Business Intelligence- The Need For Intelligence In Business

Ever thought of the special talents that allow people to build a flourishing business from nothing, while others- though given every advantage of background and preparation at the best schools- run a business into the ground? What abilities allow one person to take a mediocre company and transform it into an industry leader, while others turn great companies into mediocre ones? And what collective qualities let one company flourish year after year while competitors flounder?

The answer must lie not just in luck, breeding, or education. Rather there seems to be a certain knack- preternatural intelligence at play. One that makes some people naturally talented at the complex demands of business, just as other naturals at the engineering, soccer, music etc.. This same ability displays itself at the group level in the superlative terms, and at the organizational level in great companies.

This observation leads to the question "Could these be a business intelligence- set of abilities that distinguish those truly outstanding in the world of commerce? Could business intelligence be the mark of outstanding individual performers, as well as the building block of the best-performing companies? The question of whether these might be a business intelligence is not far-fetched. Serious thinkers in the early 20th-century mold a narrow set of intellectual abilities revolving mainly around verbal agility and alacrity at math. Instead , they think of intelligence as specific to various life domains.

Most people have transformed the way we think about intelligence by challenging its definition in terms of restricted range of abilities that allow some to excel in the academic world or do well in IQ tests. Instead, they argue convincingly, there are multiple intelligences that go far beyond that narrow band, including in the world of movement- as in the soccer star or gifted dancer- in the universe of music.

This expands the term "intelligence" to encompass a range of consequential capacities usually thought of as far beyond its scope. Most people have proposed "intelligence" for understanding the world of nature, the pros and cons of spiritual intelligence etc.. Why not then, a business intelligence? Intelligence in its basic sense refers to the capacity to solve problems, meet challenges, or create valued products. In this regard, business intelligence describes the essential capacity for success in the marketplace being able to handle the challenges and crises of the day adeptly, to apply the expertise that offers solutions as needed, and to do all that in ways that add value.

Among the criteria for any candidate, intelligence is an evolutionary plausibility for its role in human survival, a role arrived at via a reverse engineering in which selection pressures in evolution are inferred from the current operation of a faculty. For instance, the case can be made the modern-day talents for business had antecedents in primitive forms of barter and craftsmanship, primal leadership and negotiation, teamwork and cooperation.

Those who excelled in the these original business abilities in prehistory would very likely be better able to provide for their progeny, the true mark of evolutionary fitness. One mark of any intelligence lies in having developmental history, a series of landmarks of learning and mastery over the course of life. No intelligence emerges full bloom, but rather is nurtured and developed over the years. When it comes to business, those who emerge as outstanding typically showed signs of a flair for their talent as far back as their teen years or even childhood. As the biographies of business greats tell us, as they grow they were particularly able learners, refining and honing these natural talents.

The emergence of the human capacity, for instance, math, speaks to a different criterion for intelligence in a relevant symbol system. Any intelligence requires a shared language of communication, a set of symbols that captures the meaningful information needed to operate in that domain- such as musical notation. Historically, such symbol systems arose because of a pressing need. The historical record suggests that the basics of math- counting, adding, subtracting, and the like- emerged to fill the needs of commerce and accounting, keeping track of goods as they were traded and stored. As business has evolved, so too have the systems that serve this intelligence, as they adapt to these dynamic changes.

What might the key elements of business intelligence include? The data trailed leads back to the 1970s, when intellectuals first made the argument that what predicted the best performance in business were not traditional academic aptitudes, nor school grades, nor credentials. Instead they focused on the abilities that star performers exhibit, which can differ from job to job, role to role, and company to company- and which have little or nothing to do with academic abilities.

Research has shown why academic intelligence matters little as prediction of success once someone has gotten into a given job- they are largely threshold abilities , what anyone needs to enter the field and hold the job. More significant for predicting success are those competencies that distinguish the best from the mediocre with a given job, role, or company. If a company wants to cultivate its strengths, it needs to hire, promote, and train people for these distinguishing abilities- just as we want to succeed in our career, these are the abilities we will need.

Over the last several decades, hundreds of studies in organizations of all kinds- from small family-owned retailers to corporate giants, from hospitals to religious orders- have followed certain people's lead, assessing the capabilities that set the star performers apart from average in jobs within their organization. Those abilities break down to into three main basic domains- cognitive astuteness, which largely translates into the ability to learn and to think strategically; technical expertise, or essential crafts we learn to get work done; and emotional intelligence, the ability to manage ourselves and our relationships. Business intelligence, in the sense I propose, subsumes all of these as core sub-abilities - components that, when orchestrated together, create a special business aptitude.

Each of us will inevitably have a profile of strengths and weaknesses across all the varied abilities that make for business intelligence. And each job we hold over the course of a career will have a distinctive set of demands - and so to some extent require a unique recipe of capabilities to excel. As we change jobs and roles, we need to grow our business intelligence through continuous learning- not just to keep up, but also to get and stay ahead.

Of course any intelligence will have its prodigies- those who exhibit the aptitude at its peak make the point. But the simple fact that some have a natural knack for business intelligence, while others have only middling abilities, should not discourage anyone. For one, the abilities that make up business intelligence can always be learned- anyone with motivation can get better. For another, no one needs mastering every element of business intelligence, we can only rely on others for much of the expertise we need.