CIQ-Career Intelligence

Welcome to the world of work. Or, better yet, how’s that career goal or dream looking to you right now?  Is your trajectory still properly calibrated to take you to your destination position? Careers are funny things. Often what you had planned to accomplish in your career quickly becomes elusive and you slowly become cynical.  You did all the right things—went to college, even graduate school, and worked very hard at your job. Still, you feel your career has stagnated. No one told you this would happen. The principle of uninterrupted career verticality  seems to be a myth. In fact, careers are more like a StairMaster exercise machine than an escalator.The question now is “how does one effectively negotiate the often treacherous ‘straits and narrows’ of corporate politics”? 


Better yet, how does one scale the mountain of corporate success without some help— like finding some sort of organizational Sherpa guide, i.e., a mentor, to point out how you should equip yourself for the journey?  Initially, we all thought that hard work, discipline and intellect would take us to the top of our profession. And, then comes the rude awakening. We apparently lack something. But, what, exactly, is it that we lack? Is it desire, determination, drive-or, God forbid, is it the smarts that we lack? 

What is missing, I would submit, is the level of your Career Intelligence Quotient [CIQ]. In my mind, CIQ is a combination of organizational savvy, interpersonal skills and learning agility. Position knowledge, skills and ability, collectively, are givens and represent the ‘price of admission’. Most successful ‘chart climbers’ have figured out this part of the equation. In other words, you have got to have more going for you than just ‘job mastery’. You have got to be ‘smarter’ in ways that set you apart from the other worker bees and functional drones that crave face time and good merit increases. You have got to use your CIQ to leverage organizational opportunities.

Organizational savvy is the first leg of the career Trifecta one needs to win in order to advance. Specifically, organizational savvy, for me, is the ability to tease out the norms of any organization before you step on one. Norms are the organization’s invisible land mines. They are to be divined and never published. They are more powerful than rules, regulations and policies.  Norms not only tell what you cannot do—more importantly, they tell you what is acceptable and what you can and should do. Organizational rules and regulations are written, published and distributed.  Such pronouncements are for those corporate denizens who need things to be explicit, unequivocal and consistent. A savvy person gets it through apprehension and the subtle cues and signals evident to the real students of organizational behavior. The quicker you can spot, decipher and internalizes the ‘cues’, the higher your CIQ.

A lot of these ‘cues’ have to do with how individuals in the organization interact with and treat each other. Mastering Interpersonal Skills is the second leg of the career Trifecta. Interpersonal relationship skills are important in building a fungible type of equity. I call this relationship equity. While it is not transferable outside of the organization, it is a highly valuable internal commodity that is useful in moving a career forward. Real work and accomplishment takes place in ‘white space’ between jobs. The individual who functions well in the white space between his/her job and a fellow employee’s job knows the exact moment when he/she is the supplier or when he/she is the customer. Each status provides one with career building opportunities. As an internal supplier, people are able to observe your promptness, accuracy and willingness to help them meet a deadline or goal. As a customer, your supplier is able to determine what type of person you really are—i.e., are you clear in your expectations; do you look to place blame; are you reasonable; and, would you be someone they could work for as a subordinate?  At some point, these fellow employees either with their words or with their silence will accelerate your career or derail it. A great instrument to help you gain insight into four critical behavioral traits you exhibit every day is the Drake P3.

Finally, successful career management depends on how mentally quick and nimble you are in real time situations. Learning agility means you must be able to master shifts in business concepts, organizational constructs and political alliances very quickly. The ability to either provide constructive feedback or insightful input to leadership in times of transitions will increase your worth and value in the organization. Superficial mastery of these shifts will often get you in to trouble. It is equally important to have good questions as well as good answers.As one philosopher put it: “You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers…You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions”.   Learning agility is the final leg of the career Trifecta. When you win on this one and the two aforementioned; it will be obvious to all that you have a very high CIQ.