YOUR “WHOLE BRAIN” IS THE SUM OF ITS PARTS
The most widely recognized thinking styles are illustrated as left-brained and
right-brained approaches to problem solving. The left-brained preference is described
as analytical, logical and sequential, while the right-brained preference is described as
intuitive, values-based and nonlinear.
The awareness of one’s own thinking style and the
thinking styles of others combined with the ability to act
outside of one’s preferred thinking style is known as
“Whole Brain Thinking.” This methodology has been
scientifically proven to help individuals at all levels to
become more cooperative and productive, and can lead
to heightened levels of employee and team performance.
By taking advantage of Whole Brain Thinking and
its many applications, companies have addressed issues
including leadership, creative problem solving,
communication, productivity, and more. Companies
who’ve applied the principles of Whole Brain Thinking
have found that once employees are aware of their own
and others’ thinking preferences, they’re much more
likely to want to improve their skills in less preferred
quadrants or to make sure they use other resources to
“bridge the gaps.”
While individual performance improvement is
certainly important, companies are finding that the richest
rewards come from the long-term business results they
WHOLE BRAIN THINKING
The highly validated Whole
Brain Model is scientifically
designed to help people learn
to think better. Training that
utilizes Whole Brain
Technology™ focuses on
showing people how to use
their whole brain – not just the
parts with which they feel most
comfortable.
The Herrmann Brain
Dominance Instrument™
(HBDI™) evaluates and
depicts the degree of
preference individuals have for
thinking in each of four brain
quadrants:
Rational —Blue / A / upper left
Practical —Green / B / lower
left
Feeling —Red / C / lower right
Experimental —Yellow / D /
upper right
Research has shown that
everyone is capable of flexing
to less preferred thinking styles
and learning the necessary
skills to diagnose and adapt to
the thinking preferences of
others. Presenting information
in a way that recognizes,
respects, and is compatible
with different preferences is
crucial to meeting co-worker,
customer, and client needs and
expectations.
The Brains Behind Your Organization’s Success 3
get when they apply this “technology” across their organization and to their customer
relationships.
The most natural place to start applying this “technology” is to diagnose the brains in
your organization. Although a number of different diagnostic tools and assessment
instruments exist for measuring brain dominance, their proponents agree about these basic
points:
• Preferences cannot be labeled inherently good or bad
• People can learn how to act outside their preferred styles
• Understanding others’ preferences supports good communication and promotes
collaboration
Scientific studies have shown that instruments
that classify and describe how people perceive and
interact with the world around them can be powerful
tools in developing employees and achieving
business objectives.
The Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument™
(HBDI™) and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator™
(MBTI™) are two of a number of assessment
systems that have earned scientific and experiential
credibility. The profiles they reveal build selfawareness,
self-esteem and performance. By
helping individuals understand why they “get” some
people and not others, the profiles encourage
individuals to communicate and collaborate more
effectively.
The MBTI is a psychological profile tool to
assess personality type, while the HBDI specifically
measures not only a person’s preference for rightbrained
(intuitive) or left-brained (realistic) thinking,
but also for (cognitive) upper or (visceral) lower
thinking. The HBDI model is more complex because
it is based on scientific research conducted specifically on thinking styles, and thus has
applicability beyond individual profiling. But because it is based on the way our brains are
organized, it is also intuitive and easy to remember. In the HBDI, the different thinking
preferences are categorized into four distinct quadrants, and a person who uses the HBDI
process can easily learn which quadrant(s) for which he or she has a preference and how
those preferences may differ from others they work with.
Valuing different thinking preferences is the key to fewer mixed messages, improved
working relationships, and gaining business advantage. People who understand the nonjudgmental
differences between quadrant preferences can expand the range of their own
behaviors and work productively outside their preferred styles of thinking.
Taken from www.hbdi.com
