Balanced Intelligences in Relation to Gaudiya Vaisnava Individuals and Institutions

bhaktashab · February 13, 2002

I thought we could start a discussion of the nature and different faculties of intelligence in terms of Gaudiya Vaisnava psychology and how each of these deparments of intellect assist us in the breakthroughs we need in order to reach higher levels of devotional service. The following article presents an interesting picture of the different subsections of intelligence and how they relate to personal and organisational success. It would also be interesting to discuss this topic in relation to the success and effectiveness of Gaudiya Vaisnava Institutions.

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shab.

bhaktashab · February 13, 2002

THE BALANCED INTELLIGENCES

At the dawn of the 21st century, BMC - consultthai proudly present an in-house training course and a public seminar/workshop program on, “The Balanced Intelligences”, and more to come :

Productivity Talk Guest Speaker Presented : December 15, 2000 At Thailand Productivity Institute, Bangkok

Nit Sammapan Vice President, Innovation and Development Business Management Company (BMC - consultthai)

THE BALANCED INTELLIGENCES

A Simple Application of Physics, Psychology and Systems Concept to HRD and OD.

(Summary of a forthcoming book)

Copyright ? 2000 Nit Sammapan

Outline :

Systems Concept and the 5 Qs

IQ = Intelligence Quotient

EQ = Emotional Intelligence Quotient

MQ = Moral Intelligence Quotient

AQ = Advancement Intelligence Quotient

OQ = Organizational Intelligence Quotient

BI = The Balanced Intelligences

Systems Concept and the Five Qs

There is a tendency for people all over the world to focus at only a component of a system under consideration. For instance, a physician might become an expert on merely a certain organ - a subsystem - of the whole human body - the system. Similarly, an organizational behavior specialist might focus on individual human behavior within an enterprise, instead of considering behavior of the organization as a whole.

The purpose of this book, “The Balanced Intelligences”, is to develop better understanding about the term “intelligence” and its application in various forms at the individual level, namely, IQ, EQ, MQ and AQ, then bring the concept to the organizational level, i.e. OQ.

What is Intelligence?

Actually there is no consensus on the definition of intelligence, as there is no complete agreement on beauty. For practical purpose, we can probably agree on a broad meaning of intelligence as the following :

“A living system or a system of material with artificial intelligence is considered to be more intelligent or less depending on its capability to (1) detect, collect or receive data and information in complex form, and (2) process or modify them into a more simplified presentation, then (3) apply the information or knowledge to behave in an effective and efficient way for survival and growth or progress of the system as a whole.”

We should be aware at this point that there are many kinds of intelligence, for example :

Biological Intelligence is an ability to adapt a person’s way of thinking, talking and walking according to the demand of new problems and situations, which is very important for survival and growth in changing environment.

Practical Intelligence is a category of brainpower that people need for conducting daily life effectively, e.g. productively maintain longer useful life of oneself, her or his automobile, machinery and equipments, plus other creative thinking.

Verbal and Interpersonal Intelligence is a kind of skills that help a person in conducting effective communication and commanding love and respect from others.

Psychomotor Intelligence is an ability and physical capacity to move well in all directions with dynamic stability and maneuverability. A dimension of human quality that successful athletes, such as Mohammed Ali, Michael Jordan and Debi Thomas, have when they are at their peaks of fitness.

The First Q : Intelligence Quotient (IQ)

We have been familiarized with the concept of “Intelligence Quotient” and IQ tests for a century. Eventhough these tests have been accepted and highly reliable acceptable reliability, but they all share the same weakness of poor validity in measuring the total human intelligence, since they only check on some components of the human brain system composing of 25,000,000,000 nerve cells. The IQ tests that try to measure the verbal communication capacity of the brain are being criticized of its cultural bias. The tests have been designed and developed by the White people, so the oriental and other people including the Color people in the West have tendency to get lower scores from verbal IQ tests than their White counterparts. As Stanley Garn put it, “If the aborigine drafted an IQ test, all of Western civilization would presumably flunk it.” The IQ test experts have classified people into three major grouping as shown in Exhibit A.

