What if the biggest leadership blind spot isn’t skill, experience, or knowledge, but how you think?

In this Leadership Unscripted episode of Unleash Your Impact, Unlock Others, Rich and Dave explore Whole Brain Thinking, the powerful model developed by Ned Herrmann that reveals how different thinking preferences shape the way we lead, communicate, and solve problems.

They dive into why understanding your own and others’ thinking styles is a game-changer for leaders, particularly when it comes to building trust, avoiding miscommunication, and flexing your leadership style under pressure.

You’ll also hear how Zentano uses Whole Brain Thinking in coaching and leadership development programmes, including the 12 June “Unlocking Inclusive Thinking” workshop at Stanbrook Abbey, where this model plays a central role.

🔥 And there’s more: this episode sets the stage for an exciting upcoming conversation with Ann Herrmann-Nehdi, Chair & Chief Thought Leader of Herrmann International and daughter of Ned Herrmann.

Key Talking Points:

• What Whole Brain Thinking is and why it matters in leadership
• Why your thinking preferences don’t define who you are or what you can achieve
• Encoding vs. decoding: the root of many workplace misunderstandings
• The power of cognitive diversity in teams
• Why flexing your thinking style is the mark of adaptive leadership
• How Zentano integrates the model into coaching and workshop design

Join us on 12 June for Unlocking Inclusive Thinking

🔗 Book your place: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1286601502729?aff=oddtdtcreator

Welcome to Unleash youh Impact Unlock Others, a podcast about inspiring leadership. We hope to bring you grounded wisdom, stories from real leaders and leave you feeling inspired. Let's dive in.

So welcome to this leadership unscripted episode of Unleash youh Impact. Unlock Others. As usual, I'm here with Rich Horton. Hi, Rich.

Hi, Dave.

And today we're going to talk about a topic close to both our hearts, something called whole brain thinking. And this is about how we use our brain as the most effective leadership tool out there.

Rich, in your experience, why is understanding the brain and the cognitive diversity that we all have really important for leadership?

Well, I guess the first thing I would say is that we all have whole brains.

Yeah.

I'm assuming that you do as well.

I think I do, yeah.

And the brain is an extremely complex organ. It's probably the most complicated thing in the entire cosmos. Perhaps some people have speculated that.

So the way our brain is wired, the way our brain is structured fundamentally affects the way we communicate, the way we process information, and the way we collaborate, the way we problem solve all of those things. Our brain is at the center of those things.

And all those things like communication, trust, collaboration, problem solving, all of those challenges, if you like, are at the heart of leadership.

When I go into teams and often inside teams, the big issue often is communication, or one of the big issues is building trust or lack of trust between leaders and the team members or between respective team members. So if we can get a handle on how the brain impacts those areas, we're going to be better leaders as a result.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think I've used the phrase before. I know you have. That our brains are all very unique and they kind of produce our own map of the world.

Just want to expand on this analogy of the map of the world that we've all got.

Yeah. So, I mean, one thing to say is we do not have unmediated access to reality. So in other words, what we perceive around us, we interpret.

Yeah.

So let's think about this conversation we're having right now. So at the moment, I'm thinking in my head, what is it that I need to say?

So I have got some ideas and concepts sort of wrapped up inside my head that I need to encode in language.

Okay.

So it is an encoding process of those concepts and ideas. I need to encode that. And that encoding process is unique to me.

So the way I encode is intrinsically linked to the way my brain is wired and structured. So I then encode what I want to say my ideas and I then communicate that to you through whatever medium I've chosen.

So at the moment we're talking together, so I will speak. You know, another medium would be emails or teams or chat or WhatsApp or whatever that might mean.

So when you receive that communication from me, essentially what you'll do is you'll need to decode what I've just communicated to you.

Yeah.

So the decoding process is the reverse of the encoding process.

So depending on how your brain is wired and structured, all your different beliefs and values and the way you see the world and the way you see people, you would decode what I've said on that basis?

Yeah, absolutely.

