Diversity in the Workforce: Gardner's Nine Intelligences

With the increase of technology, we have been able to note advances in psychology and the way people think. We have become aware of the fact that all people have different cognitive processes and carry out ideas and decisions differently. In class, we touched on Gardner's Nine Intelligences which I decided to take a closer look at. Gardner describes intelligence as “the ability to create an effective product or offer a service that is valued in a culture; a set of skills that make it possible for a person to solve problems in life; the potential for finding or creating solutions for problems, which involves gathering new knowledge.” His nine intelligences—naturalist, musical, logical/mathematical, existential, interpersonal, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, intra-personal, and spatial—suggest that there are many different ways that people make products, use their skills, and handle problems. Gardner’s findings can easily be represented in the work force to improve product management and the group of people that are behind the product.


In my mind, companies today, like many of the articles stated, have a problem with hiring the right people to create the right products that are innovative. Naturally, managers often times hire the same kind of employees--those that they like, those that are most like them, or those that resemble the company's core values. Although this may seem like the right thing to do, it most likely will not give your company much growth in developing the most innovative products. Since this is a very common problem, HR of companies should take steps to resolve this issue. First off, a company should have a set ratio of how many of each type of intelligence they want from their employees. This ratio should be formed based on the company's product and values, but should include all forms of thinkers. From “The Weird Rules of Creativity” article, I learned that companies should hire people that are even experts in other fields so that they have an outside perspective and have new ways of dealing with ideas and problems. Therefore, I believe that even those that wouldn’t seem to fit into a business environment (such as the musical intelligences) could be employed in a corporation. Tests should be taken from applicants to find out the way that they think. Human resources can then base their decision making on the results they receive from the applicants. Employees should become familiar with what kind of intelligence style they have so that they can learn about how their ideas are formed and why they make certain choices. Also, this will give the employees the ability to learn how to deal with other group members’ decisions. In having such a diverse group of people in a company, new and different ideas will flourish. Not only will individual ideas spurn from diverse people, but also, people will work together in forming ways in which all their ideas can work together; thus, a product is made.