When my Dad was alive, he always reminded me that my pursuit of education would only take me so far in life. He said that wisdom would (hopefully) come with time. He encouraged me to challenge conventional wisdom, and learn how to ask really good questions.
He was teaching me the multiple facets of intelligence. And I will be truly grateful to him.
Business development and planning are not a series of left-brained script writing exercises. As you assess the impact of your growth planning and marketing investments, consider these timeless thoughts from Rumi.
Two Kinds of Intelligence
There are two kinds of intelligence: one acquired,
as a child in school memorizes facts and concepts
from books and from what the teacher says,
collecting information from the traditional sciences
as well as from the new sciences.
With such intelligence you rise in the world.
You get ranked ahead or behind others
in regard to your competence in retaining
information. You stroll with this intelligence
in and out of fields of knowledge, getting always more
marks on your preserving tablets.
There is another kind of tablet, one
already completed and preserved inside you.
A spring overflowing its springbox. A freshness
in the center of the chest. This other intelligence
does not turn yellow or stagnate. It’s fluid,
and it doesn’t move from outside to inside
through conduits of plumbing-learning.
This second knowing is a fountainhead
from within you, moving out.
As you develop accountability systems and processes among your teams, how do you regularly activate a freshness in the chest in your organization?
copyright 2011, Lisa Nirell. All rights reserved.
