Our Ten Intelligences

Iv'e recently been reading a book called 'Head First' by Tony Buzan. I'm a great fan of Mr Buzan anyway, he being the 'inventor' of mind mapping. I was first introduced to the concept of mind maps about fifteen years ago, and it is no exaggeration to say that this simple tool revolutionised my ability to organise presentations, take notes when with clients and to plan just about anything, inside or outside work.

If you haven't tried using them (and they are so simple, but a really powerful way of working) then grab any of Tony Buzan's books on the subject, or try his web site www.mind-map.com, or drop me a note and I'd be delighted to give you an introduction, because it really works.

Anyway, back to the point of the blog. In his book 'Head First' Buzan explodes the myth that intelligence is all about your IQ. Too often, especially at work, that is how people are judged or measured. Often promotion, the chance for high office, seems to be completely dependent on the number of letters after a person's name and the level of their IQ.

But how many times have you come across seemingly intelligent people in big jobs who are just so poor at organising themselves, at leading and managing others, at building relationships, at taking decisions. I certainly came across so many people like that in my corporate life and I continue to do so as I work with all sorts of organisations.

As I began to work for myself I came across the concept of EQ, or Emotional Intelligence, our ability to build relationships through empathising with people and truly understanding them. At that point so much fell into place, and I perhaps began to understand what had held me back in my previous working life. I had been working in a culture where the very existence of EQ was not even recognised, let alone valued.

But Buzan takes it a whole stage further by proposing that as a human being we each possess no less than ten intelligences, and if we choose to we can expand and develop each one of these intelligences, transforming our abilities and tapping into our natural genius.

I'd love to briefly introduce you to these ten intelligences, but if you are interested to know more, get hold of the book, it is very readable, well laid out and contains a load of practical ways in which you can develop each of the intelligences.

Buzan divides the ten intelligences into three groupings: creative and emotional intelligences, bodily intelligences and traditional IQ intelligences.

Each group then sub-divides as follows:

Creative and Emotional Intelligences:

1. Creative Intelligence: this is about our ability to think in new ways, to be original. It includes the speed and ease with which we can come up with new ideas, our ability to challenge beliefs and to see things from a differing point of view, our originality and our ability to build upon ideas. Buzan gives Richard Branson as an example of someone with high creative intelligence, someone who was severely dyslexic and struggled through his academic career, considered to be not bright by his teachers. Look what happened to him!

2. Personal Intelligence: this one is about understanding ourselves, and our own personal effectiveness. It's the sort of stuff I train regularly with my Breakthrough Personal Effectiveness programme, the kind of thinking and material in the personal victory part of Covey's 'Seven Habits of Highly Effective People'. Its about our ability to take control, make the right choices and organise ourselves. Christopher Reeve is the very powerful example of someone who has managed to do this despite the most horrendous of physical disabilities.

3. Social Intelligence: this is the one which comes the closest, for me, to the concept of EQ. This is about our ability to build highly effective relationships with others, to understand them, to build empathy, to be at ease in social situations. Nelson Mandela is Buzan's very interesting example of this, the way in which he conducted himself and influenced others after three decades of imprisonment.

4. Spiritual Intelligence: I guess this one takes a bit more explaining, but for me it's about our personal values, the things that are deep inside us, our beliefs, how much at peace we are with ourselves. Mother Teresa is perhaps the predictable but nevertheless powerful example quoted.

Bodily Intelligences:

5. Physical Intelligence: so we move on to the three bodily intelligences, and the premise here is that the more healthy you are, the more balanced and physically fit your body becomes the more balanced and mentally fit your brain becomes. The two work in harmony, as in the saying 'a healthy body is a healthy mind.' I guess we all understand and appreciate the link, it's just doing something about it, through regular exercise that's the tough bit! Michael Jordan is the quoted example but there would be many we could all think of.

6. Sensual intelligence: this is about using each of our five physical senses (and intuition, our 'sixth sense') to the full extent of their quite incredible powers. Walt Disney's work in translating the senses into film is a great example. The opportunities to look, listen, smell, touch and taste, as well as to use our intuition, are around us every day. And did you know that research has shown that when we act on our intuition it is the right decision more than 80% of the time?

7. Sexual Intelligence: this was the one I didn't expect to find here, and the chapter was so interesting that I read it three times! So what is it that makes us live longer, has inspired many of the greatest works of art, music and literature, makes the skin glow, has inspired renaissances and revolutions, reduces stress and is the main reason the human race still exists? Yes, the answer is sex! By the end of the chapter Buzan had convinced me of the link between a healthy sex life and the development of the brain. Mind you, it wasn't hard! And yes, Marilyn Monroe was the quoted example.

