Strategic Intelligence leads to success
Related to Personality Intelligence, it saves a lot of trouble, wrong moods and unnecessary pains.
A dialogue interview with Michael Maccoby by Josette de Goede, Director InCompany and International affairs, de Baak, Netherlands, and Lars Thuesen, Head of Controller Division Ministry of Justice, Department of Prisons and Probations, Copenhagen, Denmark. Josette and Lars work together in a learning community: Coaching and Consulting for Change by the HEC School of Management in Paris en Saïd Business School in Oxford.
Strategic Intelligence
“Among the most popular is the idea that effective leaders have something called emotional intelligence. This includes qualities or competencies such as empathy and sensitivity to people’s feelings. If they want to criticize someone, managers with emotional intelligence do it privately. They are self-aware and able to control their impatience or anger so they don’t short circuit conversation. While it is obvious that managers with these qualities can improve teamwork, some of the most successful technology leaders score very low on emotional intelligence.
Steve Jobs publicly dresses down subordinates. Bill Gates often puts an end to conversations saying “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. A number of the successful leaders I’ve worked with have been insensitive to and unaware of the feelings they provoke with their outbursts. Undoubtedly the people they work with would be happier if these leaders developed their emotional intelligence. But the reason they’ve done so well without it is that what they do have in abundance is a different kind of intelligence which has not been described by psychologists. I call it strategic intelligence.
Based on my experience with successful leaders, I’ve observed five interrelated elements or competencies that make up strategic intelligence. These are foresight, systems thinking, visioning, motivating and partnering. Some leaders score well on different elements; a few notable leaders like Gates, Andy Grove and Jack Welch seem to score highly on all of them.”
(Michael Maccoby, Research Technology Management; Volume 44. No. 3. May-June, 2001. pp . 58-60.)
Josette de Goede: What is the advantage of using the concept of Strategic Intelligence?
It is absolutely crucial for any company that’s in a changing business in a competitive world. Any organisation will be better off if its leadership has strategic intelligence. It may not all be in one person, it could also be in a team where people appreciate the strong elements of each other. The team must recognize together that this is a competence for the team, that this ‘shared Strategic Intelligence’ is crucial for the organisational success. That is so for the top-management, but in a complex service society you just can’t leave everything to the top, so in the lower levels of management it’s also desirable. Strategic Intelligent leaders have foresight. They are constantly looking on the future, on would happen, they think and talk systemically look at the data etc, the relationships between all things and have vision on what they want to create. They motivate people with their enthusiasm, energy, persuading, And they partner with people who complement their strengths.
Josette: I was really struck, and wondered why did I miss this concept?
A lot of people say that, for it’s so obvious. Different people have written about these elements of strategic intelligence, but nobody put them all together before.
The Context of Strategic Intelligence
Lars Thuesen: Is the effectiveness of Strategic Intelligence contextual? Is it dependent on the culture you are in?
Yes, but I think that it is much more related to the type of organisation, opposed to the culture. I think every culture has the same issues. I’ve used a lot of the questions from the questionnaire for S.I. in, Malaysia, European countries, the US.
Lars: So, there’s the need of Strategic Intelligence in all cultures. Doesn’t culture make any difference at all?
Yes, it makes some difference, for example when I was working with ABB, an engineering company, when they started, the Swedes, Germans and Swiss were having a lot of conflicts. They asked me to find out why. I found out this: Switzerland.
Personality Intelligence
“Instead of emotional intelligence Michael Maccoby talks about Personality Intelligence. It is based on Freud’s definitions of three personality types. The first is the erotic personality type, for whom loving and above all being loved is most important. As managers, they are caring and supportive, but they avoid conflict and make people dependent on them. The second is the obsessive personality type, who is self-reliant and conscientious. They create and maintain order and make the most effective operational managers. They look constantly for win-win opportunities. Narcissists, the third type, are independent and not easily impressed. They are the innovators, driven in business to gain power and glory. Productive narcissists are experts in their industries, but they go beyond it. They pose the critical questions. They want to learn everything about everything that affects the company and its products. They are able to be very aggressive in pursuit of their goals. Michael Maccoby adds the marketing personality type as a fourth type, which is eminently adaptable and functions by sensing and responding to market needs, it is now the most common personality type.
