Executive Intelligence
Critical Thinking: The glue that bonds it all.
While performing great in the three areas of the work is at the core of the EI concept, it requires certain aptitudes that are the springboard to it. These are referred as “critical thinking”. Citing a work by Quinn Spitzer, Ron Evans, and Michael Scriven, Menkes uses the term “critical thinking” as defined by their authors: “The skilled, active interpretation and evaluation of observations, communications, information, and argumentation as a guide to thought and action”. The book cites several CEO’s regarding the matter and the next one is a clear example of what critical thinking is:
“Asking the right questions and anticipating problems is a big aspect of leadership. What we’re talking about is the granular stuff of business. A leader must have that”. – Jack Welch.
Bottom line, critical thinking as used in the book is a mix of intelligence and knowledge.
The Quest for Executive Intelligence
When a company is hiring an executive, one of the key issues in the interview process is ability to predict executive performance. This is where the EI concept comes in. According the book traditional Past Behavioral Interviews (PBI) have proved a 25%-30% accuracy rate in predicting executives’ performance. The EI instrument developed by Menkes provides a 50%-60% accuracy rate.
This is very important because Executive Performance can be predicted if the proper set of tests and evaluations are used to select the candidates. Through several studies Menkes fine tuned a set of tests to measure EI on prospects and figure out the best candidate to executive positions. These tools measure the three areas of performance from two different points of view: intelligence and knowledge.
By the way, the book makes the following distinction between knowledge and intelligence:
KNOWLEDGE: Past Behaviors and Experience.
INTELLIGENCE: The ability to figure out solutions for new problems.
PBIs measure knowledge. So the component that has to be measured is intelligence. Citing several studies, Menkes sustains that the test for intelligence and knowledge barely overlap themselves by 3% o 4% in their predictive value, so combining them would add up to the overall accuracy of the test for prospects of executive positions.
Summary
Executive Intelligence (EI) presents a new, refreshing vision of the executives’ work and the way to understand it. It states that there are three contexts in the job that the executive has to excel to become a “star executive”. These contexts are: tasks, people and oneself.
Critical thinking is a must, because no executive could excel in any of the areas of EI if he/she lacks of analytical aptitudes and knowledge.
With the traditional methods of interviews, the accuracy of executive performance prediction is around 25%. With the inception of the EI concept the accuracy of the tool to predict executive performance raises to a whopping 50% – 60%. The measure is a mix of knowledge and intelligence applied to the three areas of executive performance.
What’s interesting is that all the skills and aptitudes that form the EI can be cultivated by the executives in order to become “star performers”.
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