Hire Musicians 3: IQ EQ CQ AQ

In Hire Musicians 3 we covered multidisciplinary talents of musicians. If you’re hiring in the tech or creative fields, you’ve likely heard about IQ EQ CQ AQ. These identifiers can be personally empowering and professionally insightful, when considered equally. Add research which shows musicians to be far more capable at executive function than other employees, and individuals who play an instrument competently are likely to outperform their peers.

IQ: it’s fashionable to be smart

(in adulthood). Here’s a stupid analogy to explain the other factors: Forest Gump. His low “Intellectual Quotient” didn’t compromise his other strengths, and he was still wildly successful. Emotional, Creative, and Adversity Quotients matter as much as intelligence. If you’re smart but can’t handle adversity, succeeding outside a lab is going to be difficult. You can probably get away with an underdeveloped emotional intelligence working with code, but you’re unlikely to succeed as a manager.

Their strength, properly acknowledged, can be an asset to your work.

That’s the basics. These quotients are a way of viewing your true skill set. I digress. This is about music.

Musicians have high IQs. Even sex-symbols like Shakira, Ke$ha, and Madonna have IQs around 140 (where 80% of people are 90-110). That’s higher than most presidents. Scientific studies note that on average, musicians are smarter than non-musicians and have a higher CQ Creative Quotients, “thinking outside the box.” Instrumental musicians read melodic lines (left-hemisphere), and play with both hands (both hemispheres) while coordinating and interpreting (right-hemisphere). This multi-hemisphere use allows musicians to develop better intelligence and creativity.

Yes, they develop their minds.

All types of Intelligence are learned and practiced.

What about EQ Emotional Quotient and AQ Adversity (Resilience) Quotient? Story time. Imagine you’re in 6th grade. Your friends are playing Xbox at home but your teacher won’t let you leave until your group of 40 students (who are mostly not your friends) gets a a full play-through completed. In the middle of the piece, two trombonists fight. In the next play-through, someone farts and clears the room. Then you screw up your part and throw off the ensemble. Music is a team sport with you in the spotlight for the entire game. Failure and perfection are always at your heels. Emotional empathy and fortitude in adversity grow strong.

Accepting failure as growth conditions us for success.

Hire musicians. They are more likely to be intelligent, focused, dedicated, resilient, and creative. As the employment manager of a hospital once told me, most of her surgeons were musicians in a former life, or still moonlight as jazz performers.