So if you think about that encoding, decoding process happens all the time. Interpretation is involved at both ends of that communication trail. So what could possibly go wrong?

Well, and I think, yeah, and I think this is a really important point because that encoding and decoding is based on our own filters and those filters are made up of a lot of things. It's our life experiences, it's our beliefs, beliefs, it's the stories we carry around about ourselves and other people.

There's a whole raft of things that, as you said, mean that you're wired differently to me. And it's those things that we use to encode and decode this information that we are either giving out or receiving.

And as you said, what could possibly go wrong, Rich?

Yes, exactly.

So when organizations use things like profiling tools and, you know, models to understand the way we're wired and the way we behave, they are attempts at, if you like, understanding how human beings encode and decode.

And I think the first thing to say before we get into the whole brain thinking model, because there is a profiling tool available for has applications beyond the profiling tool. It's just all of these tools and all these models are just a lens on a certain part of the human condition.

So there is no profiling tool out there, including whole brain thinking, actually that explains the entirety of the human condition.

No.

So that's why it's important to use, you know, a multitude of tools and also not start to label yourself to say I'm a this or I'm a that, because actually that can be extremely unhelpful and can lock us into sort of unhelpful thinking patterns. So just to treat all of these models with a healthy dose of salt.

But actually it's a really good self awareness tool that can help us nuance our understanding of ourself.

So in other words, what good profiling tools do is they give us a window into our encoding process and they also give us a window into the decoding process of the person we're trying to communicate with, build trust with, collaborate, etc.

I think why you and I like whole brain thinking specifically is it's actually quite simple to understand. And as you said, it's got lots of really practical knock on benefits, but it is just simply based on preference.

It's based on how we prefer to take in and process information and push it back out again. And that keeps it nice and simple. Having said that, neuroscience isn't simple as we know.

No, no, indeed. Yeah.

So let's talk about the model itself.

Now obviously there's been a lot of theory around for many, many years now about there's the right hemisphere of the brain, the left hemisphere of brain, there's the inner brain and the outer brain. And I know you keep yourself up to date on the latest neuroscience and thinking around this stuff.

Should we just explain some of those things as a starting point to understand the model?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And at the time, I think neuroscience was starting to think actually, you know, we have a left hemisphere of the brain. We have a right hemisphere of the brain.

There was also this concept of what they call the sort of the triune brain theory that was around at the time. And I think Ned was trying to take some of that understanding of the way the brain was structured and apply it to this idea.

We have different thinking preferences. Now. Neuroscience has moved on since then. So some of the core concepts that he talked about actually still hold true.

So it's very true that we have a left and a right hemisphere.

Yeah.

And in very broad terms, there are certain things that the left hemisphere of the brain specializes in. That's the logical, analytical type thinking, the stuff that breaks stuff down into its component parts.

And the right brain, often that's where, you know, in popular sort of parlance, things like creativity, making connections, you know, language, all of that sort of stuff starts to happen. That's broadly true.

But actually what happens in practice is the left and the right hemispheres of the brain work together in a holistic way in a very interdependent way that's actually hugely complex.

Yeah.

So we don't want to get too hung up on the structure of the brain. That's where this Model sort of had its roots in.

But actually fundamentally speaking, it's true to say that in terms of what we call left brained thinking, that's what we call the logical, the analytical part of our thinking preferences, that breaks stuff down into its component parts, helps us to rationalize things, helps us to analyze things, Likes data, it likes organizing things. So I think people would agree, actually they could probably see that as human beings we all have that style of thinking available to us.

Yeah, we may not prefer to do those things, but we can do it.

Yeah. So everybody has a whole, whole brain and that's a style of thinking that's available to everyone.

The other style of thinking is related to what is in the past been called right brain to thinking.

So this is the creative part of the brain, the part of the brain that sees connections, both connections in terms of ideas and concepts, connections in terms of people.

So again, that's the part of us that likes to synthesize, that likes to be creative, that likes to make those creative connections between concepts and ideas. But those two thinking styles and preferences, sort of, they work together in a holistic way.

