What’s the Quality of Your Current Collaborative Intelligence?

Each of these people influences the way your brain does or does not grow. You probably know intuitively that spending a lot of time with someone who is frenzied makes you feel anxious. Likewise, when you are with someone who is serene and centered, you most likely feel calmer and more at ease after being with them. What we haven’t known until recently is how profound an effect we have on the way our brains are wired. We either grow or diminish our capacity through those people with whom we spend the most time.

The following assessment will help you recognize and explore the quality of collaboration between you and the people you spend the most time thinking with at work.

Instructions:

· Identify the five people in your life with whom you currently spend the most time at work.

· Write their names across the top.

· Next estimate the approximate percentage of time in any given week that you spend with that person and write it below their name.

· Rate the collaboration between you and this person on a scale of 1 to 5 through the lens of each of the four qualities in the far left column. (1 being lowest, 5 being highest).

· Tally the columns.

Interpreting the Results:

The qualities on the left column are indicators of relationship that enriches collaborative thinking. We adapted them from the work of the Jean Baker Miller Training Institute (JBMTI) at the Wellesley Centers for Women. Their research, combined with ours, posits that people can grow through and toward relationships during their entire life. A low score (10 or below per person) on the chart above indicates where learning and new approaches are needed.

A high overall score (15 or higher per person) indicates a relationship that is both rewarding and collaborative. The individual qualities point to the specific conditions that make a collaboration work for you. We will share four collaborative strategies in this book that will increase scores in each of the qualities as well your overall CQ score with these people.

This assessment offers you a way to begin to compare your relationships and transfer what you learn from one that is high-scoring and fulfilling to one that is depleting. For example, perhaps one of your colleagues frequently acknowledges the positive effect you have on them. This reinforces your sense of aliveness. There may be someone else on your list with whom there is a low score in aliveness. Instead of just shrugging it off or putting up with less than what is possible, you can request that they tell you specifically what you do to help and support them.