Why Brilliant guys fail at the workplace?

Having a brilliant academic background is great but it may not be helpful if one plans to work in the real world with real people with all their foibles and faults. You need the ability to work in a team to succeed.   If a brilliant guy has poor social relations skills and cannot cope with stress, he fails.

They are highly qualified but not competent. They may mechanically execute a task but lack that something needed to work in a team. Or, they may be technically sound but are not able to neither control their emotions nor understand their team members properly.

Their work output may be superlative too. But they are not easy to get along with and they keep upsetting others. They may fail to solve problems and understand others’ thinking patterns. They may not easily adapt to situations nor change behavior as and when required. They may not be optimistic in the face of adversity.

This is a classic case of IQ vs EQ.. With the challenges of today, I feel being a good EI person will only take you further.  

Is the Academic world designed, almost everywhere, to remove imagination, and creativity from the students? Why aren’t they exposed to different social settings and taught ways to cope with stress?   

Communication and attitude affect the performance of high IQ people in the corporate world. They are poor communicators and they have a poor attitude, often arrogant. In the corporate world we need to work as a team and communicate effectively our views and hear alternative views; we need to be open. Bookish knowledge is not practical knowledge. This is one of the main drawbacks for those who come from countries like India and they often fail in the organizational or corporate environment. One small project work in the end of the year is all that they do to get practical knowledge and it is highly insufficient.   

 A good percentage of students learn for the sake of learning and they put very little effort into a course. They study to get high grades; once the exams are over they forget everything. They have not appropriated the knowledge imparted.  

When we are dealing with people let us remember we are not dealing with creatures of logic. We are dealing with creatures of emotion. The universities do not equip students to tackle emotions. Brilliance measured by tests alone may not succeed in the workplace.