“The heart is not like a box that gets filled up; it expands in size the more you love. I’m different from you. This doesn’t make me love you any less. It actually makes me love you more.”

Samantha, Her

NESTLED at the bottom of our secret staircase from chapter one is Col·legi Montserrat. The number-one ranked school in the whole of Spain, it caters for children of all ages, from pre-school to university entrance. There are several features that make Montserrat unique and of increasing prominence worldwide. An innovator in using project-based learning (PBL) teaching methodologies for many years, it leverages the latest findings in neuroscience to develop multiple intelligence, believing in the importance of physical, intellectual, spiritual, and social excellence. Founded in 1926, it is run by missionary nuns, the Daughters of the Holy Family of Nazareth.

This is the first chapter in part two of Chief Wellbeing Officer: ‘Wellbeing’ will uncover the content base, or WHAT of our vision. We begin by presenting a wider view of intelligence. ‘Total’ intelligence has guided our work for over a decade and is the core concept from which we believe a more thriving workplace can emerge. We present this over the next two chapters. Here, we introduce the concept of the holistic leader and focus on the leader as a human being through the development of emotional intelligence or EQ. In the following chapter, we consider the leader as an athlete, and develop the often-neglected concept of physical intelligence or PQ.

The holistic leader

Ever since the European Enlightenment of the 17th century, philosophers, sociologists, and scientists have debated how to measure intelligence. Paul Broca (1824-1880) and Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911), a cousin of Darwin, were among the first scientists to actually come up with a scaled measurement; a quantifiable measure of intellect and mental capability. They thought they could determine intelligence by measuring the size of the human skull. They assumed that the larger the skull, the smarter the person. Their studies later took a sinister diversion and turned into fully-fledged eugenics (meaning ‘well-born’). This early version of genetic engineering was later used by certain governments to eliminate genetic traits they thought could lead to low intelligence, poverty, or a ‘contamination of the Nazi master race’. In any case, it seems absurd today that physical features such as skull size could be used to determine intelligence or capability. However, the methodology used for intelligence quotient (IQ) tests used by most higher education authorities and companies today is perhaps just as inexact and arcane.

The IQ test was developed in 1904 by Alfred Binet (1857-1911) and later adapted by Theodore Simon (1873-1961). Yet it was never intended to measure intelligence but rather ignorance. The French Ministry of Education asked these researchers to develop a test that would distinguish mentally disabled children from ‘normal’ ones. New laws had been passed in France that required all children to attend school, and the government wished to identify which children would need special assistance. Binet realized that some children were able to answer more advanced questions that only older children were generally able to answer. Based on this observation, Binet suggested the concept of a mental age, or a measure of intelligence based on the average abilities of children of a certain age group. This first intelligence test, referred to today as the Binet-Simon Scale, became the basis for the intelligence tests still in use today. However, even Binet himself did not believe that his psychometric instruments should be used to adequately distinguish intelligence levels in normal children. Binet stressed the limitations of the test, suggesting that intelligence is far too broad a concept to quantify with a single number. Instead, he insisted that intelligence is influenced by a variety of different factors.

However, the fuse had already been lit, and over the years there was increasing demand to measure, scale, and rate intelligence of not just children, but university entrants, as well as company and army recruits. IQ tests were even used to screen immigrants arriving at Ellis Island, New York, to see if they would make good citizens of the United States. Generalizations were unfortunately made that encouraged the US Congress to enact immigration restrictions on huge swathes of people who were unfairly judged as being unfit to enter based on ‘low intelligence’.

For more than 150 years, school-teaching methodologies have grown up around the IQ measure. The focus of almost all of our school teaching and school texts has been to drive data into our kids and then measure how well they can regurgitate it.

Beyond our schools, companies also have overstated the importance of IQ. When it comes to hiring new employees, IQ trumps everything else. Despite what looks like a sophisticated recruitment process with awareness tests, psychometrics, and extensive essays and interviews, companies generally hire new employees based on their IQ and not much else. If the candidate sounds intelligent and has good exam results then they tend to get hired. All this despite the knowledge that IQ does not correlate with success, leadership ability, or even strategy formulation. IQ does not get you to the top of the company. IQ does not indicate your ability to innovate, motivate, or lead, It merely tells you that you are not mentally deficient.

