As you may know, RSVP Design are great fans of the HBDI ‘metaphor’ of the 4 quadrants of the brain and the thinking styles we associate with them. We’re always interested in relevant and scientifically based validation of how we use our brains to receive and process information about the world around us and I was fascinated to watch this video clip from the RSA. in it, renowned psychiatrist and writer Iain McGilchrist talks about how the ‘divided brain’ has profoundly altered human behaviour, culture and society. I found it fascinating – especially in relation to ‘attention’, ’simplified reality’ and the difference in right and left brain focus.

Have a look – the first few minutes are a little slow but then the pace picks up and it really stimulates some new insights.

http://www.thersa.org/events/vision/vision-videos/iain-mcgilchrist

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In a press release to promote their upcoming Content and Collaboration Summit 2010 (London, UK, September 15-16) Gartner Research forecast 10 key changes in the nature of work through to 2020:  “Work will become less routine, characterized by increased volatility, hyperconnectedness, ’swarming’ and more,” said Tom Austin, vice president and Gartner fellow. By 2015, 40 percent or more of an organization’s work will be ‘non-routine’, up from 25 percent in 2010. “People will swarm more often and work solo less. They’ll work with others with whom they have few links, and teams will include people outside the control of the organization,” he added. “In addition, simulation, visualisation and unification technologies, working across yottabytes of data per second, will demand an emphasis on new perceptual skills.”

We agree with the predictions, and see it as a continuation of change we are already seeing in organisations; and with it will come some major challenges for L&D/OD departments. Here are the ten key changes Gartner forecast, and where we think L&D professionals should be considering a response.

1. De-routinization of Work – the obvious response here is the de-routinization and individual personalisation of training. We look forward to when “Here is the list of available training courses” is accepted as an outdated and wasteful use of trainer and delegate time & resources. I suspect the public sector in the UK has some way to go on this …
2. Work Swarms – workers need more insight into how they might work effectively with others who think differently or have different problem-solving approaches etc. Tools like HBDI or Effective Life-long Learning Inventory will be useful in being able to quickly work effectively in ’swarms’ of people you don’t know well.
3. Weak Links – formal and informal networking will become an even more important skill in the future, and not just for salespeople! Consider how and where social and business networking sites can and should be used during worktime. Is time spent networking on Facebook helping to build weak links, or just chatting with friends? Will updating my blog be considered as vanity or essential to developing these weak links?
4. Working With the Collective – Perhaps ‘influencing’ will become the most desirable skill of any business leader as we move to a position where ‘the collective’ replaces any internal hierarchy? This suggests more  prefered ‘right-side’ thinking style in the HBDI model than the traditonal ‘left-side’ found in many management positions today.
5. Work Sketch-Ups – ‘Designing-in-flight’ or ‘managing in ambiguity’ requires a very different set of skills and behaviours than that typically suggested by teaching through a ‘case-study’ method. How will our Business Schools and academics respond? Will we move to more activity-based learning facilitation than ‘teaching’?
6. Spontaneous Work – This suggests creating the type of corporate culture where this is not only desired but encouraged. How do you build this culture? Contrast this with today where most ‘leaders’ set the work agenda – how do you lead/manage people who develop their own work activities and priorities?
7. Simulation and Experimentation – of course we believe that activity-based learning provides the ideal ’synthetic’ environment to experiment and simulate behaviours. That’s why we create tools to help organisations build their learning environments!
8. Pattern Sensitivity – See Ann’s forthcoming book:  Pattern Making,  Pattern Breaking
9. Hyperconnected – in a hyperconnected world there is probably no time for formal contracts and agreements. Does this suggest an increase in the importance of ‘Trust’ and a requirement to better understand how to build and maintain it? Is it hopefully the end of long-winded tender processes?
10. My Place – how do we deliver training at ‘My Place’  (the workplace may be virtual, may physically be at home, or indeed may change on a daily basis)? Will it be more ‘edutainment apps’, delivered outside of the normal working hours, paid for by discerning individuals (who want to build their learning power) out of their own pocket (or personal learning account)?

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I read the recent Chartered Management Institute Review which stated some interesting and disturbing statistics for UK managers:

CMI recently questioned UK managers to find out which aspects of management they thought they were best at. Of the 2,158 managers polled, almost half (44 per cent) said they excelled at managing people. Twenty-one per cent were target-busters, 19 per cent believed they were strongest at managing themselves and just 14 per cent felt they were born to lead.

