Creativity is important within knowledge-intensive organisations. In this article, we research the relations between profiles of multiple intelligence and how employees assess their organisation as supporting creativeness. Multiple intelligences theory is important because it takes a more humanistic approach to skills, abilities and talents, in recognising that there is more to a human than the skills appreciated in classical g-theory. We are interested in whether different types of people look differently upon the organisation in this regard. Special attention is given to employees whose  multiple intelligence profile is higher than required for their job, a misfit inducing risk for chronic relative underperformance, and how this misfit relates to the assessment of the work environment. Data collection was done in a large institute for mental health care in the Netherlands. On a voluntary basis, employees were assessed on their personal multiple intelligences profile using the MIDAS® questionnaire. They simultaneously assessed their organisation on supporting creativity, using the KEYS® to Creativity and Innovation questionnaire. The data were analysed in three ways (1) by correlating the values of their multiple intelligence with the assessment on creative climate; for this 189 records could be used, (2) by computing the risk of chronic relative underperformance, and correlating this with creativity climate; for which 147 records of mental health workers remained for the analysis; and (3) investigating whether there was a difference in scores when the results were grouped by highest or lowest intelligence. Results show that there is mild support for our expectation that multiple intelligences matter and that employees with profiles that are high on intelligences not required for the job assess the work environment as less beneficial for creative output. It is concluded that organisations (which consist of a spectrum of differently profiled humans) may benefit from taking into account these differences within their workforce. Limitations to the study design are also discussed.

In this article an index is investigated which can express the fit between a job profile and a personal profile, which both make use of Gardner’s concept of multiple intelligences. The difficulties are (1) that even though the same conceptual framework is used to describe both the capabilities that functions/jobs need and the capabilities that persons have, the two measurements are not exactly the same, and (2) that the index must be able to indicate whether a person is possibly underperforming, or might be overburdened by the function. Other indexes, such as correlations, or common distance measures provide parts of the answer, but in themselves destroy too much information. To illustrate the different steps, data are used from a small set of profiles from well functioning mental health professionals from a community mental health centre in the Netherlands and a job profile, obtained from colleagues from another community mental health centre. A method preserving the direction of the differences, based on the Mahalanobis distance is developed in this paper, which expresses over- as well as the underscoring of a personal profile in regard to the job profile, as well as combining these in a single index that can be used in statistical analyses. The method might be applicable to compare other kinds of profiles to each other as well.

Short analysis of two models from different domains, both using the concept of creativity, with the intent to build bridges and sharpen thinking on these concepts.

This article describes ‘chronic relative underperformance’ (CRU), – a special example of person-environment misfit –, investigates literature on giftedness, underachievement, underemployment, workplace boredom and bore-out, and connects these to clinical psychological views on mentalization, in order to develop thoughts that are useful in the understanding of why some employees fail to thrive, even though that they are performing seemingly well enough as regards to the targets of the employer, with the intention to offer a frame of reference that can lead to further understanding of this condition. Relative underperformance is an issue that is hardly described within the literature. Recognising CRU in the workforce and taking steps to counter its effects, may lead to a more efficient and elegant way to reach organisational, and personal, goals.