Furthermore, recent studies point to the fact that the more senior you become in your company, the less important IQ actually is. An excessively high IQ may actually be a disadvantage for a CEO. It can encourage focus on numbers and processes rather than people. After all, such focus is often the reason for promotion in the first place. Unfortunately, ‘what got you here won’t get you there’. One may have excelled at school, then university and then in a company because of hard computational skills, mental agility, and an impressive ability to remember facts. However, it is clear that over time what becomes more important are leadership-based people skills. Soft skills, if you like.

So there’s more to it than IQ. Effective leaders need to develop more of a holistic range of skills and abilities. A broad range of experience and know-how that, of course, includes IQ (for example, a knowledge of the business, processes, and data), but also softer things regarding how you interact and empathize with people, how you motivate yourselves and others, and how you inspire others and get the most out of them. Passion ensures that you are the best version of yourself and that you encourage others to do the same. Your creativity and authenticity are key. We call this broad knowledge base ‘total intelligence’. It incorporates IQ (traditional intelligence), EQ (emotional intelligence), PQ (physical intelligence), and SQ (spiritual intelligence). IQ is represented by the head, the heart stands for EQ, the body PQ, and the soul SQ. The important thing is to have equal development of all four. A balance.

IQ is of course important. This includes an understanding of the business and sector that you are in. It is having a grasp of the strategy of your company, its strategic options, as well as an awareness of what other companies are doing. It is having a knowledge of the processes and systems that operate around you. This is data, finance, operations, and business intelligence. It is business acumen.

Spiritual Intelligence, or SQ may be a deeply personal thing, yet it offers much potential in a team setting. Not necessarily religious, SQ may be viewed as the purpose, values, and vision that we developed in chapter three. In our many years’ experience in business schools and universities around the world, as both student and professor, there has never been any time given to the importance of purpose. As for values, we often lay out corporate culture but it is usually wishful thinking, and the behaviours of the company are usually a long way from the stated corporate values. And though all companies talk about their vision, it is usually a corporate platitude lacking authentic language. SQ is not difficult. After all, it is all about you. Your personality and your authenticity. In the Stanford commencement address we noted in chapter two, Steve Jobs also said that: “Life is short, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

Reflecting on the questions in chapter three will help you develop your SQ. The following questionnaire is a quick way to get an idea of how you are doing in all dimensions. We follow with a focus on EQ.

TOTAL INTELLIGENCE: QUICK QUIZ

IQ 01 Have you started a book in the last month? 02 Do you spend more than one hour a week playing games: Sudoku, crossword, backgammon, or chess? (Digital games are included.) 03 Have you started a MOOC or online learning course? 04 Have you ever watched and shared a TED talk?

EQ 01 Do you sometimes get your team together socially away from work? 02 Do you know the names of the cleaners and receptionists in the office? 03 Do you have a third place? (A venue/club where you get together with people outside your usual network/circle, where you are not judged by your professional or social status. This could be a chess club, a sports club, volunteering, or charity work.) 04 In the last month, have you delegated something you love doing? (Only answer yes if you have a specific example.)

PQ 01 Do you measure any health-related parameters? (Sleep, calories, steps, heart rate…) 02 Do you participate in intensive aerobic exercise where your breathing becomes forced? 03 Do you regularly sleep between seven and eight hours? 04 Do you pay attention to the nutritional content of what you eat?

SQ 01 Do you spend more than two hours a week meditating or reflecting? 02 Do you disconnect from technology once during the day for at least one hour? 03 Do you have a sense of purpose? Does your team? 04 Do you truly see failure as an opportunity? Award one point for every YES answer. If you scored 16 you’re probably lying to yourself! 10-15 you are doing well. Below 10 and you have some work to do. Balance is very important. If you scored 12 but were deficient in one particular area, work is also required.

Leading through EQ

Emotional intelligence has only really been taken seriously since the 1980s, and many academics still say there are no hard measures that point to the correlation between high EQ and corporate success. In our opinion you only have to look at successful as well as happy people in your company to see that EQ is essential to get to the top. High EQ can be broken down into three main elements: communication, motivation, and empathy.