So both those styles of thinking are accessible to all people. But what this model suggests, and I think it's true that actually we have preferences for certain types of thinking.

So, you know, certain people might have a very strong preference for left brained type thinking, or they might have a very strong preference for what we call right brained type thinking. And what this model teaches is no style is right or wrong. We have all styles available to us, but we have a preference.

And often that preference shapes the way we encode and decode. Going back to what I was talking about before. So that's two thinking styles. There are two more thinking preferences.

That's the whole brain thinking model references and it's what is called in the model upper and lower brain thinking. So again, this is not deep neuroscience. These are useful metaphors for different styles of thinking.

So what we call the lower style of thinking, if you like, that's the part of our brain, the part of our wiring that keeps us safe. It likes to organize things, it likes to sequence things, it likes to make sure that things get done in a, in a certain way.

So that's what we call sort of the lower order thinking, a style of thinking, if you like, that was more accessible to us earlier on in our evolutionary history. But as human beings, we have evolved what we call higher order thinking.

So the higher order thinking, so that's the rational, the reasoning, the abstract types of thinking that that's available to us. So in other words, it's our ability to rationalize and our ability to essentially I guess, be self aware.

Yeah.

And I guess if you take these four styles of thinking that you've just been talking about there, so you have the, the right brain function, the left brain function, the, if you like, for want of a better word, the lower brain function, the upper brain function, as you said, that almost creates four different versions of ourselves. So we have that analytical self that likes to tap into logic and data, sometimes quantitative information or technical information.

There's also the structural self, which likes to be organized and process orientated and detail focused and actually tries to keep risk mitigated, that kind of thing. You've also got the relational self, which is very people centered and actually likes to communicate and make connections with people.

And then you have the experimental self which is all about what you were talking about there. Reasoning, complex reasoning, creativity, abstract concepts, which is all really important for things like innovation, big picture thinking.

So we all have these four thinking cells, but the point you're making is we have a preference as to which ones we tap into. Now if I, for example, I'm left brain dominant and you're right brain dominant, that means we're tapping into different preferences.

Yeah, tapping into different preferences. The other styles of thinking are still available to us, but often they're not our first port of call, if you like. So it depends on the context.

Again, so this is contextual. So you will find that in different contexts you will pull on different sort of thinking styles and different thinking preferences.

But the whole point is what do you often go to impacts the way you encode and the way you decode information from your environment.

So it fundamentally affects the way you communicate, it fundamentally affects the way you build trust and it creates your map of the world, essentially.

Yeah.

So if, if my map of the world is based on my relative preference for those four thinking styles, that map, if you like, that preference map, looks very different to yours. Yeah. And it looked very different to my wife as well.

Yeah. And actually fundamentally you and I are both actually right brain dominant in our preferences.

But because our map of the world isn't just about our preferences, it's about our experiences growing up. It's about, you know, a lot of other things that affect how we see the world.

Just because we're both right brain dominant doesn't mean we encode and decode things the same way.

Yeah, exactly, yeah, yeah. So going back to those four thinking preferences. So the upper right thinking preference that's what you call the experimental self.

So that's the creative big picture stuff. The lower right is what we call the relational self.

So that's the, the part of us, the thinking preference that's very people focused, can relate to stuff like spirituality, musicality, that sort of stuff as well.

Yeah.

The lower left is what you call the practical self. So that's all about sequencing stuff, it's all about quality, it's all about getting stuff done, it's all about engaging with the detail.

And then the upper left, the analytical, that's the stuff where we engage with the data. We like to rationalize, we like to use logic. So those four different thinking preferences plays itself out in very practical ways.

So would you like me to bring that to life by giving some examples of how my wife and I go shopping?

Well, I think it's a good point though, actually, because I think understanding how this plays out in reality is a really important thing. So take that example then. Yeah, just talk to me about how you and your wife go shopping. That could be quite interesting.

That's okay. Yeah.

