Interrogating “Digital Intelligence”

Acknowledging my work on multiple intelligences, Daniel Goleman’s work on emotional intelligence, and Robert Sternberg’s work on practical intelligence, authors Ian Stewart and Myles Runham propose an intelligence that they deem important for leaders and learning officers in the future.

They dub it “DI”—for “Digital Intelligence.”

Stewart and Runham, both associated the Kaplan Performance Academy, are not the first to propose this form of cognition. They themselves acknowledge Digital Intelligent Quotient and the World Economic Forum’s Skills for the future. And quite a few years ago, my colleagues, Antonio Battro and Percy Denham, issued a small book on La Educacion Digital.

Stewart and Runham identify three components of digital intelligence:

• Analytical (critical thinking, dealing with data, complex problem solving and synthesizing)

• Collaborative (leadership, followership, participative decision making, digital presence and community, creativity and innovation, experimenting and testing)

• Practical (fluent communication skills, self-regulation, commercial awareness, evidence -based decision making. digital fluency)

What I like about this scheme is that it recognizes a wide swathe of those capacities that are most useful for our era— in many ways a digital age. One by one, these capacities are worth identifying and nurturing.

But I do not find persuasive that the three buckets—Analytical, Collaborative, and Practical, are by any means mutually exclusive.

Nor do I find a rationale for the subcategorization. Creativity and innovation can be found anywhere, as can leadership and followership. Same for complex problem solving or evidence-based decision making.

Moreover, most of the scheme would be equally applicable to a non-digital time. We need a clearer delineation of what is rendered specifically to our contemporary world.

When I developed “MI theory” many years ago, I sought to identify capacities that were distinct from one another—and each of the “intelligences” had its specific sub-categories. If Stewart and Runham’s taxonomy is to be persuasive, it needs to provide a rationale for positing of the three separate buckets; the placement within them of the more specific capacities and practices; and a demonstration of what is characteristic of the world of 2021, as opposed to the world of  earlier times.

Reference

Runham, M. and Stewart, I., 2021. After EI, DI?. [online] Chief Learning Officer - CLO Media. Available at: <https://www.chieflearningofficer.com/2021/06/29/after-ei-di/> [Accessed 23 July 2021].

 Photo credit: Michael Dziedzic on Unsplash

Is There a Digital Intelligence?

A recent article on the website, Chief Learning Officer (click here for link), suggests the existence of a digital intelligence. The authors, Ian Stewart and Miles Runham, describe digital intelligence as

“a loose framework to help us identify the knowledge, skills, attitudes and behaviors that make up the ‘digital sensibility’ needed to operate and succeed in increasingly digital organizations and marketplaces”

They outline a possible model and suggest ways to develop and grow this intelligence.

Howard Gardner had this to say on the matter of technological or digital intelligence:

“Although a technological intelligence makes sense, I am conservative in adding new intelligences. Instead, I believe what is exhibited as ‘technological intelligence’ is actually a combination of spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, and logical-mathematical intelligences. Digital intelligence is basically logical-mathematical intelligence with a ‘dollop’ of bodily-kinesthetic intelligence. 

Stephen Mithen, a British anthropologist, does believe that humans stand out because of our technological / tool-making intellectual capacities. In addition, my colleague, neurologist Antonio Battro, published a book, in Spanish, on digital intelligence. The book is titled Hacia una Inteligencia Digital and can be found here.

So the idea has some currency in the world of scholarship.” 

Howard Gardner on Edu Futures Podcast

Howard Gardner was recently interviewed on Edu Futures, a weekly podcast about “forecasts, frontiers, and futures in education” by host, Dr. Bernard Bull, President of Goddard College, Vermont.

In this podcast, Gardner describes how he developed the theory of multiple intelligences, and how it was received. He discusses his recent intellectual memoir, A Synthesizing Mind, and his new book with Wendy Fischman, The Real World of College, to be published in 2022.

Listen here to find out more.

Photo by Jonathan Velasquez on Unsplash

A Brain Basis for Intra-personal Intelligence?

When I first proposed the theory of multiple intelligences many years ago, one of the most powerful sources of evidence in support of the theory was this fact: injury to different portions of the cortex results in different profiles of strength and weakness. To use the most familiar example, lesions in the middle/medial area of the left cerebral cortex lead to problems with language; while lesions in the posterior regions of the right cerebral cortex lead to problems with spatial processing (these characterizations hold in right-handed persons; the picture with left-handed individuals proves to be more complex). If the brain “assigns” certain functions to specific parts of the brain, this finding suggests that these facets of intellect are or can be dissociated.

