10 ways to improve your Intelligence

Your brain needs exercise just like a muscle. If you use it often and in the right ways, you will become a more skilled thinker and increase your ability to focus. But if you never use your brain, or abuse it with harmful chemicals, your ability to think and learn will deteriorate.

Here are 10 simple ways anyone can squeeze a bit more productivity out of the old gray matter.

1. Minimize Television Watching – This is a hard sell. People love vegetating in front of the television, myself included more often than I’d like. The problem is watching television doesn’t use your mental capacity OR allow it to recharge. It’s like having the energy sapped out of a muscle without the health benefits of exercise.

Don’t you feel drained after a couple hours of TV? Your eyes are sore and tired from being focused on the light box for so long. You don’t even have the energy to read a book.

When you feel like relaxing, try reading a book instead. If you’re too tired, listen to some music. When you’re with your friends or family, leave the tube off and have a conversation. All of these things use your mind more than television and allow you to relax.

2. Exercise – I used to think that I’d learn more by not exercising and using the time to read a book instead. But I realized that time spent exercising always leads to greater learning because it improves productivity during the time afterwards. Using your body clears your head and creates a wave of energy. Afterwards, you feel invigorated and can concentrate more easily.

3. Read Challenging Books – Many people like to read popular suspense fiction, but generally these books aren’t mentally stimulating. If you want to improve your thinking and writing ability you should read books that make you focus. Reading a classic novel can change your view of the world and will make you think in more precise, elegant English. Don’t be afraid to look up a word if you don’t know it, and don’t be afraid of dense passages. Take your time, re-read when necessary, and you’ll soon grow accustomed to the author’s style.

Once you get used to reading challenging books, I think you’ll find that you aren’t tempted to go back to page-turners. The challenge of learning new ideas is far more exciting than any tacky suspense-thriller.

4. Early to Bed, Early to Rise – Nothing makes it harder to concentrate than sleep deprivation. You’ll be most rejuvenated if you go to bed early and don’t sleep more than 8 hours. If you stay up late and compensate by sleeping late, you’ll wake up lethargic and have trouble focusing. In my experience the early morning hours are the most tranquil and productive. Waking up early gives you more productive hours and maximizes your mental acuity all day.

If you have the opportunity, take 10-20 minute naps when you are hit with a wave of drowsiness. Anything longer will make you lethargic, but a short nap will refresh you.

5. Take Time to Reflect - Often our lives get so hectic that we become overwhelmed without even realizing it. It becomes difficult to concentrate because nagging thoughts keep interrupting. Spending some time alone in reflection gives you a chance organize your thoughts and prioritize your responsibilities. Afterwards, you’ll have a better understanding of what’s important and what isn’t. The unimportant stuff won’t bother you anymore and your mind will feel less encumbered.

I’m not saying you need to sit on the floor cross-legged and chant ‘ommm’. Anything that allows a bit of prolonged solitude will do. One of my personal favorites is taking a solitary walk. Someone famous said, “All the best ideas occur while walking.” I think he was on to something. Experiment to find the activity that works best for you.

6. Cultivate friendships with people who think differently. I enjoy talking to people who really challenge my conception of the world. Artists (I’m not one), medical staff (I’m not one), construction workers (I’m not one) and so on.

7. Get outside your own culture through travel, social gatherings, … Travel is great (but the hit on the environment is large, so…. do a few long trips rather than many short ones perhaps?) especially if you immerse locally. Going to Cuba and staying in a western hotel is not travel. Going backpacking in Nepal is. Doing voluntravel (going somewhere to help, e.g. Medicins Sans Frontiers) is ideal. But in any event the challenge to your sense of normalcy is fabulous. I spent a month in western China with my kids. Watching them take in the local environment and adapt was a real eye opener to how stuck-in-my-own-ways I’d become.

8. Learn that it is okay to turn off your cell phone and email. Reflective thought and deep reading take time. Oh excuse me, just got an email, be right back. Nope, that doesn’t work. Its okay to be unreachable for hours a day. I aim to answer email for an hour at the end of the day, at most. For many hours I’m unreachable except by family. Since I started that my time for thinking and reading has risen dramatically.

9. Do less better. There’s always another project that we rush to, never finishing the one we were doing. Sorry, great works of science and art take great dedication, polish, and repolish! Sure, we’re not all Darwin or Monet, but we should ASPIRE to be. Just say no to some projects. Focus on a few (make your family a project… for extra points!).

10. In all things seek balance. I agree that exercise is good. So is reading. So is relaxation – and if a bit of TV is what works, great. I for one watch old romantic comedy movies when I’m brain dead (well, okay, when I’m especially brain dead). I also enjoy blending my activities – go for a long walk that ends up at a coffee shop where I read a paper or book and stare out the window.

