The Human Brain – Liability or Asset?

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A person’s brain is the operating system for their lives, driving the choices they make, the way they communicate, and what they listen to – or not.Getting the right thinking in your organisation is critical. Evidence collected from over a million thinking preference surveys shows that organisations traditionally favour left brained thinking styles.

The successes of Google and Apple demonstrate their ability to think outside the box as well as focusing on profitability and quality processes. This combination is needed in today’s world – in the words of Daniel Pink (A Whole New Mind) automation affluence and asia mean that western organisations’ survival requires that they need to develop inventive thinking.

How would you know what kind of thinking is happening in your organisation?

The Herrmann Whole Brain Thinking™ model allows individuals to audit their thinking preferences and become conscious of the consequences of those preferences. Over the last 10 years of using the Herrmann Whole Brain Thinking™ model, we have seen time and again how collective thinking shapes organisational outcomes – too often organisational thinking profiles are unbalanced.

The Herrmann Whole Brain Thinking™ model is metaphorically divided into four quadrants – Fact, Form, Feel and Free.

Fact – Without Fact based thinking you
will not be profitable

A person with this thinking style can come across as brusque – only
interested in facts and the bottom line. They work
with numbers,problem solve, and do not like
irrelevant chit chat

Free – without Free thinkers, your business
may be blindsided by a competitor or new technology stealing a march on you

These are the big picture people, big ideas, creative,
insightful and able to bring disparate threads into a whole. They can also be impulsive and don’t like rules, and may chase the next big thing before knuckling down to implement the previous idea.

Form – without form based thinking you
may suffer from quality and consistency issues

This thinking style is organised, neat punctual and implementation
focused. They get frustrated with lack of attention to detail, and don’t like big picture thinking without
much detail.

Feel – Without Feel based thinking your
people will become disengaged, and your staff turnover will climb.

These are the people in your organisation that feel the pulse of your organisation. They are interpersonal, collaborative, great relationship managers. Their Achilles heel may be numbers, but there is no one
better at engaging people.

All of these thinking styles have great strengths, and some not so great consequences. Being able to harness the intelligence of all four quadrants is critical to business success. At Kona, we can show you how to harness the amazing thinking diversity that resides in the minds of you and your staff – and not be out-manoeuvred on any front!