In the last few months, the team here have had the privilege of working through and understanding our Whole Brain® Thinking preferences, guided by the incredibly talented Lorraine Robinson. 

We completed our individual assessments, followed by a virtual group profile debrief and then lastly our ‘ThinkAbout Teams’ session where we got together to think about our thinking and how we can channel our individual thinking into an effective Whole Brain®, whole team approach!

Why did we decide to do this?

We embarked on the Whole Brain® Thinking journey because, as a team committed to continuous learning and development, we’re always looking for ways to enhance how we work together. By experiencing these types of assessments first-hand, we gain valuable insights into our own team dynamics and strengthen our ability to collaborate more effectively. Plus, as training experts, it’s crucial that we stay familiar with the most innovative and interactive tools available. This approach ensures that we don’t just talk about the importance of team building – we live it, and the actionable outcomes have already made a tangible difference to how we work together.

Why HBDI® specifically?

HBDI®, or Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, is a unique assessment tool based on the Whole Brain® Thinking model that helps individuals understand their natural thinking preferences and how they interact with others. Developed by William Herrmann, HBDI® is based on the idea that different parts of the brain are dominant in different people, leading to distinct thinking styles. The Whole Brain® Thinking model uses this to decode and harness the full spectrum of cognitive diversity for individuals, teams and organisations.

Personality profiling assessments have become incredibly popular and are an invaluable tool for organisations to understand their employees’ talents and preferences and create cohesive and inclusive teams. So, what makes HBDI® unique?

There are many assessments out there that take a range of different approaches from measuring personality preferences (e.g. MBTI, Insights and Birkman), to behaviours, communication preferences and strengths (e.g. DiSC, Hogan and CliftonStrengths). However, HBDI® offers insight into the thinking preferences behind our behaviour and personalities. It also provides a comprehensive framework for deeper application into the workplace.

What is HBDI®?

HBDI® divides the brain into four quadrants, each representing a different thinking style:

1. Blue or A Quadrant (Analytical): Blue thinkers are logical, analytical, fact-based, and quantitative. They like to think things through logically and methodically and are great at problem-solving and making decisions.
2. Green or B Quadrant (Practical): Green thinkers are organised, sequential, planned, and detailed. They like to apply their knowledge to real-world situations, and they are adept at organising, planning, taking action, and managing.
3. Red or C Quadrant (Relational): Red thinkers are interpersonal, feeling-based, kinesthetic, and emotional. They are very expressive and empathetic. They are great at fostering relationships, communicating and collaborating.
4. Yellow or D Quadrant (Experimental): Yellow thinkers are holistic, intuitive, integrating, and synthesizing.  They like to think creatively and are open to trying new things. They love concepts, generating new ideas, and envisioning the big picture.

Each quadrant is different but equally important — no one thinking preference is “right” or better than another. We use all four quadrants of our Whole Brain® in our daily lives, although most of us feel more comfortable with certain thinking than others. The HBDI® assessment, determines your degree of preference in each quadrant, plotting your unique thinking flow on a graph. It also generates your unique preference code, with lower numbers signifying a higher preference.

From here, the journey starts to get even more interesting as you start to explore your Left vs Right Modes, and Upper vs Lower Modes. For example, I have a far greater preference for Right Mode thinking, (77% vs 23%) which means that I am more inclined to use the intuitive, expressive and idealistic thinking of the C and D quadrants, versus the detailed, efficient and rational thinking of the A and B quadrants. I have a far more even split between the Upper and Lower Modes (53% vs 47%) with a slight preference for Upper Mode thinking. This means that I am more likely to use the conceptual and theoretical thinking of the A and D quadrants, rather than the instinctive and visceral thinking of the B and C quadrants.

One of the most interesting parts for me was exploring your profile under pressure. Understanding how your thinking preferences change and whether they are dialled up or down. For me personally, my already less preferred quadrants of A and B (Blue and Green), shrink even further under pressure, something I can relate to and I’m aware of.

Finally, to complete your profile, you start to consider things like introversion vs. extroversion, what times of day you have more or less energy, how you like to communicate and the best way to build trust with you.

Your HBDI® profile completion is all housed in your online portal, with a mix of online videos, reading, self-evaluation and reflection to guide your learning.

All pretty neat and very interesting indeed, but now what?!

Well, some of the benefits that HBDI® claims to offer for individuals and organisations, include:

• Self-awareness: Understanding your dominant thinking style can help you recognise your strengths and weaknesses, leading to greater self-awareness and personal growth.
• Improved communication: By understanding the thinking styles of others, you can communicate more effectively and build stronger relationships.
• Enhanced teamwork: HBDI® can help teams identify their collective strengths and weaknesses, allowing them to work together more collaboratively and efficiently.
• Effective decision-making: By considering the perspectives of different thinking styles, you can make more informed and balanced decisions.
• Career development: HBDI® can help you identify career paths that align with your natural thinking preferences, leading to greater job satisfaction and success.

However, at this point in the journey, I have to confess to feeling a little overwhelmed with information. Logically I understood it all – my A quadrant, although lower preference was shown to be largely driven by a desire to understand the world around me and how things work – which makes sense with my science background. But how was I going to use it and how was it going to help me, and more importantly help the team reach some of these tangible benefits?

How to apply it.

Cue our ‘ThinkAbout Teams’ session, where everything really started to come to life and have meaning, under the expert guidance and facilitation of Lorraine. In this session we took a deep dive into understanding each other’s profiles and what they meant, and, critically, how our profiles operate together as a team. For me personally, this was a step beyond any of the other personality profiles I had explored with teams in the past.

Now we could layer each of our individual graphs on top of each other, look at where our strengths were, where our gaps were and how our team profile evolved under pressure. It became instantly clear that our team thinking flow was D-C-B-A, or in other words, Yellow (why/conceptual) – Red (who/people-oriented) – Green (how and when/process and struture) – Blue (what/data and goals). Not a huge surprise, given what we do is largely about innovation and people!

It also became clear where there were clusters of individual strengths that could work together, and where there were fewer collective strengths, potentially relying (too heavily at times) on certain individuals. This highlighted to us that overall, we are a cognitively diverse team, but we have some gaps and it’s invaluable to be able to see these blind spots.

But it didn’t stop there, armed with this understanding we were able to put this into practice, in a variety of situations (hand-picked by us), where we challenged ourselves to think in a different preference flow to our combined profile, and instead lean on the preferences of each person in the team to support that quadrant.

I have to say, it was one of the best development sessions I have ever been to!

How will it impact us and what next?

Following on from our Team session, we have continued access to our own HBDI® portal. Here we can access our own profile information and that of the whole team. We can pick this up whenever we need it along with a host of other useful resources.

With this methodology behind us and the Whole Brain® Walkaround tools to help us, we are challenging the way we do things.

This has already started with something as simple as considering how we structure an effective team meeting, taking into account our thinking flow and ensuring we’ve covered all quadrants – a perfect example (just today in fact!).

But it doesn’t end there! We can use this to continue to challenge ourselves whether that’s dealing with strategic issues, communicating, getting buy in, dealing with frustrations, making business decisions in a crisis, or forming project teams.

And I’ve no doubt we will become more versed in the language of Whole Brain® Thinking and with that, the possibilities are endless.  By recognising and appreciating the diversity of thinking styles, we can create more inclusive, productive, and fulfilling environments, with a lasting positive impact on us as individuals, our team and of course our clients.

With special thanks to Lorraine Robinson for your invaluable support on our journey so far!

For more information: contact Lorraine on Linkedin, or give me a shout and I will happily put you in touch

Or visit Think Herrmann to learn more.