trained, educated, interested and could fully devote your energy to the job. Capability, on the other hand, is the level of work that you are currently able to do. For people in normal Modes, capacity and capability match up pretty well: you have enough time to develop as you grow that you can grow your capability at about the same rate as your capacity, barring economic disruptions that force you to leave your field. It’s different for the higher Modes. Their current capability is always chasing their current capacity: the tank is growing so fast that they can’t get the gasoline coming in fast enough.

Now let’s add my special sauce and see how all of this might work.
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