So fundamentally we have different thinking preferences, and those thinking preferences, if you like, drive the way we interact with the world and fundamentally then drive the way we behave. So if my two strongest thinking preferences are the upper right, that's the experimental self, that's the big picture creative sort of stuff.

And the lower right, that's the relational sort of people focused type stuff, that's where my strongest preferences are. The other styles are accessible to me, but that's often where I go to. So it's the big picture creative stuff.

So my wife's preferences actually, so she has a strong, what we call practical thinking style, that's the lower left. So that's what we call the safe keeping thinking style. It's very practical, likes detail, likes structure, likes process.

So in a work context, we'll come to the shopping in a minute.

In the work context, a person with that strong thinking preference will like detail, will have lists of things to do on a certain day, and will often like to project, manage things and get stuff done.

Whereas somebody with a strong experimental thinking preference, they're the people that like to brainstorm, that like to think creatively, that don't like to be tied down. So they're the diagonal opposite to each other.

So what you're basically saying, Rich, is that you're living with your head in the clouds and she's bringing you down to grounded reality.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So when we go to shop into Aldi, you know, because, you know, times are hot, times are hard, and all that sort of stuff.

Other supermarkets are available.

Other supermarkets are available. Yeah. So when we go shopping to Aldi. Right. Okay. So when.

And there's a reason actually why Teresa mainly does the shopping and she goes rather than I do. But when we go together, we walk through the Aldi. Aldi front door, what do you think she pulls out of her pocket? Pocket?

Oh, she's had. She's definitely got. I know Teresa very well. She will have a list.

It's probably written in the order of the aisles because she knows which aisles are which. She'll write a list and so she knows what. Go down this aisle first and we'll get these things and then we'll go. That's.

That's how she would approach shopping. There's no way you'd approach it that way.

No. So I do not have a list. So that doesn't mean that I'm not practical and organized.

You know, that style of thinking and behaving is available to me, but it's not. It's not my go to. So often when we go shopping, you know, that's where we default to type, isn't it?

So when we walk through the door, she will walk straight to the aisle that, you know, aligns with the list that she's got. I'll walk Cazoldi. I'll walk to the central aisle where all the exciting things are like, you know, divers costumes and trombones.

And as a result, our shopping cart has all sorts of stuff in it that's not on Teresa's list. So the, you know, the trombone, for example. Yeah, the trombone. So, you know, so the price of the shop goes up.

Now, actually, you can think inside a team. Actually, those two different styles of thinking behaving could actually cause real problems, couldn't they?

Yeah. I mean, okay, that's a very fun and practical everyday example.

But if you apply this logic to, as you said, to working in teams inside an organization where two people approach the same task or the same issue or the same problem from completely different standpoints.

Yeah.

Like you said earlier on, what could possibly go wrong?

Actually, we need to understand, going back to that analogy of the map of the world, you're coming in, approaching this task from your map of the world, somebody else, Teresa, whoever, is coming in and approaching it from her map of the world. You're not going to look at this problem the same way?

No, no. I remember thinking back to one of the offices I used to work in, and I had a Fairly big team at the time, used to receive lots of emails.

And one of the things I strict, you know, for all sorts of reasons, I don't like emails and I certainly don't like detailed emails.

So if you think about my thinking preference, that's upper right thinking preference, the experimental, that's the big picture, doesn't like to be tied down.

So if I get a detailed email, lots of detail and lots of bullet points in, you know, I usually skate over that and think when I get that email and thought, here we go again.

I remember there was, there was one person I used to work with, so I'm not going to mention any names or tell you where it was, but I remember on a regular basis I would have long emails from them with lots of detail, lots of bullet points. And I remember the frustration that used to bubble up inside me when I received an email from this person.

And you can see how actually those two very different styles of thinking can lead quite easily to frustration.

Now actually what you want in that situation is for both parties to value the different way of behaving, the different way of communicating and the value that brings to the team. So this person actually their ability to engage with the detail, to structure stuff and to get things done, that brought real value to the team.