Exhibit A

Classification of people by IQ

IQ Older Terms New Technical Classification IQ

1. Higher

2. Around 100

3. Lower

3.1 Equal to a child 8- 12 yrs.

3.2 Equal to a child 3- 8 yrs.

3.3 Equal to a child 2 yrs old.

1. Genius

2. Normal Person

3. Mental Deficiency

3.1 Moron

3.2 Imbecile

3.3 Idiot

1. Genius

2. Normal Individual

3. Mental Retardation

3.1 Borderline

3.2 Mild

3.3 Moderate

3.4 Severe

3.5 Profound

Higher

84-116

68-83

52-67

36-51

20-35

Under 20

With or without IQ test, average people can recognize who is genius, normal and who is mentally retarded. Even more, we can identify, among normal persons, who is more intelligent in a specific dimension, such as biological, practical, psychomotor and verbal/interpersonal. But IQ test can give us more specific evaluation result with convincing scores. However, with the test of time of a hundred years, among normal individuals with different IQ scores, from real life experience it has no guarantee that people with higher IQ test results will have more successful lives.

The concept of IQ is good, but its major weakness is that it measures only a small subsystem of the whole system of human intelligence. So it fails to serve as a valid and reliable predictor of the degree of success and satisfaction in life for population of any society, neither Color nor White. Despite this criticism, the fact remain that if our chief goal is to predict academic achievement and if the most widely used Wechler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC - III) are administered individually, then the test is not biased. Actually, it has been effectively predicting academic achievement for most children in the U.S. (Weiss, Prifitera, and Roid, 1993).

The Second Q : Emotional Intelligence Quotient (EQ)

In his best-selling book, “Emotional Intelligence”, an American author Daniel Goleman (1995) has made the term globally popular for the first time. He persuasively proposed, in his book, that a whole set of “soft skills”, e.g. self-awareness, self-motivation, empathy and self-control, were more or at least as important as purely “hard intelligence” in determining success. Goleman argued that emotional intelligence - actually another way of saying “emotional maturity,” - not only account for more than 80% of success in the workplace, but it also happens that without enough EQ many intellectual people do not succeed at all. Certainly, a person must also have normal IQ with good enough technical performance in her or his work.

Robert Cooper, another leader in EQ movement, is co-author of “Executive EQ”. The book explores EQ in relation to improved effectiveness and better living. It provides a framework on emotional literacy - supported by research - with an attractive “EQ Map” for profiling individuals and organizations.

A history of EQ can be dated back to Abraham Maslow’s studies of peak experiences in the 1950’s. In stead of focusing on problems, e.g. diagnosing illness and failure, Maslow focused on healthiness and well-being. We were given insights, for the first time, into what and how successful and happy people seem to be doing the right things in the right ways.

We should not and shall not walk out from the pages of EQ history without mentioning two great names, Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer, and their publications back-up by research. In their first landmark article, Emotional Intelligence (1990), Salovey and Mayer presented a framework for EI as a set of skills hypothesized to contribute to the accurate appraisal and expression of emotion in oneself and in others, the effective regulation of emotion in self and others, and the use of feelings to motivate, plan and achieve in one’s life. The research team of John Mayer, Peter Salovey and David Caruso still keep on with their work and publications, for instance, “Selecting a Measure of Emotional Intelligence : The Case for Ability Scales (2000) as a Chapter in R. Bar-On & J.D.A. Parker (Eds.). The Handbook of Emotional Intelligence.

A good summary at this point might be presented by a saying, “EQ does not change what we do, but what we are capable of doing and the ways we do them, e.g. motivating, controlling, interacting with others, solving conflict, satisfying customers (both external and internal) and satisfying ourselves. EQ does not replace IQ, IQ help you get your job, and EQ help you receive promotion. So we need both IQ and EQ in good balance.

The Third Q : Moral Intelligence Quotient (MQ)

A man with high combination of IQ and EQ can become a successful and happy bad guy. In Thailand , there is a legend about an intelligent (high IQ) and emotional genius (outstanding EQ) but he was extremely bad. His life ended as a failure, but it took a long time before he was finished by somebody and hence he had plenty of time to create misfortune for many people including his younger brother and his parent. His name is Srithanonchai (STNC), he was a cruel and self-serving demagogue. Unfortunately, in the real world we have to admit that there are some people who seem to be like STNC, more or less.

Obviously, we need to have more people with good enough IQ, EQ and MQ to have higher total quality of people in any organization. When we have a lot of fruits, not all the fruits are good, the same is true with people. But what is good and what is bad can be subjective and hence debatable. In my forth coming book and seminar/workshop on “The Ballanced Intelligences”, moral standard for people in business will be described, since the space here is limited. However, before passing to AQ, it might be worth while to mention at this point that MQ or Moral Intelligence imply ethics, integrity and spiritual civilization. By ethics, we mean the valiance to talk and walk clearly in the grey areas of life with self-respect and respect from others. By integrity, we mean the human quality that is close to zero defect - because no one is morally perfect except the Lord Buddha and other buddhas whose enlightenment are complete - with admirable character, for example, honesty, uprightness and sincerity, that can command respect, love and faith from surrounding people and the public. A person with high MQ score should have the followings performance characteristics and features :

Effective self-control that counterbalance the pushing and pulling forces to do something wrong, such as bribery and corruption.