Communication

Communication is simple. All you have to do is make sure you are maintaining conversations with your boss, team, family, and yourself. Tragically, we seem to be losing this art. There are too many distractions from our smartphones, too much to do, and not enough time to actually bother with mere conversations. Ask yourself: when was the last time that you truly had a great, powerful, and profound conversation with your spouse, or your kids, or your boss?

Conversations are a priority if you truly want to lead. They should come first and be carried out authentically. All too often, especially at work, we use words that are not our own. In a desire to be politically correct, as if human resources is listening to every word, we fall short of having real conversations. In addition, we often use corporate mumbo jumbo and platitudes that make us sound like the annual general company report. We talk mealy mouthed about leveraging our assets, satisfying customer needs, maximizing value, up-skilling, reskilling, downsizing, and restructuring… Worse, we sometimes get home and keep spewing out the psychobabble. Be you and use your own language! Be authentic. You are better at being you than anybody else.

A key part of a conversation is listening. Listening for at least half the time. There’s listening and then there’s real listening. Listening to listen. Listen to understand. As Stephen Covey said, “Seek first to understand.” Listening in order to add something to what is being said, not to add your point irrespective of what you are hearing. The chart below summarizes the six levels of listening.

Figure 5.1. Six levels of listening. Own adaptation of the five levels of listening by Stephen R. Covey

At level one we are just rude. No sustainable leadership is going to result from level one listening. There may be times when, as a leader, we have to dip down to level one, but only very occasionally. Level two is not much better, except that you are a little less rude. The person you are talking to stops for a breath and you jump right in and go on regardless of anything said so far. At level three you are still not doing so well because you are missing so much. Level four is good, but there’s a lot written between the lines, a lot of signs, signals, body language, and meaning that you are failing to pick up on. Level five is excellent. You are fully present. Level six is nirvana. You are gleaning all that is around you and are perfectly aware. You have entered a special place with the person you are talking to, where new ideas abound.

It won’t always be possible to stay at level six, but as long as you can keep above level three, you will consistently be creating and making all around you feel affinity with what is going on. This is leadership. This is wellbeing as an individual and as a team.

Motivation

Motivation starts with you. If you are not passionate about what you are doing, you will fool no one. As a leader, your mood is contagious. So if you get to work and decide to enjoy the luxury of feeling a little down, a little flat, or anything other than exceptionally passionate for what you do, with a desire to bring the best out in yourself and those around you, then you will not be ‘leading’ that day.

Motivation may be about pushing people to face mighty challenges and bringing out the best in them, but it can backfire if you are encouraging people to do things you know they will fail at. If the goal is too great and the temptation is to let them fail anyway, then the person needs to understand that it was a long shot from the beginning. Let them fail gently. Failure, as we discuss in part three of the book, is a potentially valuable leadership tactic, but it has to be managed with care.

Motivation is about honesty. Outlining the challenges ahead, underlining the strengths needed to get past the challenges, believing that all the hurdles can be overcome, but being candid with what will be required. Motivation is about highlighting the contribution a person or a team will have if they do the right thing. It is about love, passion, and compassion. It is not about fear. It is not about what a person will lose if they do the wrong thing. Fear may motivate once or twice but it is not sustainable. Motivation with fear is not part of the wellbeing formula. It does not lead to growth. It does not add or contribute to anything in the long-run.

A great story (though hard to verify and discounted by several experts) which exemplifies pure, almost naive, raw motivation, comes from the famous Shackleton[1] advertisement placed in The Times of London on 29 December 1913. He was looking to build a team of diverse men who would have to live in close confines for years, and be the first to cross the Antarctic continent.

Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success.

