Making Business Matter (MBM‪)‬ Darren A. Smith

Dive Into Whole Brain Thinking

In this episode of "The World's Stickiest Learning," hosts Darren A. Smith and George Araham engage in a deep dive into Whole Brain Thinking with expert psychologist Johan Olwagen.



The discussion revolves around the HBDI (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) model, exploring its applications and insights. With Johan's extensive experience since the late '90s and the hosts' own encounters with the model, the conversation delves into the value and impact of Whole Brain Thinking.



Get a comprehensive understanding of HBDI and its relevance in leadership development and personal growth with this podcast!



View this episode on YouTube by clicking the image below.



 



Watch the video if you're more of a visual person



 

You Can Read the Full Kantar Market Share Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Welcome to the world. Stickiest learning. I am absolutely pleased that this title will be a deep dive into whole brain thinking with our psychologist, Johan. Johan, how are you?

Johan Olwagen:

I'm very well and thank you for the opportunity guys.

Darren A. Smith:

And we're here with George as well. Hi, George. You good?

George Araham:

Hello. Hi, good and you?

Darren A. Smith:

All right, so we'll ask these guys to introduce themselves in a moment. What we're looking to do here for the next 30 to 40 minutes is a real deep dive into HBDI whole brain thinking to understand this thinking preference tool. And we've got our expert here. And George and I are going to grill Johan to within an inch of his life about HBDI because he's been using it for about 500 years.

Johan Olwagen:

Excellent. Looking forward to the challenge.

Darren A. Smith:

All right. Well, let's start with George. George, would you just tell us 30 seconds about you? So our listeners know who you are before we get stuck in.

George Araham:

Sure. So I'm actually NSO blog writer and I've been collaborating with Darren on HBDI. Which is a fascinating assessment tool. I also have my masters in marketing, but that's boring stuff so I don't really like to talk much about it. I did write an international best selling book on relationships, so yeah, that would be me in a in a nutshell.

Johan Olwagen:

Trans.

Darren A. Smith:

Well done. Well done. Thank you, George. Very welcome. Johan, would you just give us 30 seconds about you? And also I'm going to ask you that tough question, but in the nicest possible way, why should we listen to you when you talk about HBDI, please?

Johan Olwagen:

Well, first let me introduce myself. I'm a clinical psychologist in South Africa. I have been working in the field of leadership development since 1995, went through a number of iterations in my career. Why should you listen to me? Passion, excitement and impact? I really am passionate about getting people to change and working with people so that they can thrive and grow in whatever they intend in life and purpose in life.

Darren A. Smith:

Fabulous. Fabulous. Thank you. Thank you.

George Araham:

Hmm.

Darren A. Smith:

And how many years have you been, Johan working with HBDI whole brain thinking.

Johan Olwagen:

Well, in the late 90s, we had discovered it. A colleague of myself and we wanted to get a hold of the HBDI and it was provided to somebody else to run the business in Africa. And so I haunted this person down in 2001, made-up with her. She was the CEO of Herman International Africa and just said, I need to talk to you. We need to get together. We need to. Utilise this tool because I found absolute value in it so since 2001. In a couple of decades now.

Darren A. Smith:

And I didn't know that before we started this,

It Can Be Loney at the Top - But C-Suite Coaching Cards Can Help

Join C-Suite Coach, Kim Randall and our very own Darren Smith, as they talk about support for C-Suite (executive-level managers). Face it, sometimes it gets lonely at the top, especially when everyone is rushing to you for support. Explore Kim's passion for delving into the human side of leaders, helping them to connect with who they are as a person as well as a leader. If you're a leader or want to offer support, make sure to check out this podcast.

You Can Read the Full C-Suite Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Hello. You're at a podcast. Welcome to the world's stickiest learning. We're with Kim Randall and also Pudding who you're stroking there.

Kim-Adele Randall:

I am to try and get him to not join in. I think he might be the more vocal of the two of us this morning.

Darren A. Smith:

It's probably true. That's probably true. The title of our podcast is where Do C-Suites go to for support now? I'm joined by Kim, who is a C-Suite coach. Is that right?

Kim-Adele Randall:

It is.

Darren A. Smith:

OK, now in the nicest possible way. Kim, I'm going to ask you, why should we listen to you about this?

Kim-Adele Randall:

Great question, Darren. So I guess for me, I started off as in C-Suite and was there for a number of years. And then when I became a mum, I decided that I could have a bigger impact by coaching of the C-Suite leaders. Having been there and realised that it might be lonely at the top, but it's certainly not quiet. Everyone is looking to you for the answer. Everyone expects you to always be on your game. People forget that our cease suite leaders are people 1st and leaders second and we are all perfectly imperfect. We have things that go wrong in our lives. We don't always know the answer.

