The term Intellectual Quotient has kept haunting me for a long time as comparative with Intelligence Quotient and Emotional quotient. There seems to be a considerable overlap and exclusivity among the three terms. The attempt here is not to get into a detailed analysis of differences among these terms but to discuss the traits of Intellectual quotient and its significance.
Being an entrepreneur, like everyone else, I introspect and try to look back for the inspirations that drove me to leave a hefty salaried job and bootstrap myself, especially as the first generation of entrepreneur? Lot many bullets could be struck as a reply but I think hunger for increasing the intellectual quotient remains the main reason. Now, to define it, it is certainly not being intelligent, picking up fast, handling unknowns swiftly than others, being sharp etc. It is also not being self-aware, empathetic, motivational or influential etc. which are the building blocks of Emotional Intelligence as defined by Daniel Golman. It is, in my view, the ability to explore new things, constantly leaving the comfort zone, hunger for getting acknowledged for the good deeds, mixing the traditional and cutting edge trends together and setting up an altogether new one, enjoying the journey more than the destination, having a self-expression always in any of the forms like writing , speaking , performing . So, as I mentioned earlier, instead of comparing it with EQ or IQ as there is a good amount of overlap, let us see how it plays a significant role in personal and professional life.
People with high intellectual quotient are always happy with the environment where their quotient is maintained. For example, in the corporate world, every organization has innovation initiatives. People having high Intellectual quotient, or more specifically, the ones with the traits mentioned above, enjoy these initiatives. This automatically becomes employee retention initiative. However, there is a possibility that the initiative does not really exist for that purpose. It exists for some of the organizational goals which are aligned with business strategy for that moment. Unfortunately, once the goal is achieved or the strategy gets changed, the environment changes and does not fulfill the intellectual hunger of the people involved in it. Then starts the hunt for another job and so on. This so called intellect group continues to find that space where they enjoy exploration, new things and finally come to the conclusion that they can’t depend on someone else to create it for them. It is the ultimate realization that one has to create his/her own space which gives birth to entrepreneurship.
The problem here is organizations can’t satisfy everyone, every time or for that matter any time. There are strong business reasons behind every decision taken irrespective of whether it’s wrong or right for someone. It also depends on the percentage of such quantum of personnel in the organization who love ‘intellectual environment’. But largely every grown organization has such volume to good extent. So let’s explore the initiatives which can be consistently imbibed as a part of the culture of the organization ,which may not cost much , but will certainly satisfy the hunger of intellectual quotient.
In one of the NLP training sessions I attended, the learned trainer discussed ‘Appreciative Inquiry ‘, which is again a proven strength based management model . After attending the workshop, I had an excellent experience of using ‘Appreciative Inquiry’ as a technique for completely different scenario during my job. I was appointed as a project manager for a new challenging project and the team was new to the organization. Many of them were new to the industry also. It was important to break the ice and bring all the members of the group to a common level so as to achieve success in the project. It was also necessary for me to gel with each other and know their strengths, weaknesses quickly. I started a forum which met every Monday morning at 10 o’clock. We, a group of 10-12 people, used to discuss what best had happened on the week end. Initial 2-3 weeks, I and a couple of more talkative members only used to speak and share their experiences of reading a new book or thrilled experiences of overnight trekking etc. I still continued with the forum and after 4-5 weeks, suddenly could see the results. After listening to the same people sharing new book names, trekking places, the quiet ones actually started sharing simple things like watching a movie and talking about it in the group. After 6 weeks, it was the reading habit which was popularly picked up by others. Almost everyone had something to share by the end of 2 months. The output was phenomenal. Gelling certainly took place but reading habits of the group improved, inquisition increased and importance of sharing was understood automatically. Getting acknowledged, heard in the group helped in imbibing the sense of ownership and team work. The timing also proved to be the bull’s eye. The first one hour on a Monday morning where people generally carry the week end hang over , started making people anxious, curious and hence energetic. I enjoyed the same too as it was completely customized from the existing knowledge or theory or attended training.
Another must to share experience is with my earlier employer whose CEO attended a workshop on strategy building at Harvard business school. He decided to exercise it by involving employees across all the levels, right from the software engineer to the delivery head in a very innovative manner. The senior management had published the vision document on company portal and invited participation for ‘Vision Community’. The aspirants required to appear for a test on vision document. I was a software engineer with 3-4 years of industry experience that time and was thrilled to participate in the same by qualifying the test. Even others, who wanted to join this elite group, got an opportunity to learn, explore new ideas, seek management perspective on larger business decisions etc. After the selection in the community, there were lots of interactive forums, workshop where the community got an opportunity to interact with senior management, to express their own ideas and to seek feedback. All this was quite innovative and thrilling for an entry level or mid-level IT professional.
I know everyone reading this may have some or the other good experiences with their organizations as well. The point here is these initiatives can become good talent retention initiatives if planned properly. Apart from reward and recognition forums, employees need food for their intellect especially at the senior level where the growth path is narrow and motivations are difficult to be drawn. So probably identifying the high Intellectual crowd percentage in the organization is the first metrics to be set. Once that is engineered, the next step is how to supply the food for the thoughts.