Merit is the foundation of all actions and behavior with noble manner.

Her (his) word is her (his) honor.

The Fourth Q : Advancement Intelligence Quotient (AQ)

People with a good balance among the first three Qs, i.e. IQ + EQ + MQ, are surely human assets of any good corporate citizen, while people with only two Qs (IQ + EQ) have a certain probability of being human liabilities of organization and the society creating some kinds of irrational social cost. However, people with only 3Qs balanced intelligences might have limited capacities and values of being human assets, if they lack superior battery or extraordinary self-motivation and inspiration or great dream. As a wiseman said, “You can never make a great dream come true, if you do not have a great dream in the first place.”

A good, strong and durable battery is needed by a heavy duty bulldozer or a mountain cruiser, an imaginary four - wheel drive vehicle. A car with weak battery is next to useless, similarly a 3Q-person can create limited amount of added-value. But having super battery is only a component of the system. We need more than that. We need also a powerful engine. Throughout human history, we need power. From physical to economic power and now we are entering the 21st century, the age of intelligence and knowledge - based power play.

At the time of crisis, when you meet with the defeat, obstacle, barrier, conflict, failure or any kind of serious problems, how can you turn crises into opportunities? Yes, you can if you have the 3Qs plus AQ. So AQ implies that you have extraordinary self-motivation and inspiration plus powerful knowledge and the fantastic kind of intelligence to overcome crises. You are the high flyer.

According to AQ scores, we can categorize people into five groups as follows :

Group E

(AQ = Zero) The ignorant people who never know there is such a thing as climbing the mountain of life. These people tend to be dependants.

Group D

(AQ = Very Low) The no-way climbers, who are knowledgeable about mountain of life climbing, but do not want to try.

Group C

(AQ = Low) The drop-out climbers, who was ambitious enough to plan and prepare to climb, did already start climbing to a certain level then quit when confronted with difficulty and realized how hard it was to climb a mountain of life.

Group B

(AQ = Mediam) The lesser climbers, who have moderate motivation and talent with capacity to climb. The group B persons tend to climb to a higher level than group C individuals, but then stop at a nice location on the mountain and enjoy life there. The people in this group can become a good employees and professional people, who enjoy having salary, welfare & benefits, and pension or provident fund. They can also become an ever-small business owners/entrepreneurs.

Group A

(AQ = High) The high flyers, who are highly ambitious and have a bulldozer or a mountain cruiser with strong durable battery - motivation and inspiration - and a powerful engine i.e. high Advancement Intelligence Quotient (AQ),who have either opportunities or meet crises that the group A people can certainly turn them into opportunities. They can also solve problems, overcome obstacles, eliminate barriers and still strive to the peak. Moreover, the Group A persons can fly from one peak to another with a glider or other kind of invention. They are successful people, but they might or might not be happy, because that depends on their levels of EQ and probably MQ too in some situations. For those who are interested in AQ, my suggestion is for you to look for the information from Paul G. Stoltz, “Adversity Quotient : Turning Obstacles Into Opportunities” (1997) and/or attend his seminar. You can also find more details from searching through the Internet.

Organizational Intelligence Quotient (OQ) and Balanced Intelligences (BI)

So far, we have considered multiple intelligences at individual level only. When intelligent people join in and form themselves into an organization, it does not follow that the enterprise will immediately become intelligent. The organization might have no “soul” at all. You can argue that without soul a corporation can be artificially made intelligent in a similar manner as the human - created intelligent buildings. But the case of human organization is worse than any artificial intelligent system, that has no soul and no mind of its own, and that is better off than a mentally retarded organization with weak soul at the system level but too strong determination at individual and/or subsystem levels. We can call this type of bureaucracy as, “A low OQ institution without BI.”

Some experts are working on Intelligent Organization. For instance, Michael D. McMaster, “The Intelligence Advantage : Organizing for Complexity”, (1996), and Jack Ring has been presenting through the Internet, his forthcoming book, “Toward the Intelligent Enterprise”, copyright ? 1999.

I have been developing the concept of the Fifth Q : Organizational Intelligent Quotient (OQ) long before having the chances of looking and skimming through the book by Mc Master and the 10-pages Internet article by Ring. However, I have found these landmark workpieces to be admirable and valuable assets for myself and probably others in this globalization and information age.

