My own interest in brain dominance came as a result of working with a team I led for about two years. On a quarterly basis I brought this group together to
reinforce the importance of being a team and to give them opportunities to practice team behaviors. One of these sessions was facilitated by Claire Conway, a wonderful creativity expert. She suggested that a part of our session be
the HBDI. Administering the HBDI to this group gave them more insight to their own styles and how those styles manifested themselves in the work environment. They were able to have new vocabulary about why certain interactions
occurred and why different people would react differently to different situations. Most importantly they were able to understand the tremendous value in differences. Each of the selves were needed to pull off the many projects we
had to carry out.
For this group the HBDI was very understandable. They could easily relate to the underlying model and immediately make use of its characteristics to better tackle problems.
From my own standpoint, the HBDI
reinforces for me the importance of difference and the need to honor difference to achieve better solutions to problems. Although achieving solutions to problems with individuals of different thinking styles is more difficult than
doing the same with groups of people having the same thinking styles, the possibility for achieving richer solutions is much greater and the risk of getting stuck is less. Thus for environments that need to thrive on creativity,
this survey provides an insight into difference that can facilitate and even reignite creative forces in the individual or in the organization.
The HBDI allowed me to better understand why I have made certain career decisions,
why my own interest in any job changed over a period of time, and why some of my greatest pleasures and abilities are born of generating countless ideas that may or may not see the light of day. For me this was a reinforcement and
a confirmation of things that I only understood intuitively. Now I have a better vocabulary to discuss these aspects of my thinking style.
As I have said, in the end, you may or may not decide to go further with the HBDI as means
to learn more about yourself or to help those in an organization learn more about themselves. The proof as we say is in the pudding. The HBDI stands as a low cost and high return means to get precious insights into improving
performance on an individual and team basis.
