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Body, mind and, now, soul

M.J. Xavier

In the early part of the 20th century, IQ became a big issue, the measuring of our `intelligence quotient'. In the mid-1990s, Daniel Goleman took the research of neuroscientists and psychologists and popularised the notion of another quotient -- EQ, emot ional intelligence. Now, a third wave of scientific research suggesting we may be `hard wired', neurologically, for spirituality has prompted the creation of SQ, the spirituality quotient. What we are examining here is an integrated framework linking IQ, EQ and SQ.

Intelligence quotient

Psychology defines intelligence quotient as a measure of intellectual development that is the ratio of a child's mental age to his chronological age, multiplied by hundred. A general intelligence qquotient score (IQ score) is a statistically derived numb er which indicates relative and comparative abilities that can be used to obtain academic skills and knowledge.

People have hundreds of specific mental abilities. Some of these abilities can be measured accurately. Some of these measurements can be reliable predictors of an individual's academic achievements. Though an IQ test measures only a few of a human's ment al abilities, these few abilities are targeted for measurement, because they are well known to positively correlate highly to many other human abilities. How high a person scores in one of these measured abilities, will strongly indicate how high that pe rson would be expected to score on the unmeasured abilities.

Almost all ordinary human tasks require an individual to have an IQ score of only 50 or higher (75 per cent of all people have this or a higher IQ). Though a score of 50 would indicate that the individual would find educational success only with special teaching methods, it should be noted that persons between 50 and 75 IQ can succeed at 71 per cent of all jobs, can have normal or above-normal IQ children, and generally can be quite capable of successful lives.

All our educational systems are designed in such a way that only people with relatively high IQ can get through. However, history is filled with stories of humans of limited intellectual ability who have nevertheless been among humankind's most important contributors.

It is also true, that all of history's worse tales are about very smart individuals who nevertheless were incapable actions that had a positive effect on one's fellow humans. Hence the search for additional measures led to the development of the emotiona l quotient (EQ).

Emotional quotient

The phrase `emotional intelligence' was coined by Yale psychologist Peter Salovey and the University of New Hampshire's John Mayer in the early 1990s to describe qualities such as understanding one's feelings, empathy for the feelings of others and ``the regulation of emotion in a way that enhances living''.

This basic idea was popularised as EQ by Daniel Goleman, a Harvard psychologist and a New York Times science correspondent through a book of the same title. His goal, as announced on the cover, was to redefine what it means to be smart. His thesis: when it comes to predicting people's success, brainpower as measured by IQ and standardised achievement tests may actually matter less than the qualities of mind once thought of as `character'.

Perhaps the most visible emotional skills, the ones we recognise most readily, are the `people skills' such as empathy, graciousness, the ability to read a social situation. Researchers believe that about 90 per cent of emotional communication is non-ver bal. Harvard psychologist Robert Rosenthal developed the PONS test (profile of non-verbal sensitivity) to measure people's ability to read emotional cues. People with higher PONS scores tend to be more successful in their work and relationships; children who score well are more popular and successful in school, even when their IQs are quite average.

Like other emotional skills, empathy is an innate quality that can be shaped by experience. Infants as young as three months old exhibit empathy when they get upset at the sound of another baby crying. Even very young children learn by imitation; by watc hing how others act when they see someone in distress, these children acquire a repertoire of sensitive responses. If, on the other hand, the feelings they begin to express are not recognised and reinforced by the adults around them, they not only cease to express those feelings but they also become less able to recognise them in themselves or others.

In the corporate world, according to personnel executives, IQ gets you hired, but EQ gets you promoted. Goleman relates a tale of a manager at AT&T's Bell Labs, a think tank for brilliant engineers in New Jersey, who was asked to rank his top performers. They weren't the ones with the highest IQs; they were the ones whose e-mail got answered. Those workers who were good collaborators and networkers and popular with colleagues were more likely to get the cooperation they needed to reach their goals than the socially awkward, lone-wolf geniuses.

EQ is not the opposite of IQ. Some people are blessed with a lot of both, some with little of either. What researchers have been trying to understand is how they complement each other; how one's ability to handle stress, for instance, affects the ability to concentrate and put intelligence to use. Among the ingredients for success, researchers now generally agree that IQ counts for about 20 per cent; the rest depends on everything -- from class to luck to the neural pathways that have developed in the b rain over millions of years of human evolution.