CMI has since put those perceptions to the test by inviting UK workers to use a specially-developed self-diagnostic tool to work out where their strengths and weaknesses lie. The results strongly contradict managers’ perceptions, revealing that, in practice, UK managers are best at getting results (41 per cent) and strong leadership (37 per cent). Just 14 per cent of the 6,056 people who used the tool excelled at people management and a paltry eight per cent proved to be best at managing themselves.

See http://www.hrreview.co.uk/articles/hrreview-articles/hr-strategy-practice/half-of-managers-misjudge-their-workplace-performance/10058

I wondered when I read that where do:

1. Most managers go to find out more about their own learning strengths/preferences and personality/thinking preferences? As little of this is taught to most undergraduates where else can ‘ managers’ get this insight, except through their organisation’s L&D team-building or other activities? Should this be mandatory on all undergraduate courses?

and

2. Managers (new or experienced) go to ‘practise’ their management skills? So much of what we see in corporate/organisational L&D is about presenting theories, models, competency frameworks, performance monitoring etc and less about offering these delegates the chance to practise new skills or behaviours. Group learning through experiential activities is a great way to offer people a non-contentious and safe ‘practice field’ for a wide rnage of management and ’soft skills’ rehearsal – but how do we get employers to provide more of it?

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I recently came across this interesting article that suggests that creativity is in crisis!

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/07/10/the-creativity-crisis.html

Creativity involves both divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking opens up new options, ideas and possibilities, disregarding barriers and resource limitations. Convergent thinking then takes these multiple options and works with them, refining them until a useful outcome is produced. Many organisations emphasise convergent thinking but limit divergent thinking. My suspicion is that this is a response to the fear and risk aversion that has developed as a result of a culture of blame and litigation: divergent thinking inherently has risk and failure built in. Standardisation, measurement and control serve a purpose – but the downside is that they diminish creative thought.

If it is true that creativity is in crisis (and according to a recent IBM survey, creativity is an absolutely vital leadership skill) we really need to focus on strategies for re-building creative thinking as a core part of our education system and professional development. Fortunately, the evidence cited in the article also suggests that creativity can be learned. So, what can we, as facilitators of learning, do to enhance the creative abilities of our learners?

Here are some of my thoughts:

1. First re-engage people with the belief that they can be creative. Creativity isn’t just for artists and musicians – it’s the lifeblood of engineers, scientists and researchers too.

2. Help people to understand that creativity is not just about getting flashes of inspiration – it’s about making meaning from connecting ideas together, seeing new patterns in things and viewing existing things from new perspectives.

3. Encourage people to challenge their assumptions.  Help them to see how they can block creativity by holding on to past experience that limits them: “This won’t work because it didn’t before…” or “Stick with this because we know it works”.

At RSVP Design we have a number of tools and workshops that focus on building creativity: we love the activities in our Breakthrough Thinking workshop that aim to do just this. Have a look at the workshop materials you can buy for your own use and enjoy getting creative!

http://rsvpdesign.co.uk/shop/breakthrough-thinking-workshop-p-31.html

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I travelled to Vienna last week, and met with a number of trainers from Central & Eastern Europe. I enjoyed our discussions about varying levels of use and application of experiential and activity based learning techniques in various locations. One particular discussion however rather disturbed me – I met a Polish trainer and showed her some of our metaphor-based tools such as Images of Organisations and problem-based activities such as Seeing the Point. She maintained that she did not like any of them and questioned how useful such tools could be in training. My concern was not that she disliked RSVP Design activites but that she seemed to hold such strong personal feelings about what is ‘right’ without even considering what her ‘trainees’ might need or want. How often do trainers let their personal likes and dislikes colour the training material they design and use? Is there a particular cultural reason why experiential or activity-based learning would not be popular in Poland?

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A great question is the facilitator’s most powerful tool. The questions we choose have very different purposes and lead us to very different results – so how do we go about crafting questions that will generate the responses we are seeking?

If you ask many people to describe to you different types of question and their effect, their responses are often limited to references to ‘open’ and ‘closed’ questions, sometimes with an implication that open questions are in some way ‘better’ than the closed type. When pushed on the question of ‘types of question’, the respondents may extend their thinking to include rhetorical and hypothetical questions and even the idea of ‘the daft (stupid/foolish) question’!

In reality, effective communicators frame questions in many different ways to help to enhance their own communication and to help them to understand the people they are communicating with.
Most of us recognise the impact of a really great question: we are stopped in our thought processes, challenged to analyse our response and given a new perspective on the ‘habitual’ thinking we are engaged in. Equally, most of us recognise the frustration of being asked endless questions, typified by the young child’s repetition of the single question, “Why?”