Traditional IQ Intelligences:

8. Numerical Intelligence: back to earth with a bump as Buzan examines the traditional IQ intelligences. So many people rank their numerical intelligence as the least developed of their intelligences, but we all possess it and we can all develop it. A Cambridge mathematician is the quoted example, but as with all the examples it doesn't have to be about famous people. We all know people around us who demonstrate or more of the ten intelligences brilliantly. Sad to say I love numbers, I wasn't that great at Maths at school but it's not about algebra and logarithms, who needs those anyway?

9. Spatial Intelligence: this is another fascinating one. Spatial intelligence is about being able to see the relationship of shapes to each other, our ability, for example, to read a map and to turn the information it gives us into actions. It's our ability to understand and use the space around us. Michael Schumacher is the example given.

10. Verbal Intelligence: the last of the ten and again a very traditional one. It's about our ability to use language effectively. Don't forget that we have managed to learn the language we speak and our brain is therefore far more intelligent that the world's most intelligent computer! Here's another intelligence we can really develop. Did you know that the average person writes, speaks and recognises only about 1,000 words! Shakespeare is the inevitable example.

I guess the main point that comes through for me in the book is that we each possess all ten of these intelligences, it's just that some are more developed than others. So even if you claim you are not creative, or no good with numbers, it doesn't mean you don't have the potential to be so, you have just not developed that particular intelligence.

So get working on all ten and unlock your unique and enormous potential!

The Concept of the 'Servant - Leader'

You may remember that from time to time those at the top of organisations have spoken about 'inverting the triangle.' Often this is within the heady atmosphere of the annual conference or sales meeting, and the boss puts up a slide with an inverted triangle, showing him or her at the bottom, then their direct reports, then managers and supervisors, and finally front line staff right at the top of the diagram, often with customers shown at the top of the slide. The boss will talk about their role being to support everyone else in the organisation, with each level of management being there to support the front line in dealing with customers. It sounds inspiring, and apart from the surprised and worried faces of the boss's direct reports it's positively received, if with an air of cynicism.

And unfortunately too often the cynicism is well founded because the idea, even if it was proposed with the best of intentions, never lasts longer than the next mini crisis, when the boss and reports revert to type finding it easier to sit at the top of the triangle barking orders.

Maybe that is a bit unfair but unfortunately I find the true execution of the 'inverted triangle' very rare. But where it happens it can make an incredible difference to the effectiveness of organisations. It can create a culture where real empowerment takes place and where front line staff feel truly supported. This is the principle of the 'servant-leader' first coined by Robert Greenleaf, an American 'management development guru' (whatever that means) in 1970. As a recent excellent article in People Management Magazine pointed out, Greenleaf believed that great leaders are motivated by the desire to serve others, a refreshing break away from those recent leaders motivated by self-interest and the pursuit of power (step forward Sir Fred Goodwin and a host of moat cleaning and duck house building MPs).

Greenleaf goes on to say that the best test of a 'servant-leader' is whether those who are served grow as people. Now there will be a view that in these difficult times this is just too wishy-washy. That what we need is strong, decisive even autocratic leaders taking the hard decisions. But there is nothing weak or indecisive about being a 'servant-leader.' They still make the tough decisions but they ensure they are made for the right reasons and implemented in the right way.

A great example from the article of a 'servant-leader' is Chesley Sullenberger, the US Airways pilot who on 15 January safely ditched a passenger jet carrying 155 people into the Hudson River. After his aircraft hit a flock of birds and lost power in both engines soon after taking off from La Guardia airport Sullenberg performed a textbook emergency landing and ensured everyone was evacuated before himself, walking the aisles more than once to check.

In a 2005 essay, Larry Spears, who worked closely with Greenleaf, outlined the ten characteristics of a 'servant-leader' as follows:

1. The ability and willingness to listen to people

2. The determination to strive to understand and to empathise with others

3. The potential to heal (in organisational terms the ability to resolve issues)

4. Being aware and understanding issues involving ethics and values, knowing right from wrong.

5. Able to persuade, seeking to convince others rather than to coerce compliance

6. Able to think beyond today's realities and to conceptualise solutions to problems

7. Displays foresight, the ability to predict the likely outcome of a situation

8. Stewardship, playing their role in holding their organisation in trust for the greater good of society

9. Commitment to the growth of each individual in the organisation

10. Seeks to find some means of building a community among those who work within an organisation

Take a minute to consider your own role as a leader, whether you lead an organisation, or a team, or as a peer leader within a team or as a leader within your family. To what extent are you a 'servant-leader', how truly dedicated are you to serving others?

'Our Iceberg is Melting': a framework for change

This is a compelling fable about driving change seen through the eyes of a penguin colony in Antarctica (don't groan, it works!) It's co-authored by John Kotter, who also write 'A Sense of Urgency'
(See below)

The premise of the book, (easily and quickly read at only 140 pages, and that includes the pictures of cute penguins!), is that leaders of any team or organisation need to be constantly aware of the challenges their organisations face, and to plan to drive and deliver successful change to meet those challenges. That includes overcoming those complacent and doubting, who bury their heads in the sand, those Kotter refers to as the 'No-Nos'.

