The 6th Sense - Social Intelligence

The 6th Sense and Models

The software that runs in our heads is crucial for our day-to-day functions. One should ask who wrote the program running in my head and making me behave the way I do. Some writers are Media companies, friends and family, classmates, work colleagues, etc. It's crucial to truly identify how the people we interact with write the code that runs in our heads. Self-examination and awareness have never been more critical, given the amount of information brought forth by this digital age. With the merger of the physical and the digital, writing, compiling, and running codes in people's heads will be so much easier, given that we provide more feedback to programmers through smartwatches, smartphones, and other digital things. Unfortunately, with code, some malicious actors will hack you. Do you have clean code in your head, or it's all spaghetti and fuzzy?

Interacting with people is the primary form of data transfer. Humans are complicated beings with the ability to send conflicting signals; female humans are very good at this; Lol, yes. In trying to understand people, one must possess or at least be aware of some forms of intelligence. These forms of intelligence augment the five senses that an average human has, that is, sight (Which takes roughly half of the brain's processing power, hence you believe more than what the other senses provide as input), touch, smell, hearing, and taste. You can call them the 6th sense. So far, I know of Social intelligence (SQ), IQ, and Emotional Intelligence (EQ). SQ is defined as "a person's ability to understand and manage interpersonal relationships" and, in my view, is more important than EQ and IQ. It is actually the combination of the two. So SQ stands on two legs, EQ and IQ. HBR notes that SQ is crucial in managing a crisis.

These forms of intelligence result in one knowing when to hit the tongue brakes and when and how to take one step away from self and critically evaluate oneself. This is the examined life that I think Aristotle was talking about. Taking an outsider's view of oneself. Before I registered for a Master's, one of my goals was to think differently once I was done. I learned about systems thinking, critical thinking, EQ, Bloom's taxonomy of learning, metacognition, and many more concepts. That goal was achieved; One that stands out is metacognition which avails the three forms of intelligence discussed herein. It allows one to reprogram one's brain and clean up the fudge. 

It is part of the discipline of emotional intelligence to understand people's mental models, from input/output information interpretation, life perception templates, and their models for various facets of life. For example, it is of no value to ridicule an octogenarian flat-earther who lived their whole life in a village with no basic education that the sun does not move. It's actually the ground they're standing on that moves at 1600 kilometres per hour around its own axis. Correcting or educating people is not always the right thing to do. It depends on the people. Some battles can be lost peacefully. It requires great emotional intelligence to deliver real education. EQ is also the ability to exercise restraint.

EQ is related to IQ and SQ because they all require conceptual frameworks and models of the world the brain's neural networks have created over time to process emotions and new information. That is the flight or fight chemicals. The mental models (although a mix-up) from psychology and other fields can help with these forms of intelligence. Also, general field jargon or street dialects can help. On mental models, we have models such as the Dunning-Kruger effect, Kubler-Ross Model, Cynefin model, etc., that can help place/plot a person's template so that you can interact appropriately. A general understanding of economic theories such as capitalism-communism can help place people on the political spectrum so that interactions can be more beneficial instead of derogatory. Thus, use IQ to improve EQ to augment SQ. 

At times, EQ requires IQ; this is where models come in. Managers with low EQ and who prefer confrontations usually don't know have general knowledge of management models. All employees are not the same. Hence with these general models, one can plot matrices on various dimensions to fully utilize the best abilities of the subordinates. Remember, people seek to be exploited. Oops, this is very contrarian. But they say it feels better to be exploited than to feel useless. There's always balance to be struck, the classical sweet spot like the goldilocks zone. Job satisfaction is high when uselessness is at its global/local minimum.

On another note, listening to Hugh Masekela - Stimela song brings me a lot of humility (EQ). I just realized that I could have been born during a difficult time in our South African history. I find solace and strength in this song as a black man. I understand that my life could have been worse. Future people will say this too. Hence, when dealing with an unlearned EQ is very important. That is humility and empathy. In the interview for his first Microsoft job, Satya Nadela (now CEO of Microsoft) mentions in his Hit Refresh book that he was asked what he would do if he found a child lying on the street. His answer was, I will call 9/11. The interviewer told him later that he needed to have some empathy. Now empathy is in his equation of life. 

In summary, we must put SQ as the goal before EQ and IQ to have meaningful interactions. Check this out: This is water by David Foster Wallace