Tapping into your "Experiential Intelligence" can make you even more successful.

Use the Hidden Strengths Gained from Life Experiences to Grow Yourself, Team, & Organization

For over a century, IQ has been used as an indicator of future success. Then EQ (Emotional Intelligence) became a complement to highlight another facet of what's needed to advance in business, and life itself. But IQ and EQ aren't sufficient predictors or levers of high performance in today's disruptive world.

Your experience also an essential component of what's needed for success yet most of us fail to fully appreciate and leverage the latent "intelligence" that exists within our personal and professional experiences.

That's why I wrote the book Experiential Intelligence, which builds upon the original concept from Robert Sternberg, the past president of the American Psychological Association.

Today's disruptive world requires a new form of intelligence

Disruptive innovation continues to transform just about every industry, organization, and job role. It's also forcing us to reinvent how we go about doing business. For example, we need a way to describe why we might want to hire someone who's not "officially" qualified for a job, but who we know will do a great job anyway. We need a way to recognize the inherent wisdom and strength that exist in all of us because of what we've done and experienced in both our personal and professional lives. And we need a way to make the process of understanding, appreciating, and leveraging the power of unique experiences and differences something that we embrace in our teams, organizations, and communities.

Experiential Intelligence, or XQ for short, is "the combination of mindsets, abilities, and know-how gained from your experiences." Just as memorizing facts doesn't give you a high IQ, Experiential Intelligence isn't merely what you've learned over time. It's how you view opportunities, perceive challenges, and tackle goals.

Your XQ consists of:

• Mindsets: attitudes and beliefs about yourself, other people, and the world
• Abilities: competencies that help you integrate knowledge, skills and experiences to respond to situations in the most effective way possible
• Know-how: your knowledge and skills

As a complement to IQ and EQ, Experiential Intelligence expands our understanding of what's needed for success in today's increasingly uncertain, ever-changing business environment. XQ is like the third leg of a stool that's been propping us up all along but that we haven't been able to see because it's been hidden beneath our seats.

Success comes from experience

We're on the cusp of a revolution in reinventing how we view what leads to satisfaction and success personally and professionally. For example, companies including Google, Apple, Tesla, IBM, Home Depot, Bank of America, Starbucks, and Hilton no longer require a university degree for an interview. These organizations understand that future success relies on way more than diplomas.

Thriving in today's disruptive world requires much more than using your intellect (IQ) and managing your emotions (EQ). Agility and resilience, two things increasingly important for innovation, come from connecting your intellectual and emotional intelligence with what you've gained from your array of experiences. For example, Stanford University's Carol Dweck's concept of "growth mindsets" describes people who view intelligence as stemming from continuous learning, development, and hard work as achieving more in life, irrespective of how high their IQ may be.

Leverage experiential intelligence (XQ)

So, what can you do with Experiential Intelligence as a leader and for your organization? Some specific opportunities include:

1. Hire Outside the Box: Hire people who may not possess specific work experience but still have mindsets and abilities that will make them successful in the job.
2. Develop Leadership: Design leadership development programs that target the mindsets, abilities and know-how critical for the future.
3. Retool Performance Evaluations: Create team-based performance evaluation processes that surface, recognize, and develop each individual's unique Experiential Intelligence.
4. Amplify Diversity: Build teams and organizations that include a breadth of experiences as part of creating a diverse workforce.
5. Scale Best Practices: Harness people's experiences by creating tools, templates, and business processes accessible to the broader organization.

The idea that our experiences shape how we think and what we do is a no-brainer. In today's increasingly uncertain world, we need simple ideas to help us manage complexity and create a better future.

Soren Kaplan is the author of Experiential Intelligence. Get a free sample chapter here.

Soren is also a columnist for Inc. Magazine, founder of Praxie.com, and an affiliate at the Center for Effective Organizations at USC’s Marshall School of Business. Business Insider and the Thinkers50 have named him one of the world’s top management thought leaders and consultants.

For press, media, and speaking inquiries, visit sorenkaplan.com