It was Charles Darwin, no less, who wrote in the 'Origin of the Species'

'It is not the strongest of the species that will survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change'

In the fable one of the penguins (not a leader at the top of their organisation) notices that their iceberg is beginning to melt and then faces the challenge of convincing those at the top of the problem, then galvanising them and eventually the whole colony into action, overcoming the many barriers and obstacles to change along the way.

The book summarises the eight steps that lie at the heart of any successful change programme, big or small, as follows:

1. Reduce complacency and increase urgency

2. Pull a team together to guide the needed change

3. Create a vision

4. Communicate the vision (by capturing hearts and minds, not through 144 power point slides!) Build understanding and buy-in.

5. Empower others to act, removing barriers so that those who want to make the vision a reality can do so

6. Create some short term wins

7. Don't let up, be relentless until the vision is a reality

8. Make the changes stick, because tradition dies a hard death.

And yes, the penguins do succeed, they find a new home on an even nicer iceberg, and if Disney ever made it into a film there wouldn't be a dry eye in the house!

I just think that eight point framework for driving any change is just so powerful, and is the basis on which I see many of my clients drive successful and sustainable change in their teams or organisations.

'A Sense of Urgency'

I've recently read a book called 'A Sense of Urgency' by John Kotter, and I think it has some highly important messages for all organisations in any sector.

The book's premise is really simple, leaders in organisations are so often aware that change is necessary, be it a new strategy, a new IT system, an acquisition or a re-organisation, but too often the change comes too slowly, or a great new idea stalls.

What is missing is a true sense of urgency in the organisation, led from the top but demonstrated at every level. The sense of urgency which does not waste time in pointless meetings, drives action, encourages people to grab opportunities, to make every minute count and to remove non value adding activities.

I do visit many organisations which believe they have this sense of urgency. But time and time again they are confusing this with simply running around indulging in 'pointless busyness'. Those leaders I come across with a true sense of urgency focus every day, indeed every hour on actions that will make a difference, move forward and execute at pace on the truly important things.

A typical example of a sense of urgency would not be an attitude that I must have a project team meeting today, but that the meeting must accomplish something important today.

The book sets out a series of practical examples for how leaders can first adopt this sense of urgency themselves and then build it through their team and organisation.

I do recommend this book to you. I can remember countless examples of leaders desperately in need of a sense of urgency. Their teams and organisations are drowning in complacency. Things are being allowed to drift, and in today's financial climate that is a recipe for economic suicide. In other organisations people run around like headless chickens, always busy but achieving nothing.

But I also come across great examples of a true sense of urgency, like the Chief Executive of a successful organisation I work with who has recognised that current achievement is no reason for complacency. Even though sales and profit are growing she is already engaged in scenario planning, thinking about the future and demanding action and new thinking today that will sustain success in tomorrow's new world.

If you are interested have a read of the book yourself and let me know what you think.

The Starfish

'I find this story of a boy and a starfish (click on the link below) an incredibly powerful way of demonstrating what we can influence and change.

So many people want to change the World. The problem is they just do not know where to start. The answer is to begin by changing the things we can influence. Make a difference to just one person. Throw back one starfish.

The more we focus on those things we can change, the more our influence will grow. Change one person, make a positive difference to them and they will influence someone else. It's called 'growing our circle of influence.'

But it starts even closer to home. As Gandhi said

'We must be the change we wish to see in the World'

If we want to change the beliefs, actions or behaviours of one person, inside or outside work, we must first consistently demonstrate those beliefs, actions and behaviours ourselves. It's the only place change can start. '

Click on this link to read more

'The Ultimate Question'

'I have been really taken by this book by Fred Reichheld. In it Reichheld, a Fellow at Bain & Company, makes the case for driving good profits from loyal customers. Sounds obvious! What he then does though is to provide a compelling and simple formula for consistently measuring customer satisfaction and acting on your findings.

Some organisations I work with are already using this approach, with transformational effect. Very impressive'

Click on this link to read more.


'The Speed of Trust'

'When I was first introduced to this book by Stephen M R Covey (son of Stephen R Covey) I was a little sceptical, especially since Mr Covey senior had written the Foreword, but once I began reading it I was completely hooked.

In the book Stephen demonstrates the absolute and undeniable link between the level of trust in a team or organisation and the ability of that team or organisation to execute- to get things done.

He therefore makes a direct link between the level of trust and financial results.

Simple and obvious once more, common sense even, but as we know common sense is all too often not common practice?.'

Click on this link to read more