What the Dog Saw [145]
Douglas followed his lead. “The women he’s been with are either many years younger, very naive, or much older and depend on him as their meal ticket,” he ventured. What’s more, the profilers determined, BTK would drive a “decent” automobile, but it would be “nondescript.”
At this point, the insights began piling on. Douglas said he’d been thinking that BTK was married. But now maybe he was thinking he was divorced. He speculated that BTK was lower middle class, probably living in a rental. Walker felt BTK was in a “lower-paying white-collar job, as opposed to blue-collar.” Hazelwood saw him as “middle class” and “articulate.” The consensus was that his IQ was somewhere between 105 and 145. Douglas wondered whether he was connected with the military. Hazelwood called him a “now” person, who needed “instant gratification.”
Walker said that those who knew him “might say they remember him, but didn’t really know much about him.” Douglas then had a flash — “It was a sense, almost a knowing” — and said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if, in the job he’s in today, that he’s wearing some sort of uniform.…This guy isn’t mental. But he is crazy like a fox.”
They had been at it for almost six hours. The best minds in the FBI had given the Wichita detectives a blueprint for their investigation. Look for an American male with a possible connection to the military. His IQ will be above 105. He will like to masturbate and will be aloof and selfish in bed. He will drive a decent car. He will be a “now” person. He won’t be comfortable with women. But he may have women friends. He will be a lone wolf. But he will be able to function in social settings. He won’t be unmemorable. But he will be unknowable. He will be either never married, divorced, or married, and if he was or is married, his wife will be younger or older. He may or may not live in a rental, and might be lower class, upper lower class, lower middle class, or middle class. And he will be crazy like a fox as opposed to being mental. If you’re keeping score, that’s a Jacques Statement, two Barnum Statements, four Rainbow Ruses, a Good Chance Guess, two predictions that aren’t really predictions because they could never be verified — and nothing even close to the salient fact that BTK was a pillar of his community, the president of his church, and the married father of two.
“This thing is solvable,” Douglas told the detectives as he stood up and put on his jacket. “Feel free to pick up the phone and call us if we can be of any further assistance.” You can imagine him taking the time for an encouraging smile and a slap on the back. “You’re gonna nail this guy.”*
November 12, 2007
The Talent Myth
ARE SMART PEOPLE OVERRATED?
1.
At the height of the dot-com boom of the 1990s, several executives at McKinsey & Company, America’s largest and most prestigious management-consulting firm, launched what they called the War for Talent. Thousands of questionnaires were sent to managers across the country. Eighteen companies were singled out for special attention, and the consultants spent up to three days at each firm, interviewing everyone from the CEO down to the human-resources staff. McKinsey wanted to document how the top-performing companies in America differed from other firms in the way they handled matters like hiring and promotion. But, as the consultants sifted through the piles of reports and questionnaires and interview transcripts, they grew convinced that the difference between winners and losers was more profound than they had realized. “We looked at one another and suddenly the lightbulb blinked on,” the three consultants who headed the project — Ed Michaels, Helen Handfield-Jones, and Beth Axelrod — write in their book, also called The War for Talent. The very best companies, they concluded, had leaders who were obsessed with the talent issue.