Darren A. Smith:

True.

Kim-Adele Randall:

We're not always feeling like we're firing on all cylinders and so if we can, when we understand the human side of that C-Suite, that was one of my passions as part of my purpose, which is how do we help those C-Suite leaders connect with who they are as a person as well as who they are as a leader and give them that support? Because no human being in the world can survive without support for long. And it's this way you think the phrase comes from lonely at the top. I think so, yeah. Because when you get to the top, you both from. From my own experience and also from, you know, coaching at hundreds of other C-Suite leaders, one of the things that is so common throughout is we all fear becoming irrelevant.

Kim-Adele Randall:

And when you get to the very top, you know that everybody wants your job. You're doing one of you, so there's nowhere to go. So actually all you are is hanging on for dear life until somebody comes to step into those shoes and that is that plays in, in their head. It's that, you know, am I still adding value? Am I still relevant? Am I still doing stuff? Cause where do you go for your help? You can't. If you have those moments of doubt, we all have them. You know, in Process syndrome hits us all at some point in our life, you kind of go well, where, where, where do I go?

Darren A. Smith:

True. True again.

Kim-Adele Randall:

So I'm having this moment of doubt and I can't go to my direct reports because they're one looking to me for support and equally looking for any element of weakness so that they might be able to take and I can't go to the board because they might doubt my confidence or credibility and therefore you know that might have ramifications. So where do I go in those moments? Where I need to get out of my own head and we all know that we all have blind spots for the reason we're blind to them.

Kim-Adele Randall:

So no amount of looking at ourselves in the mirror is going to highlight those blind spots.

Cultivating a Culture of Belonging

Join us as we explore Chelsea Kirk's profound perspective on EDI (equity, diversity, inclusion) and, above all, the significance of belonging. Discover how these principles can transform workplaces into vibrant ecosystems where every individual feels valued, heard, and empowered to contribute their best. Also, we talk about the EDI Coaching Cards and how valuable they can be.



So get ready for a journey that goes beyond the surface, into the heart of creating workplaces that truly reflect the diverse tapestry of the world we live in.

You Can Read the Full Kantar Market Share Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Welcome to the world's stickiest learning. I am absolutely over the moon to have Chelsea Kirk with us. Hello.

Chelsea Kirk:

Hello, thank you for having me.

Darren A. Smith:

Hello how are you doing? It's Friday weekend soon.

Chelsea Kirk:

Absolutely super excited.

Darren A. Smith:

Good, good, good, good. Now we wanted to ask you to come to our podcast because you're an expert on EDI, is that right?

Chelsea Kirk:

That is.

Darren A. Smith:

OK. So Chelsea, would you tell us what you do and in the nicest possible way, why should we listen to you when you talk about EDI?

Chelsea Kirk:

Yeah, of course. So my current position is head of equality, diversity, inclusion at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Kings Lynn been in that post for around 2 1/2 years and done EDI for probably near enough four years.

Darren A. Smith:

Wow.

Chelsea Kirk:

And kind of a generalist for about 8 years in HR prior to EDI. I suppose in terms of listening to me, I've got kind of a lot of experience in sort of that HR field in the EDI sort of field and landscape and.

Darren A. Smith:

OK.

Chelsea Kirk:

We're quite well connected with different sort of professions and different EDI leaders, and I think as well sort of keeping yourself current. It's really important that you know, as the landscape evolves constantly, it is around, how do you kind of keep yourself current? So you know, well connected, you know, net networking with different individuals. It is really important as well. So I would say in a roundabout way that that to sort of summarise. Yes.

Darren A. Smith:

Alright, alright, cool. Cool, cool. So EDI is something that's relatively new to most people, although it's becoming, dare I say, on trend, it's becoming more topical, which is a good thing. So if I new to EDI, would you just summarise for us what is this thing and why should we start understanding it better?

Darren A. Smith:

Run.

Chelsea Kirk:

Why is really important one? I think creating that sense of belonging in the workplace, having that safe space to be their true authentic selves and bring their whole selves to, you know, the workplace. And I think that for me is really, really important. And I think as you know, EDI has really sort of grown over the last sort of few years. I think there's a few topics that have really elevated that. So I think you know the Me Too movement, the Black Lives Matter.



Employees who feel welcomed contribute to a healthy workplace environment



 

Chelsea Kirk:

Have really sort of pushed the dial and organisation.

Darren A. Smith:

There.

Chelsea Kirk:

Sort of. You know, waking up to some of that and, you know, EDI is becoming quite a top priority in organisations and now becoming that golden thread through it all really.

Darren A. Smith:

Yeah, and what about organisations that are still sort of we're too busy, we've got too much on, we're just not going to think about this now, does it matter? Why should they really start thinking about it and caring about this stuff?