Spiritual quotient

Traditionally, spirituality had no place in business as the modern management concepts advocate that the business of business is business. Of late there is an awakening of spirituality in the corporate corridors of America which is evident from best sell ers such as The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and Chicken Soup for the Soul.

In an empirical study of spirituality in the workplace, Mitroff and Elizabeth in a Sloan Management Review article report that those associated with organisations they perceived as ``more spiritual'' also saw their organisations as ``more profitable''. T hey reported that they were able to bring more of their ``complete selves'' to work. They could deploy more of their full creativity, emotions, and intelligence; in short, organisations viewed as more spiritual get more from their participants, and vice versa.

Mitroff defines spirituality as ``the basic feeling of being connected with one's complete self, others, and the entire universe.'' If a single word best captures the meaning of spirituality and the vital role it plays in people's lives, that word is ``i nterconnectedness''. In general, the participants in the above study differentiated strongly between religion and spirituality. They viewed religion as a highly inappropriate form of expression and topic in the workplace. They saw spirituality, on the ot her hand, as a highly appropriate subject for discussion.

It is reported that Truett S. Cathy, CEO of the fast-food chicken restaurant company, Chickfil-A Inc., hosts a prayer service on Monday mornings, and closes his 1,000 fast-food outlets on Sundays to observe the Sabbath. Chick-fil-A is a privately held, A tlanta-based chain whose growth in unit numbers and sales continues to outpace all competitors in the chicken segment, despite the fact that its restaurants are not open on Sundays. The chain also has awarded more than 130,000 scholarships of $1,000 each to unit ``team members'' who are recommended for their joyful attitude and productivity or, in other words, their ``spiritual enthusiasm.''

Mitroff and Elizabeth question the separation between the brains and feelings or emotions, which contrasts sharply with what gives them the most meaning in their jobs -- the opportunity to realise their full potential as a person. They argue that the sep aration of elements was a necessary strategy at earlier stages of human evolution. Art, science, and religion had to separate from each other to develop into more mature forms. A characteristic of earlier stages of human development is that the critical elements are so merged together that they have no separate identity. Thus, for development, the key elements need to be separate.

However, at our current stage of human development, we face a new challenge. We have gone too far in separating the key elements. We need to integrate spirituality into management.

Executives are expected to be conscious of their long-neglected spiritual identities as well as the spiritual realities of peers, partners, employees, customers and communities. The fruit of that very positive momentum is an awareness by many business le aders that economic mission statements need to express a new balance of co-operation and competition and that corporate charters need a mainstream shift from the stockholder to the stakeholder model. What it means is that business executives who find way s to touch the spiritual side of their people -- letting go off the ego-driven, `command-and-control' work-force paradigm -- ultimately are going to end up employing the most loyal, intelligent and morally awake individuals available in today's labour ma rket.

Unlike IQ, which computers have, and EQ, which exists in higher mammals, SQ is uniquely human and, the authors argue, the most fundamental of the three. It is linked to humanity's need for meaning, an issue very much at the forefront of people's minds as the century draws to a close. SQ is what we use to develop our longing and capacity for value. It allows us to dream and to strive. It underlines the things we believe in and the role our beliefs and values play in the actions that we take. It is, in es sence, what makes us human.

A holistic approach

We've examined so far that each one of the quotients is essential for success. In order to be successful on a sustained basis an individual will probably need to develop in all three dimensions.

A person may need to work out an appropriate quotient mix in different stage of his or her career. At the entry stages what one needs is ability to perform the assigned task in an efficient manner which will require a higher level of IQ.

As the person moves up the ladder, emotional skills become critical as success at the middle levels calls for cross-functional coordination and getting the cooperation and support of people who are not under direct control.

Senior management positions will require more of SQ in addition to having high levels of IQ and EQ as the job requires creative insights (vision) and concern for ethical, environmental and larger issues.

Hence, what is implied here is that when a person is engaged in a task, his or her intellect alone cannot ensure success. But the person should attempt a holistic approach where the body, mind and soul should be involved in the task. If one is out of syn c with the other, the end result may turn out to be sub-optimal.

The author is Dean (Academic Programmes), Institute for Financial Management and Research, Chennai.

Illustration: K.G. Rangarajan