Intelligence

What is intelligence? It is interesting that a phenomenon so pervasive can be so difficult to define and quantify. Surely you are familiar with IQ (Intelligence Quotient) tests. Of the many purposes of creating IQ tests and administering these tests to countless persons is the benefit of being able to predict future outcomes. After all, knowing that someone is intelligent is not particularly valuable when isolated from the effect of intelligence in producing a meaningful outcome. Thus one benefit of IQ scores comes from being able to predict that an intelligent person will perform well in certain work scenarios, etc.

While determining a person's IQ score seems useful as it provides us a discrete value to compare to other scores, as a practical matter, the IQ score does not predict future outcomes as well as we would like. Not surprisingly, there are other factors that overcome the predictability of IQ scores. For example, motivation and cultural factors play important roles in success, and of course a more fundamental issue with IQ scores concerns its generality or applicability to diverse situations outside of the test scenarios. For example, someone with a high IQ score may in fact be a very bad electrician. It is not that electricians do not need to be smart, in fact, I would suggest that intelligence is very important to success as an electrician. However, there are many other important skills that are relevant to this trade, such as color vision, manual dexterity, physical strength, attention to detail, understanding complex instructions and procedures, etc.

Intelligence tests can be important when the skills tested are relevant to the work situation. Using this perspective, one could conceivably develop an intelligence test for each job classification, a generally useful idea. More generally, we can consider that there are a seemingly infinite number of different kinds of intelligences, and a truly comprehensive intelligence assessment might require literally thousands of different kinds of questions and demonstrations of skill.

A behavioral perspective on intelligence suggests that each action demonstrates a multitude of intelligence, and each of us posses varied skill (intelligence) with regard to these intelligences. For example, a wonderfully skilled pianist may be substantially deficient in being able to give someone a decent haircut. Certainly the pianist could learn how to cut hair if motivated to do so, but at the time of measurement, the tested pianist did not have that skill and his deficiency would be noted. Once the pianist learned to cut hair he would no longer possesses that deficiency

There is considerable overlap between the concept of intelligence and the emergence of behavior. Moreover, each behavior demonstrates intelligence, and the more behaviors we can demonstrate in diverse situations, the more intelligent we are. Intelligence is not usefully described as a capability. While we can speak of intelligence in the abstract, unused intelligence is not behaviorally valuable. Intelligence observed as behavior is valuable because it effects a meaningful outcome.

Training

Like the one time popular television comedy, “Everybody Loves Raymond,” many companies seem to love training. They proudly support in-house training departments to demonstrate their commitment to this aspect of employee improvement. True enough, many companies do provide effective training. However, far too often the real training within a company is provided “OTJ” - that is, “on the job.”

Employees learn a lot about their jobs and corporate expectations from other employees, co-workers, etc. Arguably, OTJ training is the only way to convey the experiential component of the job. Sometimes this experience is obtained from previous employment. It is often convenient to acquire an employee that “already knows the ropes,” or to use a more modern metaphor, “is plug and play.” However, some companies such as automobile dealerships actually prefer their new employees to be inexperienced in sales because it is easier to train unskilled (yet otherwise qualified) applicants rather than to “retrain” experienced employees. These companies reason that behavior change requires more effort than behavior acquisition, and in some ways this perspective is valid.

Learning is a daily objective for employees as they are subjected to a constant barrage of updates, changes, directives, goals, challenges, staff reductions, cutbacks and reorganizations, etc., all requiring significant adaptation to new working conditions. The efficiency in which managers can implement these changes directly affects corporate success. Therefore, training should be evaluated by its direct, positive financial benefit to the company.

In spite of the general attractiveness, complexity and ubiquity of (digital) slide presentations, this training modality remains largely ineffective as a training modality, as a result of confusing a “presentation” with methods and accountability of “training.” Even the most elaborately produced and entertaining digital slide presentation will constitute ineffective training unless the presenter requires participants to demonstrate their new skills. Furthermore, presentations rarely alter the conditions for employee action. Thus, employees will continue to perform as they did prior to the "training."

Commonly observed verbal repetition (and elucidation) of each bullet point in the presentation, generally given by one presenter to many “learners,” might appear satisfyingly efficient. However, for the most part, employees sit attentively during the training session, ask a few pertinent questions and return to their normal work environments only a little better than they were before the presentation. This ineffective scenario is further complicated by the requisite documentation that employees attending the “training” have been successfully “trained,” when in fact there is no evidence of such accomplishment, as there has been little or no observation or measurement of new skills.

While presentations are generally weak forms of training, significant amounts of learning and training occur as part of normal experience with a constantly changing environment, such as corporate mandates, managerial initiatives, changes in consumer preferences, competitive pressures, etc. Give your employees a fighting chance to accommodate and integrate your new performance expectations. Organize your memos detailing important procedural changes. Keep them brief and to the point. Leave out distracting graphics, cute pictures and overly ornate fonts that can be difficult to read and contribute little, if anything to message content. Tell your employees exactly what they need to know using clear, unambiguous sentences and provide them an efficient index system to find the information when they need it later to solve a problem.

Co-workers are an excellent source of information and experience and can substantially improve training program effectiveness by participating in “learning connections” between employees, allowing them to teach each other via the telephone for “audio based mentoring.” Significant amounts of training can occur through the audio channel, allowing your highly skilled employees to easily share their knowledge with other employees at distant locations. It might not seem “high-tech,” but telephone-based training is remarkably efficient and requires no capital outlay for new technology. Modern video/internet connections are a more modern form of such communication, and as it does not require significant physical movement of personnel, tele-training substantially reduces a sizable portion of common training expenses, such as airfare, hotel, car rental, meals, etc.

You may be surprised to learn that your company is already a “learning company” - even if your company does not have an official training department - given that some of your employees are likely very interested in measures of their performance compared to company standards. Are you specifically facilitating this kind of learning, or must your employees “figure out” whether they are doing well or not? If you have gone to the trouble of conducting employee training, ensure that your efforts and expenditures provide a measurable return on your investment by establishing meaningful measurement of learning, as well as measures of the impact of new employee skills on corporate profitability.