In my forthcoming book, we (myself and my contributors) are proposing IQ, EQ, MQ and AQ by focusing at an organization as the unit of analysis and synthesis. Let us discuss them briefly here :

In the first place, individual IQ can be different from organizational IQ. Our meaning of IQ here is a sort of different from the traditional definition of IQ, here we include both kinds of intelligence, i.e. street smart and academic/professional smart (intellectual). James Bond is a good example of an outstanding street-smart (practical plus psychomotor and verbal/interpersonal with biological intelligent) individual and he is backed up by a street intelligent plus science and technology intellectual organization. What would happen to 007 at work, if he is supported by a low IQ organization? When high IQ people come to join and work together, it does not immediately imply that we will have a high IQ organization. Surprisingly, we sometimes find the organization to behave like a mentally retarded one. Why? Because individual IQ is necessary but not sufficient, we need also individual EQ, MQ and AQ with positive synergy and in good balance.

Secondly, OQ also has the EQ dimension at the organizational level. When people with high EQ come to work together, we might or might not have a high EQ organization. Because the high EQ individuals might not at all or not all have high MQ. Only one STNC (please recall the story of Srithanonchai) is more than enough to make an organization behave like a moody one (Low EQ) and/or a low IQ one. What will happen if a firm or any kind of institution have more than one STNC, i.e. people with high IQ and EQ but low MQ?

Thirdly, the MQ dimension of OQ means that when people with high MQ originally come to join in an organization with poor leadership and/or inappropriate structure or system, so on and so forth, they can become demoralized, i.e. their combined MQ can decline or cannot shine out brightly enough in the same way as the sun or the full moon at the time of eclipse. But organizational eclipse will last longer, or forever in some cases.

Fourthly, organizational intelligent quotient also has the AQ dimension. People with high AQ in a poorly organized system can unfortunately try hard and harder, only to meet with darkness, by some causes or another.

Finally, we need to strike a dynamic balance among IQ, EQ, MQ and AQ at individual level with OQ to have a healthy and totally productive organization that will provide all kinds of benefits at minimum costs for all stakeholders and the environment, including the ecosystem and the balance of Nature. The Balanced Intelligences (BI), that is. We need to scientifically study the BI dynamics, like aerodynamics, and come up with an organization and management engineering (or bio-engineering) that can better design and develop organizations capable of flying higher with more dynamic stability and have the performance characteristics plus the features of a convertible helicopter-jet aircraft or an excellent hybrid of a hummingbird and an eagle.

The characteristics and dynamism of BI is shown graphically in Exhibit B. The BI map in the exhibit shows BI profiles of two persons, Joe and Jan. In comparison between them, Joe has higher IQ and MQ than Jan, but he has lower EQ and AQ.

Exhibit B

Comparative BI Profiles of two persons.

It can happen that an organization with more people like Jan could have higher OQ than another organization which has higher percentage of people like Joe. This is just a hypothetical illustration, more information and discussion about the characteristics and dynamism of BI will be provided in the public and in-house seminar/workshop and also in the forthcoming book.

The balanced intelligences (BI) is a very crucial success factor for people and organizations in the New Economy, or the knowledge-based economy, especially for innovative enterprises that have to become learning organizations with effective organizational learning (OL) principles and practices. We need to design and develop a set of reliable instruments for measurement of BI, including training and development programs for continuous improvement of the dynamic balanced intelligences. This is the mission of our forthcoming book : The Balanced Intelligences.

Summary

People should not and cannot stand alone. Each of us are designed and created by Nature to be born and live in various organizations with multi-membership. Our quality of lives and survival of the homosapiens depend on healthy and intelligent organizations with good dynamic balance. The human organizations cannot become static, or move too slow. On the other hand, they should not move or grow too fast and become accident prone - vulnerable to be off balance. Individuals with one, two, or three Qs is not good enough in this coming 21st century, we need more people with 4Qs. But a combination of many individuals with high 4Qs does not guarantee that an intelligent organization with high OQ will be the only outcome in every case. We need new organization theories and a new management technology to better design and develop the ballanced intelligences for business firms and other kinds of organizations that will bring not merely subsystem or segmented progress, but the real total civilization to various organizations in each country, and ultimately to world wide networks of organizations.

References

Allyn Freeman and Bob Golden, Why Didn’t I Think of Thai? : Bizarre Origins of Ingenious Inventions We Couldn’t Live Without, John Wiley & Sons, 1997.

Lester Thurow, Head to Head : The Coming Economic Battle among Japan, Europe, and America, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 1993.

