What’s Your Creativity Quotient? [Video]
In part three of this ongoing series Latin Biz Today advisory board member Chuck Garcia asks…Where does creativity fit in and what does that have to do with career climbing?
The answer may surprise you!
Part one & two in the series can be found here: Part 1 Career Q’s: Redefine What It Means to Be Smart Part 2 3 Traits of the Most Admired C-Suite Professionals [Video]
In high school and college, I did well on exams. The process to succeed as a student was straightforward. Study, cram facts and figures into my head, and regurgitate it all on the test. If I answered 90% of it correctly, the path to that straight A report card was easily attainable.
But when my teachers asked me to engage in a creative exercise, I was stuck. Through years of conventional education, I always associated creativity with visual artists, musicians, and poets. Since I didn’t plan to be any of those things, and I was succeeding in school according to everyone else’s standards, why bother to even try being creative? What reward would it deliver if it didn’t serve my report card?
Looking back, I had it all wrong. Even though I had no ambition to pursue a career in professions typically associated with creativity, thirty years on Wall Street led me to a powerful conclusion: That success has little to do with the conventional model of successful test taking. It took much longer than it should have, but I have come to redefine what it means to be smart and hope you will too.
What I am describing is one component of a bigger picture called Career Q’s. In this 6-part series for Latin Biz Today, I began by bringing to light that there are a variety of quotients to measure your intelligence that go way beyond IQ.
The last thirty years have seen an avalanche of research supporting the belief that there are many other capabilities needed to succeed across many careers. The best part is that you don’t have to go far to learn this. Just about everyone I know has a LinkedIn account. If you don’t, I recommend you create one. If nothing else, this social media platform provides instant visibility for your resume. A potential employer can see your photo, read your background, review your accomplishments, and contact you if interested. Thousands of companies worldwide use LinkedIn for this purpose. In search of the right talent to fulfill open positions, it has become an important search tool for individuals looking to make their next big career move.
Where does creativity fit in and what does that have to do with career climbing? The answer may surprise you. Each year, LinkedIn publishes a TOP 10 Hard and TOP 10 Soft Skill list most mentioned by employers in their job descriptions. On the Soft Skill side, which career trait tops the charts? You guessed it: Creativity! Followed by persuasion, collaboration, adaptability, and Emotional Intelligence. Creativity has finally taken center stage. Who knew it would lead the pack?
You may have taken an IQ or EQ test to measure your human or emotional intelligence. But did you ever measure your CQ, or Creativity Quotient? If you haven’t, do not be surprised if you are asked to take one in the next few years. Leading companies like Google make it a part of their professional development programs. On my radio show, A Climb to the TOP, Marc Randolph, Co-founder of Netflix, stated with great enthusiasm, “We were always looking for anyone in the company who can develop creative solutions to conventional problems?”
But what is CQ? Some researchers have taken a social-personality approach to the measurement of creativity. In these studies, traits such as independence of judgement, self-confidence, attraction to complexity, and risk-taking are creativity measures. In other words, it goes way beyond taking out a piece of paper and sketching something your art teacher requested.
I could barely draw stick figures without making them look like a bunch of squiggles. Did that mean I was not creative? No. I was held captive to the stale definition that creativity only happens in the arts. That is not the case. Creativity is one of the Career Q’s that I hope you will learn, internalize, and strive to develop no matter your profession.
To learn how to measure, monitor, and develop your CQ, click the link: Creativity Quotient Test and to learn more about this subject, click here: Emotional Intelligence Lab
Related content:
EQ series Part 1 Career Q’s: Redefine What It Means to Be Smart
EQ seriesPart 2 3 Traits of the Most Admired C-Suite Professionals [Video]