Sunday, March 20, 2016

Three Questions to Assess a Person’s “Judgmental Intelligence”

Judgmental Intelligence is the combination of multiple intelligence such as IQ, EQ, as well as learning ability, mental agility, and curiosity — thinking of consequence, not thinking of convenience.


Both businesses and the world become hyperconnected and overly complex, either for leaders or digital professionals today, to survive and thrive in such a “VUCA” new normal, you need to have multidimensional intelligence such as IQ, EQ, SQ (Strategy Intelligence), CQ (Creativity Intelligence) and JQ (Judgmental Intelligence) etc., for both doing the right things and doing them right, making sound judgment and bringing the wisdom to the workplace. Which questions should you ask to assess a person’s “Judgment Intelligence” though?


Can you often make the fair judgment about people and things in an objective way? We probably all learned as kids "Don't judge a book by its cover," but, unfortunately, we do live in an increasingly "profiled" world that does judge a book by its cover. The misjudgment is often caused by superficial thinking, lack of critical thinking or independent thinking, Critical thinking means making clear, reasoned judgments. While, in the process of critical thinking, your thoughts should be reasoned and well thought out/judged. (Wikipedia). While independent thinking includes "not depending on the authority of others for forming an opinion." (OXFORD). Making up your own mind, in other words. To think profoundly and avoid the trap of the superficial thinking, you have to really dig beneath the superficial layer, see around the corner and transcend the interdisciplinary knowledge, to understand others deeply or get to the heart of the matter; not just watch, but perceive; not just listen to what’s been said, but pay more attention to not being said. Not just follow others’ opinions blindly as a follower, but shape your own thought via learning and practicing. Being an independent thinker means that one has the courage to say “I do not know.” The quickest way to learn something is to admit upfront that we don't know when we don't. Transparency and simplicity go together, thinking fast (Intuition) and thinking slow (analytics) need to go together in order to make a sound judgment.


Can you make effective and timely decisions either at works or the life in a consistent way? Having a sound judgment and discerning mind to making right decisions becomes one of the most critical professional qualities at today’s business dynamic with increasing pace of changes. Judgment and decision making are often considered together. Many people do wrong things, not because of ignorance, but because of poor judgment, due to the lack of comprehensive knowledge, bias, or preconceived notions. It is imperative to identify what causes manifestly intelligent people so frequently to make such poor decisions. Do they lack independent thinking or critical reasoning? Do they think "too fast" without necessary "thinking slowly"? Do they focus too many trivial details, with ignorance of the big picture? The biggest challenge is knowing what you don't know, it is a reasonable moniker for decision making blind spots and biases. Hence, good judgment is a must for good decisions, it is also important to leverage data analysis and inferences in making both strategic and operational decisions in the complex business environment with a high degree of unpredictability and ambiguity. There is a clear distinction between a good decision and a good outcome. In the world of uncertainty, the decisive mind can, by definition, not control the outcome, however, focus on making good decisions and the best chance for a good outcome is to make a good decision.


What other pitfalls to stop you from making a sound judgment and making effective decisions? Wisdom is to be understood within this context, we all have bias and limitation in our thought processes. Understanding the filters that influence one’s unconscious biases is critical to the choice you make or the life you live. Once you express the opinion and make choices, you make your biases known. In life, you reach a point when you have your own mind and from there choose what and who shapes you. Being objective not only takes intelligence but need more wisdom. Sometimes, the challenge is objectivity doesn't just spawn from the "in one’s mind" place. It is actually a power greater than the mind and something impossible to accomplish in one’s thought only, it is embedded in the collective mindset which is culture or the whole ecosystem of the things. Often, when the decisions are made only by easy logical choices but would have significantly negative effect if made without regard to emotional, social, or situational variables that pure objectivity would ignore. The other self-check question could be: Are you a binary thinker ( polar thinking or extreme thinking) or a multidimensional thinker? More often, the binary thinkers only consider two opposite options - right or wrong, lack of many shades in between, such thinking just focuses on the symptoms, and lack of systems thinking and independent thinking capability, only catches the conventional understanding of content, not the contextual insight beneath the surface; the quantity over quality; the close-mindedness, the stereotypical thinking or pre-conceived ideas about how things should happen. The leaders or business professionals with binary thinking are resistant to listen to the diverse viewpoint; have no intention to understand the other side of the coin; push the people to take the side, many times, they become the part of problems which they try to solve. These are all pitfalls in making sound judgment and right decisions.


Wisdom has to do with the soundness of judgment. Judgmental Intelligence is the combination of multiple intelligence such as IQ, EQ, as well as learning ability, mental agility, and curiosity — thinkers of consequence, not thinkers of convenience. In order to adapt to the new digital way, today’s business leaders and professionals need to increase their cognitive agility, and cultivate empathy by exploring alternative viewpoints and cross-disciplinary interpretations, cultivating a discerning mind that allows you to choose your steps that are aligned with your inner, core self, and leverage data-based analytics in order to make sound judgments and decide intelligently.

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