What Does “Being
Intelligent” Look Like?
What Intelligence(s) are
is one thing. But what does “being intelligent” look like?
First of all, it doesn’t look like dazzling displays of
erudition; it doesn’t look like one-upsmanship; it doesn’t look like powerful
debate; it doesn’t look like dry, hard logic and reasoning. We’ve made amply clear that “Intelligence” is far more than just left-brain types of
functioning.
Intelligence is an aspect of the Kosmos* naturally in
harmony with all others, not pathologically separated out and hyper-functioning
on its own. Therefore, in our view, intelligence is not really intelligent, if
it is operating in isolation from the rest of the Kosmos and from the relevant
context in which Intelligence is operating.
For our church and this ministry, Intelligence in action is
in service to Divine and human Love. Intelligence is therefore in service to
harmony, usefulness, and the benefit of all.
Intelligence always operates from
and toward, values, and those are some of our values.
Of course, there is an inherent joy in exercising consciousness well and that too is a value involved in Being Intelligent.
So, for us, what Intelligence is “for” is reaching goals,
accomplishing purposes, and for reaching that inherent joy.
For us, “being more intelligent” means and requires being “more
spiritually advanced” because both involve increasing scope of consciousness
and of care, and increasing capacity to deal well with all kinds of complexity.
So, then, when someone, or an organization, is operating
more intelligently, what would you observe in their actions? The following list
is focused into the context of organizational functioning and purposes.
1. Constant learning (all orders of
learning - look for info on that to be posted soon,) refining, constructing, deconstructing. No apathy, no coasting;
learning is pursued. Learning from everything.
2. Focus on capacity-building, not just knowledge
3. Being willing to see, know, learn, and change. Eschewing denial.
4. Finding and using the most useful frameworks of understanding for the purpose at hand – rather than having just a few tools and applying them to everything. Being facile with a large number of frameworks and knowing the scope and limits of their applicability to a given situation.
5. Being clear about the Purpose at hand, and constantly increasing clarity about its evolving nature, constantly seeking greater alignment of everything with the Purpose, and being ever-more aware of the flow of the Natural Intelligence of the Purpose
6. Constantly asking: What is relevant now? What is appropriate now? What is valuable now? What is useful now?
7. Being willing to take leaps of faith and of creativity, to seriously entertain the impossible and improbable
8. Relentlessly seeking and tracking down relevant fundamentals and basic causes, and carefully tracking out effects and consequences
9. Zooming in and zooming out, micro-view, meso-view, and macro-view Big Picture/context, are constant and synergistic. Scope of awareness which expands with spiritual growth is part of this ability.
10. Constantly analyzing and synthesizing. Seeing through polarities and opposites to the unifying principles or variables behind them, and being able to use those. Seeing the "simplicity beyond complexity" and being able to use that and to convey it to others. High tolerance for ambiguity, experiencing that as a creative tension.
11. Using a diverse knowledge-base; cross-disciplinary is SOP
12. Using relevant risk-management strategies, and refining them
13. Being alert for and quickly spotting relevant similarities and differences/distinctions, and patterns of many kinds. From that, creating new concepts and new vocabulary
14. Always knowing one’s level of certainty (and seeking to increase it) and the risks from that level, on the matter at hand
15. Valuing excellence, completeness, relevance. Stopping short of perfectionism but not short of excellence
16. Always building-in ways to refine and improve
17. Thinking in systems, which means holistically, and which means seeing effects, knowing one can’t see all effects ahead of time, and building in processes to discover and take newly-seen effects into account
18. Knowing what one doesn’t know, and constantly seeking to shift things from “what I don’t know I don’t know” to “what I know I don’t know.”
19. Cultivating intuition and non-linear, non-left-brain ways of knowing and operating; this includes "Presence-based leadership and operating" from a spiritual orientation.
20. Valuing, co-creating, and using, Collective Emergent Intelligence (See here and here.) “Use the Field, Luke.”
21. Being ever-more aware of the values which are involved in the activity: values-base, values demonstrated in operating, values being furthered or created, and optimizing and aligning these with respect to the Purpose
22. Seeking and weeding out detrimental inconsistencies of all kinds
23. A sure indicator of greater intelligence in operation is the presence of fun, playfulness, joy, spontaneity.
24. Optimizing the human relating and communicating going on in any given activity and purpose. Gearing communication and actions to styles and individual differences for maximum effective communication and co-operation.
25. Given the Purpose, optimizing the balance of flow/spontaneity with planning/design, and the balance of planned measurable results with unpredictable qualitative results
26. Understanding and skillfully applying relevant pacing, timing, and cycles/rhythms in all relevant matters
27. Integrating, meshing, leveraging, synergizing, are intrinsic characteristics of intelligence in action
2. Focus on capacity-building, not just knowledge
3. Being willing to see, know, learn, and change. Eschewing denial.
4. Finding and using the most useful frameworks of understanding for the purpose at hand – rather than having just a few tools and applying them to everything. Being facile with a large number of frameworks and knowing the scope and limits of their applicability to a given situation.