The ad is short, honest, to the point, and yet extremely poignant. The emotion delivered to the reader leaves them thinking, “I want to be part of that noble endeavour”. This frank and honest approach attracted 5,000 applications, which Shackleton sorted into three categories (a short list) labelled “mad”, “hopeless” and “possible”. Shackleton eventually selected his 27-strong crew from the candidates who went on to deliver one of the greatest feats of Antarctic exploration. Paradoxically, they failed. Their ship, Endurance, was crushed in the ice and mere survival became their primary objective. They had to leave the ship entombed in the pack ice and set off across the ice floes, dragging their lifeboats and launching the boats and rowing when possible. Eventually, after a great feat of survival, of trial and tribulations as ice floes split in two and threatened to separate them, of blizzards, whiteouts, freezing men, and hurricane-level winds, they reached the small Antarctic island, Elephant Island. This was the first time in almost 500 days they had stood on terra firma. They had travelled almost 500km and at first were happy to make camp on a rocky, wet, grim, tiny windswept beach, wedged between the Arctic Ocean and a mighty glacier that covered the island.

When it became clear that no help was coming, Shackleton and a few of his men set off again on what has become known as perhaps the most intrepid, crazy feat of nautical and navigational brilliance – in a quest for South Georgia, where they had passed through at the beginning of their expedition. They knew there was a whaling community and ships that could come to the rescue. 1,000km later, sailing the high, ferocious and freezing seas of the South Atlantic they arrived. Yet it still was not over! A storm caused them to land on the wrong side of South Georgia and they had to cross the mountainous island to reach salvation. This time it was a mountaineering feat of survival. They were unequipped to ice climb, cross crevasses, and wade through deep snow, not to mention they did not have a map. It took half a century for anybody to repeat the mountain adventure and only then with the latest climbing gear. On 20 May 1916, a year and a half since setting off from there, they walked into the whaling town. Shackleton and his two men were, in their own words, “a terrible trio of scarecrows, dark with exposure, wind, frostbite, and accumulated blubber”. The hardy whalers were deeply affected by what they saw. It was unbelievable. Shackleton and his team had been written off as dead. Missing in action. Yet here they were walking along the beach. In any case, it took almost three months to eventually pick up the rest of the team on Elephant Island, but the incredible thing is that in the whole adventure, not one man had died.

When Shackleton and his men returned to the UK in 1917 the First World War was raging. Many men ended up as soldiers and a few died in the war effort. They had ironically swapped dying in the frozen Arctic seas for being gassed to death in the trenches. For many years Shackleton’s exploits were forgotten, or written off as a failure. It wasn’t for another 50 years that he was associated with endeavour and survival. It has been said more recently that Scott can be lauded for the scientific method, Amundsen for speed and efficiency, but “when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton”.

Shackleton was all about raw motivation. His team failed in the probable but succeeded in the unimaginable. He motivated them to volunteer for the perilous adventure in the first place, he motivated them to leave their ship in the ice, he motivated them to work together despite much personal animosity, he motivated them to set off ill-equipped into ice and ocean and over mountains, and he motivated them to stay alive when all hope was gone. He was the epitome of a team leader. He got the best out of everybody, and it was his motivational skills that were most important. Essential. He made an incredible effort not to let the predicament drag him down; not to let on that he knew disaster and death for all was almost inevitable. He self regulated to avoid losing his cool when the men squabbled or yet another calamity befell them. He built trust through his actions, his generosity, his positive attitude and optimism, and he knew trust could be lost immediately if he flew off the handle and broke down.

A story from Rory Are you motivated to die? Would you risk death on a daily basis for money? Probably not, yet through history there have been countless examples of those that do. The world’s oldest and most dangerous profession is probably mining. Palaeolithic man mined haematite in Swaziland 43,000 years ago, searching for the pigment red ochre. More recently, about 7,000 years ago, we started looking for gold. Since then, mining has consistently been one of the planet’s most dangerous professions. We have always died in droves underground, yet people still go there and they still die there. Is it merely money that encourages miners to spend 12 hours (sometimes 24 hours) a day, kilometers below the surface of the Earth?

While industry experts say the number of fatalities has decreased considerably since the early 20th century, there has been no shortage of tragic mining accidents in recent years. Most recently, as the last of the 33 Chilean miners emerged from the rescue capsule, there was jubilation around the world. The 2010 Copiapó cave-in incident was over. But the disaster that gripped audiences globally also serves as a reminder of the dangers of working in a mine. Although there are no accurate figures, estimates suggest that such accidents kill about 12,000 people a year.