Chelsea Kirk:

Yeah,

I Can't Get to My Prospects

Are you fed up with not getting hold of your prospects? Learn to use the HBDI quadrant to your advantage and get prospects to reply. Join us in this fourth instalment of this HBDI series with Darren Smith and George Araham.

You Can Read the Full HBDI Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith

Hi and welcome to the world's stickiest learning. I'm here with George Araman. George, how are you?

George

Hi Darren, I'm good. How are you?

George

I'm sure it won't be.

Darren A. Smith

Hey, I'm good. I'm good. I'm excited about our next podcast, so I'm gonna read out the title 'cause. It's a bit of a mouthful, but I think it works. I can't get my prospects to reply. Use HBDI to get your prospects to reply. So that's the title of our 4th podcast on HBDI. George is going to be excited for the next 20 minutes. What do you think about that title?



Finally, get prospects to reply



 

Darren A. Smith

That's certainly the plan.

George

Well, show me the money like they say so I'm pretty sure people are gonna like our audience are really gonna love it.

George

Yes.

Darren A. Smith

Fantastic. Fantastic. So let's do a few minutes bringing people up to speed on HBDI so we don't want to make an assumption they know now you've kindly lent us your profile for HBDI. So HBDI is the Herman brain dominance instrument. It's a way of understanding how people think. And this is your profile. It's split into four quadrants as everyone's is now. George, what does the left brain normally mean?

George

So the left brain is more of the rational brain. It's more of the logical brain. Whereas the right side of the brain is more the emotional side of the brain or more, the idea, the onceptualising side of the brain.

Darren A. Smith

Fantastic. So HBDIL, Hermann, asks us to understand our thinking preferences. Now, Hermann. Ned. Herman back in the 70s, split it also into the top half of the brain in the bottom half of the brain, giving us these four quadrants. Now, Herman, colour them as well. Obviously, they're not coloured in our head, but they are coloured here. So the further your profile goes towards this outer circle, the more you prefer to think in that way. But you can do all four of these.

George

Yes.

Darren A. Smith

Alright, now let's see from our other podcasts. George, what does the Blue quadrant mean?

Darren A. Smith

Yes.

George

So the blue is analytical side of things. This is the part where I don't really enjoy doing for me. Facts tend to be more boring, very flat, and very not imaginative. I'm more into the imagination side of things. The creativity. I think Leonardo da Vinci would agree with me somehow. Yeah.

Darren A. Smith

I think he was. I think he worked and you're in good company. Alright. So this is the fax. The fax quadrant will use an F just to make it easy. This is the future quadrant. And you talked about creativity. Entrepreneurs love this quadrant and this is where you are. You're quite creative. Lots of ideas. Then as we come down here, the Red Quadrant. Let me quiz you. What's the red quadrant?

George

So the Red Quadrant is more about the relational side of the quadrant. It's more like we liked how we relate with others. It's more about the passion we bring into it. It's about like you mentioned in one of our podcasts that for example, the red is very important because they tend to bring the team together and it's so even if sometimes people might think they're not really actually adding value, they are in the back scenes and they're really. Only the team together in a very efficient and effective way and even energising others to have better and more efficient results.

George

Yeah.

Darren A. Smith

You're absolutely right.

I Really Don’t Know How to Manage Conflict at Work

Looking to manage conflict at Work? Well, you can use HBDI, the Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument. Join us in this third instalment of this HBDI series with Darren Smith and George Araham.

You Can Read the Full HBDI Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Hi, you're at the home of the world's stickiest learning. My name's Darren Smith, and this is George Araman. George, how are you?

George:

I'm great, Darren. Thank you. How are you today?

Darren A. Smith:

I am good. I'm good. I'm keen to share with our listeners about HBDI. This is the third in our series of podcasts and I'm just going to read the title out to make sure I get it absolutely right. It says I really don't know how to manage conflict at work. Use HBDI to manage conflicts at work, so that's the title of our podcast. And George has kindly allowed us to share his HBDI. Herman brain dominance instrument profile. So this is a profile. It's a bit like Myers Briggs is a bit like disc. It's a bit like insights. The reason we favour Herman is it's lovely and simple, simple to use and it really just has four colours and it's a it shows the thinking preference.



Conflicts are a natural part of life



 

Darren A. Smith:

So there are blue, yellow, red, green and this shows almost the thinking preference of George's brain. So what this tells us is he likes to think in the big picture, creative. He likes to think in the people feelings area. But when it comes to facts, struggles a bit and when it comes to form and structure. Plan he struggles with that as well. Now the thing to say is we can do all four colours, we can do all of this. My metaphor is that George does yellow and red in 5th gear and maybe blue and green in second gear.

George:

Spot on.