Leaders such as Jack Welch or George Soros are examples of productive narcissists. They are gifted and creative strategists who see the big picture and find meaning in the risky proposition of changing the world and leaving behind a legacy. They have the audacity to push through the massive transformations that society periodically undertakes. Productive narcissists are not only risk takers willing to get the job done but also charmers who can convert the masses with their rhetoric.” (Abstract from: The Harvard Business Review January-February, 2000,Michael Maccoby)
Josette: I was raised in terms of emotional intelligence. In the business of leadership education, they call it too soft because it’s hard to relate to the business goals. In your latest book you call it personality intelligence, would you put strategic intelligence instead of emotional intelligence? Or next to it?
You need both. I talk about personality intelligence, which is about really understanding people.
If the top doesn’t have personality intelligence they don’t pick the right people, they get into big trouble.
Josette: You say that most of the Strategic Intelligence people are ‘productive narcissists’ as a personality type. Are those people at the top most of the time? And the lower levels, are they other personality types?
The productive narcissist don’t start at the top.You can see it with Jack Welch, he almost left GE. Many companies can’t stand these narcissists. The best thing to do with them when they are young is send them off to run a big project. But all the personality types need Strategic Intelligence. The productive narcissist are key to create change;new products, new possibilities or even revolutions.
How do you find and develop talent?
“Strategic intelligence can be learned or developed to a certain degree, because qualities of foresight, systems thinking, visioning, motivating and partnering seem inborn just like musical ability and spatial relations. However, with all these kinds of intelligence, if you are born with the potential, you can develop it further. A great architect is likely gifted with spatial relations and visioning capabilities, but these qualities must be developed by using them and giving them a context, for example learning about materials and structural engineering. So must a would-be strategic leader of technology learn about products, processes, business models and social systems. It is much harder for people who are analyzers not synthesizers, who focus on the present rather than the future to develop strategic intelligence. The first step is for them to become aware that strategic intelligence exists and why it is important for leadership.” (From Research Technology Management; Volume 44. No. 3. May-June, 2001. pp . 58-60.)
Josette: How do we discover that there is a potential? You have a questionnaire for example.
You can see it very quickly. Particularly the capability of thinking systemically. Look at kids, their teamwork, their popularity, how they interrelate. I saw a lot of workshop tests, but by just interviewing someone you can sense it. Some people don’t have Strategic Intelligence. There are so many list makers.
Lars: If you find people with the potential, how do you develop it?
We brought managers together from different companies, hotels, railroad, oil etc. We gave them a problem. For example, the persons from the hotel business got the question: ‘You want to create a vision for the future, doing something totally different.’ We gave them al kinds of information they wanted. And we had different groups so we could compare. First we gave them training about systems thinking, leadership and all these concepts. Than we had them work together as a team. And we would come in and critique and reflect on what was happening, on what they were doing. At the end they created a new business and presented it to the ‘CEO’. And top people discussed it. For example the hotel people came up with a concept of a retirement community, totally different. As a trainer you give them concepts and you can see how they taste those things, how they partner. I also gave them feedback about how they related to each other.
Strategic Intelligence in the Public Sector
Lars: I come from the Ministry of Justice in Denmark, do you see any differences or challenges when you compare the public sector to the private sector when it comes to leadership, change and the personalities?
Strategic Intelligence is needed in the public sector too. I’ve written an article about the many cultures in government. And one of the mayor issues is the difference between the political culture and the civil service culture. They are very different and have to work together. Political people have ideology, they are brought in to make quick change, they often want to go around the wall, they want to make headlines. And the civil service people want to go by process, want to keep the law, look in the long term, they are concerned about their security and their own careers, they have created partnerships for protection within the civil service.
Lars: Do you have some advices?
It is very important for the political people, the ministers, to understand this and to work very cooperatively with the permanent secretary system. The key to all of this is understanding people and culture. It’s about the psychology, the sociology and the context of the culture both historically and presently.
On the Way to Success...
Josette: What would you advise organisations in relation to Strategic Intelligence? You should experiment with a workshop. The goal will be both develop Strategic Intelligence and a vision where this company could go.
Lars: your new book is about leaders? Yes it’s called The Leaders we need. It’s about all kinds of leaders but also about followers, understanding the personality of the followers. Because today, looking at the more advanced companies, in the technical professional world, people don’t want to be followers, they want to be collaborators, not followers. Lars: So you argue that there’s a need for a whole range of different leadership types to make a company successful? Yes, and I look at three types of leaders in particular in the modern organisation: the strategic leader, the operational leader and the network, the bridge building leader. These are the different personalities: narcissist, obsessive and marketing.
Josette: It feels like it’s a mission to you, to put more Strategic Intelligence into the personalities. I think it can help to train managers in strategic thinking.
Yes, it’ll save a lot of trouble, wrong moods and unnecessary pains.