But there was a danger that it would cause frustration because neither of us were flexing our approach in terms of the way we communicated with each other.

Now at the time, you know, my way of sort of managing and handling that was actually rather than reading the email in detail, I'll go to the person who's literally just a little bit further down in the corridor and say, you just sent me a really long email. Can you just give me the gist of what you just said and tell me what are the important things I need to focus on.

So I don't know whether that was the best approach or not, I don't know. But it was a way of us trying to work together when we both had very different styles.

I mean, you talked about trust earlier on. I've given you an example about trust. So I remember a few years ago I was running a workshop for some leaders that were in the care sector.

And I knew on this workshop I had a husband and wife and the husband arrived first to the workshop. Now he'd be what you call a very relational thinker, very people focused. He came in, he said, how are you, Dave?

I've met him before, you know, how's the family? And the conversation initially was very, very family orientated. People orientated. Yeah.

His wife turns up 10 minutes later because they'd come separately for a variety of reasons. She comes in and her first words to me were, can I ask you a question? I said, yeah, if you like.

What gives you the right to be training us today on leadership in the care sector? That was her question. And it came out literally that bluntly. Yeah.

Okay.

So straight away, I kind of sussed out what was going on here. I'd never met her before, I'd met him before, never met her before. So I'm an unknown quantity to her.

But what she was actually doing was saying, I need to better trust that it's worth spending my time here. And I don't know who you are. Can I just have some factual, logical information so that I can actually sit down?

And I said, I said, what do you need to know? And she said, well, what's your experience of the care sector? So I gave her a good explanation of why I understood the care sector.

What qualifications have you got? So I explained that once I'd done that, she said, oh, that's great, thank you very much, sat down and was as good as gold.

But there's two people there with two different thinking preferences that approach that initial conversation completely differently. And that's how this stuff plays out in reality, isn't it?

And if you think about the whole brain model, actually what you described there are the two thinking preferences. The one is what we call the top left. So that's the analytical self.

So that's the left brain, sort of upper, upper brain style of thinking, all that logical, analytical stuff. So they're the people when they build trust, it's all about credibility.

Yeah.

And the diagonal opposite to that is the lower right, the relational thinking style. And that's very, as you said, very people focused. So people with that strong thinking preference build trust instinctively.

Would that be the intuitively instinctively?

Yeah, intuitively instinctively. And they're two very diagonally opposite ways of processing and interacting with the world and building trust. So imagine.

Yeah, so imagine that playing out in a team. Well, we get people with very different styles of thinking.

Yeah, imagine if I hadn't realized why she was asking that question, and I could have easily reacted quite badly to that blunter question, but I kind of sussed out what was going on. So I think spotting this stuff is really important.

So the more we understand this model, it allows us then to read the room better, it allows us to read other people better, and it allows us to flex and adapt our approach.

Because I think the Whole point of why this is relevant to leadership is leveraging all four of these thinking styles that you've been talking about is really crucial if you want to be a well rounded leader.

Well, it goes back to the heart of our connected leadership model. At the heart of our connected leadership model is what we call the connected centre.

And one of the core components of that connected center is the ability to be self. Aware.

So in other words, you're aware of your lens, your lenses, your map of the world and the impact those lenses, that map of the world has on the way you communicate and the way you interact with people around you.

So that's the self awareness bit, but also it enables you to recognize other people's maps of the world and then the connected center, the idea behind that is you then flex and adapt your approach to meet the other person in the world that they're operating from.

Yeah. So for example, if I, if I thought, ah, yeah, I've got a logical thinker, an analytical thinker here.

I need to give this person logic or data or technical information.

If I have what you call the structural practical thinker, they're going to need clarity, they're going to need some structure, some process or some detail. The relational thinkers, yeah, they want to make emotional connection with you.

So there's going to have to be some sort of people focused emotional, empathetic type of connection. And the experimental thinkers, they need inspiration and vision and big picture.

So as long as you know what they need and as long as you can recognize it, then you can flex your leadership style.

Yeah.

