The Genius Maker

In the talk I referenced a few days back Liz Wiseman quoted the following: “It has been said that after meeting with the great British Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, you left feeling he was the smartest person in the world, but after meeting with his rival Benjamin Disraeli, you left thinking you were the smartest person.”  She then continued with this commentary, “I think it is time that we recognize it is not the genius who is at the top of the intelligence hierarchy but rather the genius maker.”  In other words, it is not the acquisition of knowledge that makes us greatest, but it is the ability to teach that knowledge to others.  Or, put another way, the most important of all contributions to society comes from teachers. 

                As I’ve thought about this, I’ve realized that the teachers of society are rarely lionized or considered great.  We honor those who have performed great feats, not the ones who have taught them to do so.  But as I think about the scriptures, nearly all of the great prophets that we revere were first and foremost powerful teachers.  We see this certainly in the Book of Mormon.  A list of the ten most important mortals in the Book of Mormon would probably look something like this: Nephi, Jacob, King Benjamin, Mosiah II, Alma the Elder, Alma the Younger, Ammon, Captain Moroni, Mormon, and Moroni.  As we think through each one of these individuals, they were all great teachers.  Nephi spent many chapters in the Book of Mormon teaching his brothers, and then when he started his own city he was their teacher: “And I did teach my people” (2 Nephi 5:15).  He was constantly teaching.  Jacob likewise did “teach them the word of God with all diligence” and nearly all the writings we have from him were powerful teachings (Jacob 1:19).  King Benjamin is famous precisely because he was such an effective teacher and had such an incredible influence on his people so that when he finished teaching “they all cried aloud with one voice” calling upon Jesus (Mosiah 4:2).  Mosiah 29 contains the teachings of Mosiah II which had such a strong influence on his people that he was able to convince them to completely change their form of government.  Alma the Elder’s teachings were so impactful that he was able to help about 450 people see the wickedness of King Noah and lead them to conversion and baptism despite the danger that act engendered (Mosiah 18:35).  Alma the Younger spent the last twenty years of his life teaching the people in some of the most famous sermons that we have in the Book of Mormon.  His greatest desire was to be a teacher as powerful as an angel: “O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God” (Alma 29:1).  Ammon was clearly one of the greatest teachers of all time as he was able to reach the hearts of the Lamanites and help in the conversion of thousands.  Captain Moroni was a great military leader, but he is most famous for the way that he taught and inspired the Nephites through the Title of Liberty.  If he had not been such a great teacher he could not have been the great general he was.  Mormon was a great general as well, but he was also a teacher; besides the memorable sermons at the end of his life, we have nearly the whole Book of Mormon itself that he largely put together to teach us.  And of course his son Moroni gave us one of the most important teachings in the whole book: it was him who taught us how to know of its truthfulness ourselves (Moroni 10:3-5).  So I guess the point is that if we want to be like the powerful prophets of the scriptures, our greatest aspiration should be to teach like they did.