WINNING INTELLIGENCE

Several years of working with people gives me a perception that there could be yet another form of intelligence, that can be named ‘Winning Intelligence’. It is based on some simple observations as well as review of scientific research in human behaviour.

During my days of employment, I had come across Ms. Ragini Gupta, a smart, conscientious, industrious and caring girl in the marcom department of the company that I worked. In spite of these qualities, she never got invited to parties and get-togethers conducted by her friends and colleagues. When checked, I was told that Ragini had a ‘fiery temper’ and she was an ‘angry woman’. Nobody wanted to interact with her and be with her. Such a caring an industrious girl but she was alienated by her colleagues because of her occasional ‘fiery temper’

The other day my wife told me the story of her neighbor Anand Menon, a gifted kid, creative and intelligent. He was such a dream child and every mother wanted him to be her son. But late in life, she found Anand making a living out of repairing electrical appliances in his apartments. What happened, she enquired. She was told that Anand snapped when his father walked out of his house before he could complete his school.

In another company there was this brilliant accountant, Ajit Kumar who had an IQ 0f 160+. But whenever promotion came, he was passed over. Because, he was perceived to be a selfish fellow by his colleagues.

These few, out of the easily observable several other instances, denote that inability to manage negative emotions can cause the downfall of people - regardless of learning, knowledge, or intelligence. What we notice in such events around can be verified by review of actual research also.

A study by US Navy had revealed that most effective leaders are warmer, outgoing, emotionally expressive, dramatic and sociable.

Studies in retail segment had found that a store manager’s ability to manage feelings and stress of his sub-ordinates is directly related to net profit, sales per sq ft., sales per employee etc.

A survey on buyers found that apparel sales reps. were valued primarily for their empathy. The buyers reported that they wanted reps that could listen and understand what they wanted.

In a research at insurance major, it was observed those new salesmen who were optimists sold 37% more insurance in their first 2 years than did pessimists. When the company hired a special group of individuals who scored high on optimism but failed the normal screening, they outsold the pessimists by 21% in the first year and 57% in the second year.

Organizations in the selection process usually give high priority to intelligence - in the form of academic brilliance and relayed cognitive and intellectual abilities. These kinds of attributes are not connected to any social and emotional aspects and therefore do not help individuals in managing people - a critical requirement of career progress in organizations.

What is Intelligence?

Out of the several definitions of intelligence, I consider the one by David Wechsler, the American psychologist, the most appropriate one - ‘the aggregate capacity of an individual to act purposefully, think rationally, and deal effectively with the environment’. In effect, Wechsler attributed critical importance to ‘cognitive abilities’, though.
Perhaps, Ragini Gupta, Anand Menon, and Ajit Kumar acted purposefully and thought rationally. Yet, they might have missed the component of ‘dealing effectively with the environment’ - and our environment is nothing but other human beings. This ‘dealing effectively with environment’ is the critical requirement of life and work - especially, in the contemporary world of privatized, globalize, open market economy.

How do we manage with our negative emotions?

Taking clue from Wechsler’s definition, it seems that we need to act purposefully, think rationally, and deal effectively - with our own emotions, especially the negative kind.

Acting Purposefully

The properties of negative emotions are powerful enough to block the progress of one’s life and career. It over-shadows even academic brilliance and job performance competencies. Fear, anger, rage, jealousy, frustration, sadness, anxiety, depression etc are some of them. These emotions when taken into the head result in spontaneous, irrational decisions, and actions that mess up one’s life and work.

If an individual has a strong purpose to succeed in life and work, almost any negative emotion is likely to become insignificant. Most of the detrimental emotions are actually reserved for manifestation before other people. If nobody is around, to whom one would demonstrate her emotions? It is likely that the very basis of emotions is created out of certain probabilities of expectations and behaviours vis-à-vis ‘others’.

It is not about direct ‘suppression’ of emotions. Suppressed emotions manifest later in life in the form of health challenges such as migraine, asthma, palpitations, BP, ulcer, arthritis, depression, mental aberrations etc. And these are extremely dangerous for one’s health.Instead, it is about having a ‘purpose’ in life and work, a clarity about one’s role and responsibility if existence. It is reported that a snake and rat would hold on to the same piece of wood floating in flooded water. That is when a common enemy comes, rivals become friends. Similarly, a higher purpose would mitigate the seriousness of self-defeating or ‘other-defeating’ emotions.

Think Rationally

‘Acting purposefully’ involves accepting the existence of others too, to see things and phenomena from the others’ perspective. For instance, nobody gets wild with a drunkard or a mentally challenged individual, even if he injures or intimidates you. Because, you ‘understand’ his condition. It is called ‘empathy’. Empathy makes us understand other’s emotions. This will give us a service orientation to recognize other’s un-stated needs and concerns and also the ability to read undercurrents of emotion and political realities of a group.The choice and decision to act purposefully would naturally inspire us to ‘think rationally’, to become ‘adaptive’, to develop self-initiative, attending to responsibilities, to improve oneself, and in displaying trustworthiness to others. In fact, intelligence is referred to as the ability to ‘adapt with the environment’. Adapting with the environment, as mentioned earlier, is adapting with relationships. Without proper relationships life and work is near-impossible in today’s world than ever before. Adapting with others involves the ability to help the development of others, open communication, resolving conflicts, practicing team work, and by developing leadership abilities.

Nevertheless, it would involve a certain degree of suppression of emotions.
To take the impact of emotions on our body, we must have a healthy body lest the body would be affected and that would result in our health going down. It is therefore important to care for one’s body. Physical fitness can reduce the impact of emotions on the body. To acquire emotional wisdom, keeping the body fit is absolutely important.We should build upon the emotional muscle every day by taking time to focus on emotional experiences. Slowly we should go through the emotions that we feel and by doing so, we must master them. Practicing is the key. It is something similar to swimming. The more you swim and learn, the better the swimmer you are!By opening your heart to others, you can apply empathy in social interactions. Forever, create an attitude of gratitude in you. We should be thankful to the world and its inhabitants for making our life worth living.ConclusionThus, we may try to re-conceptualize Wechsler’s definition of intelligence: ‘the aggregate capacity of an individual to act purposefully, think rationally, “in order to deal effectively with the environment of people”.

The very purpose of intelligence itself is to facilitate survival and sustenance. Unfortunately, the very activities of survival and sustenance have assumed a high-competition ‘game’. Perhaps, an inevitable consequence of the very intelligence of human beings. The process of learning and knowledge development is a matter of conventional intelligence. But in order to take advantage or to reap the benefits of that learning and knowledge, we need yet another ‘orientation’ to intelligence. An intelligence to win our purpose. Of courses, it is not about defeating others. At least to ‘win over our own emotions’ that tend to defeat our own purposes - great or simple.