Now just one little caveat I just add to that Dave, is actually we've got to be really careful that we use this as a model to if you like, clue, spot their encoding, decoding preferences.

Yep.

But we've got to be very careful that we don't pigeonhole people.

Absolutely.

You know, so just because I for example have a very strong experimental thinking style, it doesn't mean that I access that thinking style all the time.

No.

You know, things like stress and pressure and different contexts, different situations, they will trigger in me other ways of thinking and I'll access all of those four thinking styles in a very sort of complex its way but actually it gives us a very simple model to spot where those preferences are very strong and then we can adapt our, and flex our approach as a result.

Well, go back to your shopping example. You know, you and I both have those right brain dominant thinking preferences, but I approach shopping differently to you. I do take a list.

Yes.

And the main Reason I take a list is I don't, I hate shopping. I don't like shopping. I want to get it in there, get it done and get out as quickly as possible.

So I take a list just because it makes the job quicker for me. So like you say, you access different styles of thinking based on a whole raft of factors. And we shouldn't pigeonhole people. Definitely not.

Yeah.

And we shouldn't pigeonhole ourselves because one of the dangers I see of when profiling tools are not used well inside organizations is people will say, well, I'm a red or I'm a green or.

And actually the better way to think about this is maybe you do have a strong preference for red or yellow or whatever that might be in terms of the profiling tool that you're thinking. But don't pigeonhole yourself and don't pigeonhole other people.

Absolutely.

Because actually just becomes a self fulfilling prophecy and you become a parody of yourself if you're not careful. Actually, fundamentally what these tools are designed to do is to enable us to be flexible and adaptable.

That's the key thing, that's the key message I think I'd like people to take away from this is use these models to understand yourself, understand other people, and to flex and adapt and to climb into the world of the other person, understand their world. I think it was Stephen Covey who said something like seek first to understand. So that's understand in their world, then be understood.

So in other words, it's bringing self awareness to that encoding, decoding process.

And whole brain thinking is a really practical way to do that. I totally agree.

It is, exactly. Yeah.

Can I move the conversation on to just the difference between preference and competence? Because I think sometimes that can confuse as well.

So there's one thing to have a natural preference for something that doesn't necessarily, doesn't necessarily mean we have competence in something we have a preference for. So George, want to unpack that for me briefly?

Okay, so I mean let's take my whole brain thinking profile. So I've done the online questionnaire and had a sort of detailed report back that reports back lots of stuff around my thinking preference.

So I have a very strong experimental thinking preference, quite a strong relational thinking preference. My analytical thinking preference is relatively strong and my practical is pretty low. Okay, so that's preference.

So some people that know me will know that I've had a background in it. I used to program computers and stuff. I was a computer programmer.

So you might look at my thinking preference profile and think, okay, so You've got a low, fairly low, lowish analytical thinking preference. So how did you become a computer programmer? Well, preference and competence are two very different things. Okay.

So that analytical thinking preference is available to me and I can think analytically and logically really, really well. But it's not always my go to thinking style.

So I can, I can do things like program a computer, write, you know, code to get stuff done, and I can think about that in a very sort of logical, analytical way. So that's a competence that I've developed that's not necessarily aligned to my thinking preference.

So what's quite interesting is I had a midlife crisis because I think I recognized actually that my competencies in terms of what I was being paid to do in my day to day work were not fully aligned with my thinking preferences. So this job, I would say, is more aligned to my thinking preferences than some of the jobs I used to have in my past career.

So in other words, my ability to be creative, to design workshops, to do podcasts like this, to be relational, to coach people, but also to access some of that analytical thinking style as well, all of that comes together in the way that we operate inside Zentano. So I feel much more fulfilled because my, the work that I do is more aligned to my preferences.

Yeah, and it's worth saying that, you know, preference does come naturally. It's based on that early development of you in charge, whereas competence is something you can develop.

So for example, if you or I have a thinking style, you think, well, that's not our strongest preference. It doesn't mean we can't do some work on it and develop some competence in that area because that's available to us.

