A Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument Experience

One of the perks of working for a multinational corporation while living in the third world is being exposed to other ways of thinking than what's been generally accepted in ones environment. We've been hastily generalized to have sets of traits by observers from both outside and our own countrymen.

Filipino's Positive Traits	Filipino's Negative Traits
Hospitable	Colonial Mentality
Close Family Ties	Nosy
Respectful	Whiners
Adaptable & Flexible	Devalue Time
Self Reliant	Crab Mentality

_{Important Note: These traits are generalized and does not apply to "every" Filipinos. Globalization have resulted to a lot of improvement in the negative traits, while surprisingly keeping the positive traits pretty much intact.}

The worst part of this is we are very seldom self-aware of how we deal with others, how we are perceived, and ultimately how we think. Most of us grew up seeing adults gossip about other people's lives rather than discussing how we can improve the quality of our own lives. We generally focus on the fault of others than seeking and understanding the way we think (and the potential faults thereof).

One of the highlights of my career in the BPO industry is working for the CRM leg of IBM before that was bought out by my last organization. I was already holding mid-management level positions at that time, but can truly say that my personal and professional development were mostly influenced by my tenure at IBM.

_{And we must study through reading, listening, discussing, observing, and thinking. We must not neglect any one of those ways of studying. The trouble with most of us is that we fall down on the latter, thinking, because it's hard work for people to think. And as Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler said recently: "All of the problems of the world could be settled easily if men were only willing to think."~ Thomas J. Watson - IBM Chairman & CEO (1914 - 1956)}

I've been misunderstood for a long time while I was building a career. I've had difficulty expressing my real intent in many occasions. It is only after taking the three day seminar on Whole Brain Thinking that I got to understand much of what was causing me to be misunderstood, and my difficulty in expressing my intent.

_{Image Source}

While the intention of my previous organization was to support my professional development and become a better manager, ultimately making positive impact to the bottom line, the Whole Brain Thinking seminar helped me in my personal growth as much as it did in my professional advancement. Whole Brain Thinking intends to show people's thinking preferences, and how one can stretch beyond his or her preference to fully utilize the whole brain in thinking. For large organizations, it can also be used to put teams that form a whole brain together by having balanced mix of preferences within teams.

By taking a 120 questions psychometric assessment, Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument returns datasets that describe thinking preferences in people and teams. With a deeper understanding of ones own thinking preferences, one can learn to adjust to other ways of thinking, or have a better appreciation of other's thinking preferences. The hope is that these will all lead to healthier discussions and collaboration where differences in what each of the team members value, communication style, and way of thinking are understood and appreciated.

While taking the assessment, I was certain that it will return a somewhat balanced result, after all I've been dealing with pretty much all kinds of people for years at the time of the assessment. The result in the image below shows how wrong I was.

For years that I've spent in dealing with people, organizing and leading teams, and running projects; I have expected a more balance distribution of between the Analytical, Experimental, Relational, and Practical quadrants. As it turns out I am still predominantly Analytical, and I only become more Relational under pressure. I suck at conceptualizing and planning by default, and I am even worst at both under pressure.

My HBDI Profile

A > C > D > B

_{Descriptors in this thinking style which you selected are Logical, Critical, Rational, Mathematical and Quantitative, with Analytical representing your 'Key Descriptor' - the one most descriptive of you. These descriptors represent a general overview of your mental preferences in day-to-day life. Work Elements you strongly relate to in this quadrant include Analytical, Technical and Problem solving. These Elements reflect your mental preferences at work. Work preferences may align completely with general preferences, or they may stem from situations unique to one's working environment. In the forced-choice, Adjective Pairs section of the Survey, 29% of your responses registered in the A Quadrant. For comparison purposes, your A Quadrant Profile Score represents 34% of your total Profile.}

_{Your next most preferred is the C Quadrant, with 80 points. In this thinking style, you selected Talker and Intuitive as descriptive of you. Work Elements you identified as ones you do well include Expressing and Interpersonal. In Adjective Pairs 38% of your responses registered in the C Quadrant, compared to 26% of your overall Profile.}

_{Your next most preferred is the D Quadrant, with 71 points. In this quadrant you selected Intuitive as descriptive of you. Work Elements you identified as ones you do well include Innovating. 21% of your Adjective Pairs responses fell in the D Quadrant, compared to 23% of your Profile.}

_{Your least preferred quadrant, based upon your Survey responses, is the B Quadrant, with a value of 57. In this quadrant you selected Speaker as characteristic of you. 13% of your Adjective Pairs responses fell in the B Quadrant, compared to 18% of your Profile.}

_{The Adjective Pairs result tells us something about how we react when under pressure. This may or may not be consistent with our general behavior. The distribution of your responses to these questions into the A, B, C and D Quadrants was 7 - 3 - 9 - 5 respectively. This distribution, while not perfectly aligned with your profile, is not radically out of alignment either. This suggests that there may be some shifts in your thinking style when under pressure, perhaps with a less-preferred quadrant becoming more dominant or a generally preferred one receding into the background.}

HBDI is a program that my previous organization paid for. There are free alternatives that may give insights about your thinking preferences and personality in general. I highly suggest taking some free assessment online as a starting point towards your own journey to self-awareness. Going back to the generalized Filipino traits in the beginning of this post, I think that the many events in our history led to the way we think in general. Much so that my thinking preferences were shaped by my personal and professional experiences. Be that as it may, we live in an age where there is abundance of information which can help us adjust our way of thinking. However, we all have to start with removing our filters of denial. The journey to self-awareness is never easy, but the many realizations it lead to are well worth it.

This post is an introduction to an exploratory series about the Filipinos as a people, and alternative paths we can take towards progress. We are a nation and people of great potential, it's time we realize that.

Image Credits:

Four Thinking Quadrants - Herrmann
Thinking Man Silhouette - Pixabay
Think at Lincoln Center by IBM - WikiMedia

References:

Herrmann Solutions
Think (IBM) - WikiPedia