Fairness Intelligence FQ

There has been a lot of talk about emotional intelligence, EQ as opposed to IQ lately. However, I have been talking about OQ—or objective intelligence—recently, but when all is said and done, they all seem to point to one thing: fairness intelligence, or FQ.

I believe it’s fair to say that, overall, as a species, our FQ has contributed to us improving our standards of living globally—but with still a long way to go.

And while fairness intelligence (FQ) might not be as catchy or widely known as EQ or IQ, I think it could end up being the glue that binds them together. What good is a high IQ if it’s wielded unfairly? And emotional intelligence, as valuable as it is, still depends on a shared understanding of what’s fair in how we treat one another.

The way I see it, fairness isn’t just a moral ideal—it’s a form of collective intelligence. It’s something we’ve been slowly, painfully evolving toward, not just in laws or systems, but in our everyday conversations. FQ is how we moderate our instincts, temper our certainty, and make space for perspectives beyond our own.

That’s why I’ve become so obsessed with building tools that help workplace teams grow their FQ—not through lectures or training modules, but through the actual messy business of interacting, disagreeing, and figuring things out together. At SpatzAI we help teams learn to 1. Caution fairly, 2. Object respectfully, and 3. Stop constructively, all the while, we believe that they are actually increasing their collective fairness intelligence.

So maybe it’s time we stop treating IQ and EQ as separate measures. They’re both important, but without something to keep them in balance, one can easily outweigh the other. That’s where FQ—fairness intelligence—comes in. It acts like the base of the scale, keeping things level. When we support our thinking and feeling with a strong sense of fairness, we make better decisions, work better together, and build stronger, more balanced teams.

If you’re curious about how we might cultivate FQ together, let’s talk.