At Potosí in Bolivia they have been doing it the same way ever since the Conquistadors arrived in 1492. I went down a mine, a kilometre underground with some kids. We slipped through some moist holes in the ground, crawled deep down and watched the kids with their tiny hands reach in and gingerly place dynamite in the fissures. We then scuttled and slid out of the way as the earthshattering explosions revealed fresh treasure, or not. The kids then rushed back, coughing through the smoke and choking on the dust, only to be disappointed and have to start all over again. This is archaic but it’s not that different in the modern, state-of-the-art Ontario mines where I also found myself underground. There, they have heavy machinery but it is just as dangerous. So why do they do it? What motivates them?

The motivation varies, but there is a sense of pride in the air at all of these sites. It is seen as an epic endeavour to work underground. A noble pursuit in order to harvest the crops that Mother Earth (or ‘Pachamama’ in Bolivia) has delivered to us. Motivation comes from affiliation and a sense of purpose greater than economic reward. They love it! They really do, and those that haven’t been down a mine cannot fathom it. Tradition also usually comes into the picture. Mining is a way of life and always has been for these people. There is often local clamour when, for some reason, the mines are closed – even though the authorities believe they are doing their people a favour.

Motivation comes when people feel there is a purpose, they feel affiliation and that they are part of the project: that they can make a difference. Motivation can be found even when the task in hand is repetitive and boring. If individuals feel they are contributing to the common good, or are at least have a semblance of control, then they will do incredible things. They will put up with atrocious working conditions just to be part of the endeavour. The famous ‘red button experiment’ of the 1960s exemplified this: on a production line employees were expected to repeat tedious tasks during 12-hour shifts. Morale was low. Productivity even lower. Employee turnover skyrocketed whenever other alternatives emerged for whatever job outside the factory. “Anything but this,” people would say. However, the whole scenario was turned around with the installation of a red button on the production line. If something went wrong the employees could themselves halt the machines. Stop the press! They rarely pressed the red stop button, but the point was they felt they had a modicum of control. They were involved.

Empathy

Empathy is the third of the trio of EQ. Empathy as part of motivation is about sensing the mood of those around you and acting accordingly. It is about seeing the situation through their eyes, or at least attempting to do so. If you charge into meetings late and take no allowance for what has already been said, what’s going on, who needs special attention, you are not leading or motivating and you will not achieve results. Situation sensing is a subtle touch that is generally learned not in the classroom, but in human interaction and relationships as we grow up.

Empathy is about acting and interacting with others according to their preferences. It is treating people the way they want to be treated, not treating them how you like to be treated. In the workplace, it is essential to try to understand what makes your team members tick. With critical feedback, for example. Some like feedback daily, hourly, given to them straight. They will have no problem doing this in front of everybody else. They just want to get it done, said, and they want to move on. Others like to schedule a chat behind closed doors. They may want details, facts, analysis. Others may want feedback casually, over coffee. It’s all a question of gauging the preferences of your players and acting accordingly. Empathy is a key part of the required daily leadership activity of the Chief Wellbeing Officer and we will look at it again in chapter nine.

Emotional intelligence allows us to bring the humanity back to leadership – a call we made in chapter three. More tyrannical leaders may achieve results in the short-term, through fear, coercion, and pressure, but the best leaders practice a form of holistic leadership that gains results in the long-term. Emotional intelligence is an element of total intelligence that can be cultivated easily. Start practising better-quality conversations, listening, and spreading a message of common purpose that motivates others. Think of your own behaviours and the example you are setting. People actively look to be inspired, and a greater level of EQ will inspire those around you. With our heart set firmly in the right direction, let us now turn our attention to the body in the next chapter.

Communication, motivation, and empathy are cornerstones of the Montserrat school. In an increasingly connected world the missionary nuns look to encourage contact with schoolchildren around the world as a key facet of their learning methodology. This develops emotional intelligence in particular. A strategy of total intelligence influences the school day. Morning yoga practice by the nuns may be considered strange in some quarters, yet it is indicative of their belief in doing things differently and the need to disrupt the current education model that is failing our children.