And I think for goodly go back to my point about leveraging all four of these thinking styles is really important for well rounded leadership. We should make the best of our strengths, recognize where those competencies are and make the best of them.

But also we should develop areas where maybe we need to do something a bit different.

Yes. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Again, this is not about pigeonholing yourself.

It's about understanding self, understanding where your strengths are going to play out and going to be a real benefit and understanding where your potential blind spots might be.

Yeah. So in wrapping this up, Rich, we're in the 21st century now.

Leadership, as we've said in previous podcasts, is pretty damn challenging with all the things that are going on. But there are some skill sets for modern leaders where whole brain thinking can really help.

So I'm thinking of for Example, cognitive agility, the ability to shift between different styles of thinking. That's probably more important now than it's ever been.

Absolutely.

We've talked about the concept of systems thinking where think of your organization that you work for as a living, breathing organism. We need to be able to again, see multiple perspectives to navigate that world that we, that we're operating in, don't we? Empathy.

Yeah.

We really, really need to see the world from other people's perspectives.

We've now got, what, I don't know, five different generations in the workplace often these days, you know, there's a whole raft of people with different perspectives. If we cannot see things from different perspectives, we're going to get in trouble. And obviously we need to innovate.

We need to find new ways to solve problems that we're now facing in the world. But that again, requires a whole brain approach to thinking. Would you not agree?

Yeah, absolutely.

And just so our listeners know that in a future podcast, hopefully in the not too distant future, we've got Ann Herrmann, who's the daughter of Ned Herman, the founder of Herman International, which are the people that promote whole brain thinking and produce the profiling tools. So we are qualified practitioners for whole brain thinking. So, you know, we interact a lot with Herman International, use their profiling tools.

So actually it's going to be really exciting to hear Ann Herman's perspective on whole brain thinking and all that stuff you were talking about, actually how it can really benefit organizations.

Yeah, absolutely.

And benefit leadership.

Really interesting to get her take on this. So just in wrapping up Rich, close the podcast down today.

What's your one key insight or takeaway that you'd like people to sort of think about off the back of this podcast?

I think I would go back to this idea. Seek first to understand and then be understood. So be aware of your encoding process.

But when you're having a one to one with somebody or reading an email or a team's message from somebody, before you respond, just try really hard to what I call clue, spot what you think to be their strongest thinking preference. And then if you understand, you know their.

If you think you understand what might be their strongest thinking preference, flex the way you respond based on what you think you've seen.

So my tip for this would be for people listening, let's say you've got an issue that you're facing or a problem you want to solve, try and solve that problem from a whole brain perspective. So what I mean by that is what's the big. What's the big picture context for that problem? Why does it matter?

What's the analytical view of this problem? You know what, what can you prove by data or logic? Yeah. What's the human element to this problem? What do other people think?

How will it affect other people? And then practically, okay, what are the actions I'm going to take?

I think if you approach problem solving from those four perspectives, you're going to get most of the time a much more rounded, better answer.

Yeah. It's a very powerful problem solving tool. So you don't just use it for profiling and understanding self and other people.

Actually, the applications of the whole brain model goes way beyond that.

And for people that are interested, you might have seen we're creating quite a lot of noise on LinkedIn at the moment around some workshops that were running at Stanbrook Abbey in June. One of the workshops where we're going to be running is all around cognitive diversity and diversity and inclusion in its broadest sense.

So the first half of the workshop we're going to be running a very fun interactive session to help people understand whole brain thinking.

So if you're really interested in this whole brain thinking idea, go and find out the details on our website about this workshop and come and understand how cognitive diversity plays out inside your organization and inside your team.

Yeah. And if you can't come to Stanbrook Abbey, but want to find out more, please get in touch.

Rich and I would be happy to talk to you about how whole brain thinking can be applied inside your business. So, Rich, thanks for your time today.

Thank you, Dave.

We'll be back with a very different topic next time. We also have Ann Herman, hopefully very soon as well, but for the time being, thank you.

Thank you.