Conclusion – I hope you aren’t disappointed that none of the techniques I’ve proposed are revolutionary. But simple, unexciting answers are often the most valid. The challenge is having the will to adhere to them. If you succeed in following these 5 tips, you’ll be rewarded with increased mental acuity and retention of knowledge.

What are your favorite ways to make the most of your intelligence? Share them in the comments.

http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/5-more-ways-to-make-the-most-of- your-intelligence/

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Why do we need succession planning?

Why do organizations need succession planning? Some of the more important reasons are: (a) survival, (b) nature of business, (c) cost savings, (d) aligning HR policies and function with strategic long-term business goals and functions, (e) better retention, (f) better change/transition management, (g) creating future leaders, and (h) improved corporate image.

Both family run organizations as well as professionally run companies need succession planning although they may do so for different sets of reasons. For family run businesses, survival or change management is usually the predominant factor requiring a well thought out succession plan. For professionally run corporates, the single most important reason for having a sound succession plan in place is usually cost savings on account of (a) potential loss of business due to unfilled vacancies in key positions and (b) costs of external hiring and training. All the other reasons may be applicable to both types of organizations.

Family run businesses – whether large, medium or small and irrespective of other characteristics of the business – always require a sound succession plan because it is a matter of survival for them. Instances of family run businesses failing to survive after the death of the founder are far too many. Even large corporate houses such as those created by the Birlas, Tatas, Ambanis or Bajaj have all been in the news and for the wrong reasons after the death/retirement of leading group patriarchs apparently because they did not have an effective and already in place succession plan.

On the other hand, there are examples of family run businesses which have put careful thought into the question. The rapidly growing Rs 2000 crore GMR Group is a case in point. The Group’s patriarch, 56 year old founder chairman, Mr G.M. Rao has already put in place a very detailed succession plan so that after his retirement and eventually death, the family business can continue to grow smoothly. He has, in fact, got all his family members to agree to adhere to a written down family Constitution to help guide the whole process of change management and achieving balance between family interests and business interests on a long term basis.

Heads of family run businesses and HR managers working in such organisations can find it profitable to run a quick check on how ready they are to manage change, especially when the present CEO or head of the family business retires or dies and exits the business. There is a handy practical tool for doing this developed by management Guru Dr Randel Carlock called a Family Business Succession Readyness Assessment. This simple test and accompanying procedures are handy practical tools for getting a very good insight into whether a succession plan is needed for a particular business, if so how soon is it needed and what areas to focus on while developing a succession plan for that particular business.

Apart from the separate issues related to succession in family run businesses, most other organisations too need a sound succession plan. Knowledge intensive businesses need a succession plan not only because they are almost entirely human resource or “talent” dependent and, therefore, must have institutional mechanisms for talent recruitment, training and mentoring but also because most such organizations are global operators and need to specifically develop leaders with global perspectives. While IT majors such as Wipro, Infosys and many others have specific Talent Management programmes, a survey conducted in March this year by DNL Global and Human Capital Institute among talent management executives across organizations in Singapore, India, Sri Lanka and South Korea found that while most organizations had good project management capability they had poor ranks when it came to having people with global skills and perspectives, a finding that confirms an earlier survey that in the coming days organizations are going to face an acute shortage of people with global skills and perspectives. In such organisations, succession planning is needed to keep strategic business goals and functions properly aligned with HR goals and functions since the business itself is entirely talent or HR driven.

Global operators and service providers, remote management agencies, continuous production/service organizations such as chemical plants or newspaper production houses, national security and essential service organizations, and similar agencies operating 24/7 require an institutionalized succession plan since any sudden vacancy in a key functional area can bring about a major disruption in the entire business process chain. Hence, the entire chain of command is so constructed that most vacancies can be filled in-house. Consequently success for such organizations depend a great deal on how well they recruit talent, train, mentor and keep ready in-house talent who can succeed on to the next higher rank in the chain of command in case there arises such a vacancy. For them, success comes form successful succession planning.

While there is a seven step model for developing a succession plan, some of the best practices followed by global leaders in various countries can also be consulted by those interested in developing a succession plan for their own organizations. A word of caution, however, before we end this article. Most organizations also need a lot of fresh blood at regular intervals to not only bring in new perspectives and contemporary cultures and techniques but sometimes also to put a check on unhealthy in-house power politics. So, if and when necessary, don’t let an overemphasis on succession plans and in-house talent come in the way of external hiring even in key positions and despite there being an incumbent successor already in place!

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