5. Being clear about the Purpose at hand, and constantly increasing clarity about its evolving nature, constantly seeking greater alignment of everything with the Purpose, and being ever-more aware of the flow of the Natural Intelligence of the Purpose
6. Constantly asking: What is relevant now? What is appropriate now? What is valuable now? What is useful now?
7. Being willing to take leaps of faith and of creativity, to seriously entertain the impossible and improbable
8. Relentlessly seeking and tracking down relevant fundamentals and basic causes, and carefully tracking out effects and consequences
9. Zooming in and zooming out, micro-view, meso-view, and macro-view Big Picture/context, are constant and synergistic. Scope of awareness which expands with spiritual growth is part of this ability.
10. Constantly analyzing and synthesizing. Seeing through polarities and opposites to the unifying principles or variables behind them, and being able to use those. Seeing the "simplicity beyond complexity" and being able to use that and to convey it to others. High tolerance for ambiguity, experiencing that as a creative tension.
11. Using a diverse knowledge-base; cross-disciplinary is SOP
12. Using relevant risk-management strategies, and refining them
13. Being alert for and quickly spotting relevant similarities and differences/distinctions, and patterns of many kinds. From that, creating new concepts and new vocabulary
14. Always knowing one’s level of certainty (and seeking to increase it) and the risks from that level, on the matter at hand
15. Valuing excellence, completeness, relevance. Stopping short of perfectionism but not short of excellence
16. Always building-in ways to refine and improve
17. Thinking in systems, which means holistically, and which means seeing effects, knowing one can’t see all effects ahead of time, and building in processes to discover and take newly-seen effects into account
18. Knowing what one doesn’t know, and constantly seeking to shift things from “what I don’t know I don’t know” to “what I know I don’t know.”
19. Cultivating intuition and non-linear, non-left-brain ways of knowing and operating; this includes "Presence-based leadership and operating" from a spiritual orientation.
20. Valuing, co-creating, and using, Collective Emergent Intelligence (See here and here.) “Use the Field, Luke.”
21. Being ever-more aware of the values which are involved in the activity: values-base, values demonstrated in operating, values being furthered or created, and optimizing and aligning these with respect to the Purpose
22. Seeking and weeding out detrimental inconsistencies of all kinds
23. A sure indicator of greater intelligence in operation is the presence of fun, playfulness, joy, spontaneity.
24. Optimizing the human relating and communicating going on in any given activity and purpose. Gearing communication and actions to styles and individual differences for maximum effective communication and co-operation.
25. Given the Purpose, optimizing the balance of flow/spontaneity with planning/design, and the balance of planned measurable results with unpredictable qualitative results
26. Understanding and skillfully applying relevant pacing, timing, and cycles/rhythms in all relevant matters
27. Integrating, meshing, leveraging, synergizing, are intrinsic characteristics of intelligence in action
28. Expecting, being able to cope with -- and even to take advantage of -- and certainly to learn from, the unexpected
29. Knowing and skillfully applying, shifting priorities; spotting and not getting involved with irrelevancies and inessentials, yet knowing when to flow with seeming side-tracks which could have promise for value
30. Skillfully engaging in co-creativity, cooperation, and collaboration, and enabling others to do the same. Skilled at fostering agreement, alignment, and consensus
31. Being able to discern what is a "one-off" problem (most likely a problem related to a specific person or persons) and a "system-problem" showing up as a person-problem
32. Constantly checking for what assumptions are being made, whether they are the most reasonable assumptions, whether assumptions are consistent with one another, and how to optimize assumptions.
“Being intelligent” means all the
above. What more would you add, or what comments do you have?
* "Kosmos" used in Ken Wilber's sense of including not only the physical cosmos but all phenomena of consciousness, too.
by Rev. Alia Aurami, Ph.D., Head Minister, "Amplifying Divine Light in All" Church
"Amplifying Divine Light in All" is a completely independent church fostering empowerment of people to co-create loving, thriving God-realized lives, and wellbeing for everyone, on a clean, peaceful Earth.
Our main religious purpose and mission is to amplify the Divine Light in everyone. When you read this article, you will agree or disagree with its various points, and then you will know more about what is true for you. Knowing more of your own Truth amplifies your Divine Light. Thus providing/presenting this article is one way for us to accomplish our purpose and mission.
This article and our providing/presenting it are therefore a central and essential part of our exercise and practice of our religion.
None of the contents herein are claimed as absolute truth. They represent one possible perspective which might prove useful for you.
All rights reserved under the Common Law. This means please respect our creatorship.
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