Kenneth E. Boulding, “General Systems Theory - The Skeleton of Science,” Management Science, vol. 2, 1956 pp. 197-208.

Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, The Balanced Scorecard : Translating Strategy into Action, Harvard Business School Press, 1996.

Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer, “Emotional Intelligence”, Imagination, Cognition, and Personality, 9, 1990, pp. 185-211.

Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books, 1995.

Robert K. Cooper and Ayman Sawaf, Executive EQ : Emotional Intelligence in Leadership and Organization, Perigee, 1998.

Paul G. Stoltz, Adversity Quotient : Turning Obstacles into Opportunities, John Wiley & Sons, 1997.

Michael D. McMaster, The Intelligence Advantage : Organizing for Complexity, Butterworth - Heinemann, 1996.

Jack Ring, Toward the Intelligence Enterprise, (Summary of part of a forthcoming book), 1999. From the MSN Internet search.

About the Author

Nit Sammapan, Associate Professor in Management, is a Vice President and CDO, responsible for innovation and development, at Business Management, Co., Ltd. in Bangkok, Thailand. For more than thirty years he was a Professor in Management and Human Resource Management at the Graduate School of Business Administration, National Institute of Development Administration (NIDA). His work experience includes : Research team leader for a number of projects; Chief consultant in SMEs-Miyazawa, Ministry of Industry, Thailand and many other projects; Seminar leader in MBO, TQM, Continuous Improvement, Leadership, Team Building, Project Management, Conflict Management, Total Organization Diagnosis and Development (TODD), and the Balanced Intelligences (BI), etc.

He was also the Chairman of Top Advertising Contest of Thailand (TACT Awards), and an UN expert on mission to China and Laos.

After Completion of B.Sc. (Hons) in Physics from Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand, he received a number of awards as follows :

United Nations Fellowship to study M.S. in Nuclear Engineering at North Compus, University of Michigan, U.S.A.

Ford Foundation to study M.B.A. and Ph.D. in Management at Michigan State University, U.S.A.

Asia Foundation as a visiting Professor to the Asian Institute of Management (AIM), Phillipines.

Australian Government Fellowship to the International Training Institute (ITI), Sydney, Australia.

In addition to the Balanced Intelligences, his previous books and articles include Buddhist Management, ABC of Management and HR Development, Japanese Management Practices in Thailand, Japanese Quality Management, GEMBA KAIZEN (a translation for McGraw-Hill International), and Management Strategy in the 3 Worlds of Business : U.S.A., Japan and EU.

Tarun · February 13, 2002

yajnaiH sankIrtana-prAyair yajanti hi su-medhasaH

su-medha = fine grey matter

Anyone with good intelligence performs HarinAm-sankIrtan.

antavat tu phalam teSAm, tad bhavaty alpa-medhasAm

alpa-medha = cow dung entre les tympans

Those with less intelligence worship/bribe demigods.

gHari · February 13, 2002

Took the words right out my fingertips, Tarun.

Gauracandra · February 14, 2002

To me the hard part to figure out is determining what someone's intelligence predisposition is. Our current educational system is a one size fits all. Everyone learns the same things, at the same pace. I suppose this is the only logical manner it can work on a mass scale. Still, ideally teachers would be paired with students who have certain intelligence capabilities. Some will be more mathematically inclined. Others more artistic etc.... but how to recognize these traits and fully develop them in the young. Thats the hard part, and I don't think anyone really has a solution. It just comes down to individual attention that must be given to the students in order to recognize their potential.

cakora · February 14, 2002

Traditionally, the Gaudiya Matha has been comprised mainly of brahmacaries and sannyasis. I have heard that Srila Prabhupada's godbrothers have thought that

Prabhupada has been so successful in spreading Krsna consciousness because of his inclusion of women and grhasthas.

Gauracandra · February 18, 2002

Personally I'm not entirely convinced about measurement techniques with relation to various levels of intelligence. I do believe such levels of intelligence exist, but I'm not sure how easy it is to capture by a test.

Do you remember those tests they used to give in school? Basically they were tests to try to determine what profession you should enter. I don't recall the questions exactly but by answering them, they were to come up with an answer based on some formula (I think) as to what professions you would be most suited to. I was thinking it might be possible to develop similar tests to try to best utilize the various skill sets of devotees.

I seem to recall in a fairly recent Back To Godhead, one devotee in Florida had created a test to measure what mode one was in (goodness, passion, ignorance). I seem to recall this, but don't remember for sure. I'll have to look through some of my back copies. A similar test might be one way to best optimize our service propensities (assuming a reliable test could be created).

Gauracandra