Multiple Intelligences and Team Working (teamwork)

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Sun, 01/09/2011 - 22:29

Intelligence - in there somewhere?I've never seen any direct link between IQ and riches, and I'm sure we can all name people who dropped out of school and still made it in business (Sir Alan Sugar? Richard Branson?) 

But there is a view about intelligence, which seems to correlate with worldly success. Charles Gardner proposed Multiple Intelligences in 1983, originally seven, and variously eight or nine at present.

INTELLIGENCE

 

What it means

Logistical-mathematical

these two are typically the ones measured by the traditional "IQ" test

engineers (but see spatial intelligence below), mathematicians, anybody who deals in numbers or follows processes. Many people use this intelligence to work according to a protocol, for instance in a factory or call centre.

Linguistic

Able to communicate in words, especially in your own language. This could almost be seen as a "basic" skill or intelligence

Spatial

aware of the relationship between things, and patterns. People strong in this intelligence might find themselves successful as an architect, or use their skills for spotting patterns (criminal detective, quality inspector). A great many people with professional qualifications have this intelligence to gain their professional qualification

Musical

doesn't just apply to singing or playing a musical instrument, also applies to having a clear understanding, or sense of rhythm. Singers, actors, people who speak many languages, journalists (because language rhythm and tonality makes writing pleasant to read, or unpleasant).  Authors like JK Rowling

Bodily-kinaesthetic

a keen sense of movement, and the ability to train one's responses so they are like reflexes. Sports people like David Beckham will certainly be strong in this intelligence

Interpersonal

sensitivity to others moods and feelings and motivations. Ability to work as part of a group, to lead. Some have suggested that these people are extrovert, but although some extroverts are sensitive and empathic, other extroverts are just loud.  People with this intelligence to a high degree find that they are best rewarded as salespeople, politicians, Presidents of USA, etc.  Note the banking bosses may be able to do maths, but only the people people get to be boss

Intrapersonal

Able to understand and control your own moods and emotions.  The supreme example of this is the Dalai Lama, and if there is one characteristic of these people it would be happiness.  On the scale of income or wealth, they have everything they want, ever.

(Daniel Goldman’s descriptions of Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence approach a totally different issue.  Note that there is no direct evidence to support Multiple Intelligences, but educationalists have found it extremely practical. Gardner has come up with another couple of intelligences since this list of seven: naturalistic, and existential. They aren't relevant to this discussion and most people ignore these other two).

You have all of them, developed to different amounts (except savants on the autistic spectrum, who may exhibit one intelligence to an exceptional level at the expense of the others). But you will tend to gain the rewards of your most rewarding intelligence – if you are brilliant at music and also at people, your most rewarding intelligence is your interpersonal one, so you may have music as a hobby but will tend to spend most of your time doing people stuff.

What is the point of this discussion?

Teamwork - we all bring different skills  These "intelligences" (or abilities or traits, to quote Gardner's critics) can be trained. As you can see from the salaries benefits, it is worth improving (in a rounded way).

Perhaps most importantly, you can get a team that has all of the intelligences by bringing together different people to bring different skills and intelligences to the team – if you know what to look for.

People tend to gather "people like themselves" around them, which means you usually end up with a team with only one skill. You want a rounded out team, so that it can see all sides of the problem and deliver the best solution.  For example a GP surgery needs People People (the doctors, nurses and Receptionists) to face the local population, but it also needs people who are good with numbers to make sure the finances work and staff get paid on time, and it needs managers to plan ahead.  You often find that the GP Partners have quite high IntraPersonal intelligence, they are at peace with themselves and this peace permeates the whole GP practice making it a nice place to work.  If you don’t have this, there’s often high staff turnover and unhappy patients.

Action

Before you rush off and work out everyone’s Multiple Intelligences, think for a bit.  What are you trying to achieve, and what do you need to do in order to achieve this?  It may be worth calling in a consultant from Minney.org to help you through this process.

Keywords:

Comments

Recent Additions and Updates

So you want a web site?

Submitted by Hugo_Minney on Sun, 05/20/2012 - 15:35

Keywords:

We can create a web site for youYou've enjoyed reading The Social Return Company's web site (this site), and you want a site like this.  You run a small business or voluntary organisation, and you like the way that TSRC appears high up in Google searches, also B12 deficiency support group (www.b12d.org) also appears.  You want to know how you can do it?  Read on . . .