Too many ill-considered questions cause us to become disengaged, superficial or defensive in our responses but, as any good coach or counsellor knows, the right question at the right time can unlock extensive dialogue and change an individual’s view of the world.

Those of you who read my last post, about using our ‘Whole Brain’ in thinking, will see the link when I describe to you what I see as four valuable categories of question – each related to one of the ‘Whole Brain’ quadrants.

Our ‘upper left’, logical analytical brain leads to questions which are designed to build understanding of processes,
systems and problems.These are often questions of analysis and logic. They are the questions which help us to
understand ‘cause and effect’ and to build convincing arguments and business cases. These questions are objective,
business-like and neutral: they gather information and data and process it effectively.

In contrast, our ‘upper right’, imaginative and synergistic brain provokes questions which are designed to extend our thinking, develop new ideas and approaches and stimulate innovation. These are often questions which ask us to imagine or visualise something new. They often focus on the future rather than the past and on ideal situations rather than ‘real’ ones. They are of enormous value in breaking habits in thinking and encouraging a different perspective and new ideas.

‘Lower left’ questions are designed to create order, control and structure and to help us to plan activities.These are often questions which begin, “How, what, when, who?”. They are questions which organise and categorise our thinking. They
ensure that we pay attention to detail and think through our ideas before we commit to them. These questions are essential in confirming actions, checking understanding and planning.

Finally, lower right questions are designed to build understanding of feelings, beliefs and different interpersonal styles and perspectives. These are often questions which seek to explore people’s feelings and understand their responses.
They are the questions which help us to build strong relationships and to offer empathy to others. They enable us to
anticipate reactions to suggestions and to understand personal problems.

Developing the ability to formulate these questions appropriately is a learned skill. If you play around with the categories you’ll find some much easier to work with then others!

I’ve developed a set of facilitator guidelines and resources that enable you to run an interactive, 2-3 hour skills development workshop around the ‘Art of Great Questions’. If you’re interested and would like more details, contact RSVP Design through the website : www.rsvpdesign.co.uk and ask us questions about questions!

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Most of you are probably familiar with the concept of right-brain and left-brain thinking. You know the basis – left brain logical and mathematical, right brain imaginative and expressive. However, you might not be aware of the ‘Whole Brain’ model developed by Ned Herrmann which extends this into a really simple but valuable way of ‘thinking about thinking’.

The HBDI (Herrmann Brain Dominance Inventory) shows how we use 4 different types of thinking in our everyday lives in order to deal with different situations and relationships. Very briefly, the HBDI breaks our thinking down into 4 areas which could be summarised as analytical/logical, organisational/administrative, inter-personal/expressive and imaginative/holistic. Each of us uses all of these but, as with most of our skills and competences, we prefer, trust and rely upon some more than others.

Knowing something of our own preferences enables us to play to our stengths and be aware of things that we might miss when we think through a problem or seek to take advantage of an opportunity. Knowing something of the preferences of others around us helps us to understand their priorities, avoid potential conflicts and work with them in ways that are most likely to produce positive ans satisfying results.

The HBDI model can give great insights not only into individual thinking and behaviour but also into how teams work. Within the core RSVP Design team of four, we have four significantly different profiles. Which is just as well, because if we were all the same the business would be destined to fail. Geoff’s profile suggests that he is ‘off-the scale’ in the types of thinking that allow him to be creative, see possibilities, make unusual connections and find alternative solutions to old problems. That’s great for our Design Director, but it is just as well we have Graham to apply logical, rational, critical thinking to balance Geoff’s innovative ideas. Kim manages our sales office so we are glad she has a high level of structured, organisational thinking – we need someone to control and pay attention to details. And my profile, pretty well balanced between the 4 areas, allows me to provide a ‘translation service’ and explain Geoff and Graham to each other!

HBDI gives us some great insights into our learning design. By taking a ‘walk’ around the four thinking styles we can check that our experiences will appeal to diverse learners and that our processes are complete and balanced. Conscious decisions, like selecting activities that will appeal to different types of thinking, and asking questions that come from each of the thinking preferences, mean that we present and review experiences from very different perspectives.

We find the HBDI model much more user-friendly and immediately useful than other popular profiles such as MBTI or DISC. We’re surprised that not many people know it. We think you should!

You can find out more about Ned Herrmann’s work on www.hbdi.com

We’re also planning a series of half-day, introductory ‘Whole Brain Thinking’ workshops and further full-day workshops for those who would like to apply the model to their training and learning design – ‘Whole Brain Training’. If you are interested in finding out more, drop us a line and we’ll help you to get as excited as we are about this integrated thinking model.

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