Darren A. Smith:

All right. So that's a really quick summary and an overview of HPDI for anyone who hasn't seen it before. George, what have I missed on there? Your news HBDI, what have I missed that people would want to know?

George:

So far, like from what you mentioned, it seems great. We already talked a lot in our previous podcast like how we can overcome the differences and how we have like I think what would be really interesting for us to delve into is with regards to conflicts, how what is the best way to like manage conflicts from different perspectives.

Darren A. Smith:

OK. OK. Well, let's, let's start with conflict hard now. I've been doing soft skills as a training provider for 20 years and I've come to 11 absolute fact on conflict. It's hard. It really is. It's exhausting. It takes energy, it consumes our brain. It's those things that we lay down at night and think, oh, how did that happen? How did I get to that place? So conflict is not easy. And what I read a lot lately about is people. Let's avoid conflict.

George:

OK.

Darren A. Smith:

Just can't you imagine there's seven 8 billion people on the planet. With all these microcosms of banging together and they're gonna bang together, they're going to have conflict. They're not going to think all the same way. And do you know that's all right. We don't have to agree.

George:

Yeah. And it's a good thing, or else with the own robots. If I'm thinking the same way.

Darren A. Smith:

Well, we would, we would. Well, let me give you an example. So George, what's your favourite food favourite meal?

George:

Depends on the like. I would say sushi or pizza or.

Darren A. Smith:

OK, so you love sushi. I mean, I happen to as well, but let's say you love sushi and I didn't. And I liked only fish and chips. That's OK. Now we have a small conflict there. We don't have to disagree, but let's take that into the more passionate disagreements that we might have. It's still OK.

My Team is Not Performing Well, What Can I Do?

My team is not performing well, so what can I do? Well, you can use HBDI to Build a High Performing Team. Our second video in this HBDI series is all about building high performing teams. Join Darren and George as they explore ways you can super-boost your team for success.

You Can Read the Full HBDI Transcript Below:

Darren A. Smith:

Hi, my name's Darren Smith and I'm here with George Araman. George, how are you?

George:

Hi Darren, how are you?

Darren A. Smith:

Very good, very good. We're at the home of the world's stickiest learning MBM, and we're talking about HBDI now the 2nd in our podcast on HBDI. And I'm going to read out the title because it's taken George and I a while to get an absolutely cracking title. My team is not performing well. What can I do? And this is based on feedback we've had from other people, OK, what can you do? And the second part is use HBDI to build a high performing team. So this podcast is all about HBDI and teamwork. And high performing teams, George, why did we come up with this as our second in our range of HBDI podcasts?

George:

Today, there's a lot of problems around the world with Teamwork and team working together or not working together. So we found out like around 15 to 16 topics around that and we want to delve into them and discover how can we tackle each one of them using HBDI and how HBDI can take team performance to the next level. Love it. Yeah.



Here's how to use HBDI if your team is not performing



 

Darren A. Smith:

Brilliant. Love it. So for a couple of minutes, let's do a recap on HBDI is, we'll share a profile just so the viewers can see what we're talking about in case they're new to HBDI. And then let's get straight into Team conflict, team dynamics and all that good stuff. All right, all right. So let's check in with you HBDI Hermann brain dominance instrument. That's all well and good, but what does it mean? What's your take on? What is HBDI?

George:

As in the title.

Darren A. Smith:

What does it mean to you?

George:

Well, it's a profile. An assessment profile type that helps you navigate into your like understanding or discovering your thinking style. If you're more left-brained right-brain conversion, divergent feeler or thinker, all those types of sorts of things and to help you to help guide you to use your best assets and your best tools as well as improve the areas that you need in certain circumstances to develop better work. And work better in teams as well. Yeah, indeed.

Darren A. Smith:

Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. I put George on the spot of there a little bit because we did a podcast last time, and I'm just bringing back his memory of what he retained. I've been working with HBDI for about 20 years. George, you're relatively new to it. And we did your profile, didn't we? So you did. You did 80 questions and then this thing pops out. Is that right? Yeah. OK.

George:

Yeah, yeah.

Darren A. Smith:

And what George was referring to is the left half of the brain, the right half of the brain, which most people know. This is largely logical. This is largely creative, but what Ned Herman said was there's a top half and a bottom half of the brain as well, given US 4 quadrants. So the four quadrants, if I do it as four FS fax. So this is a thinking preference for retaining lots of facts. If you've got a mate who's good at pub quizzes, brilliant.

Darren A. Smith:

This is future, so this is me. It's not my profile, but I do have a tendency to think more in the yellow quadrant, which is big picture creativity type, then we've got.

Darren A. Smith:

It is.

George:

That's what we that's why we get along very well. I love yellow and red.

Darren A. Smith:

Yes.