Collating evidence for cerebral localization of the understanding of human beings (the personal intelligences) proved to be a greater challenge. Evidence came largely from certain clinical conditions, such as autism, Asperger syndrome, and/or more diffuse damage to the right hemisphere (again, in right-handed persons). And being able to distinguish between understanding of others and understanding of oneself eluded cortical accounts. (Accordingly, in Frames of Mind, I had but a single chapter, entitled “The Personal Intelligences.”) As I have sometimes quipped, only your psychoanalyst knows whether you have a good understanding of yourself.

But this situation may be changing. In an interesting article published recently in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, the authors claim that the ventral portion of the medial prefrontal cortex “has a greater response during the retrieval of self-knowledge than knowledge of others. Moreover, damage to this region has been shown to impair the ability to retrieve self-knowledge while leaving trait knowledge concerning others intact.” The authors go on to speculate that we draw on our self-knowledge in making inference about others—even characters in fiction—to the extent that (we believe) they resemble ourselves.

MI theory is a synthesis of a vast amount of knowledge about human cognition. No single experiment or observation can prove or disprove it. But it is encouraging when research exploring issues quite remote from theories of “intelligence” provides support for claims from the theory.

Citation:

Broom, Timothy W., Robert S. Chavez, Dylan D. Wagner. Becoming the King in the North: identification with fictional characters is associated with greater self–other neural overlap. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience. Volume 16, Issue 6, June 2021. Pages 541–551, https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsab021

I thank Branton Shearer for bringing this work to my attention.

Photo by Natasha Connellon Unsplash

What if your child can't be a CEO?

In this recent letter to The Daily Inquirer, a reader asks how to break the news to his son that the job of CEO in the family business will not go to him, but rather to his sister. One piece of advice this father receives is to remind his son that people have multiple intelligences, and that while he may not be suited to the role of CEO, he has other strengths.

Howard Gardner has said that whether someone might be a CEO or a blue collar worker, everyone is worthy of respect or dignity. We develop our intelligences over the course of life—it’s never too early but it may never be too late either.

The letter and response are reproduced below.

How do I tell my son he can’t be CEO?

Queena N. Lee-Chua - Philippine Daily Inquirer

May 27, 2021

The board prefers my daughter, instead of my son, both of whom are in their late 30s, to be CEO in our family business,” says E. S. “I agree with the board. But my son expects to be my successor. He will get angry and hurt if he does not make it. A friend told me to let Human Resources break the news. What do you think?”

My reply:

I do not agree with your friend. Your son will never forget and might not even forgive the fact that you did not have the courage to talk to him when needed. Suppose Human Resources gives him the bad news, do you really think he will not confront you?

You sound as if you fear your son, for undisclosed reasons. Are you afraid he may turn violent and harm you, himself, or others upon hearing the bad news? Then ask another board member to be present when you talk to him.

I am concerned about how your son will interact with his sister afterward. If their sibling bond is strong, then it can weather this momentous issue. If not, discuss with your daughter on how to inform your son.

It is human to feel hurt when we don’t get what we want, but why does your son have these expectations? Did you promise to make him CEO? If so, then tell him that for the sake of the business, his sister is a better choice and he should support her.

If you communicate to your son that you love and treasure him, that being CEO is not a measure of his essence as a person, he should be able to handle the news well.

Your children are millennials, and research shows that millennials and Generation Z are more sensitive than older generations to any sort of critique, however gently phrased. So tread lightly but firmly.

Tell your son that people have different types of intelligence, as Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner points out, and not everyone is cut out to be CEO.

Now if the board feels that your son is a CEO-in-the-making, but that he is not yet ready, then encourage him to build on his strengths and improve on his weaknesses. Have a heart-to-heart talk on what he concretely needs to work on to someday lead the company.

In some family businesses, the CEO role rotates among qualified members, and perhaps, this can be the case in yours. Some enterprises create major roles for the runners-up, but if merit is not taken into consideration, the results in these cases are mixed at best.

Are you afraid of losing your son, that he may be so hurt that he will no longer work with you and with his sister? In professionally run nonfamily businesses, emotional blackmail is not tolerated, but your circumstances are different.

How invaluable is your son to the company? How strong are your family bonds? How much are you personally willing to sacrifice if your son threatens to leave? You need to discuss these issues with your daughter and the board.

In the worst case, if your son decides to leave, then give him your blessing and support to chart his own path.

Photo by Floriane Vita on Unsplash