December 2011
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  1. Video: Stories of Whole Brain® Thinking Applied
  2. Outthink, Outpace, Outperform: Top Stories of the Year
  3. Video: Ned Herrmann on the Brain, Creativity and Unleashing Inner Capability
  4. THINC™ Webinar: Don't Lose Your Top Talent!
  5. Practitioner News: New HTMS™ Features
  6. Upcoming Events
  7. Recent News on Thinking and The Brain
  8. Upcoming Certification Workshops

Video: Stories of Whole Brain® Thinking Applied

HBDI® Practitioners from Australia and New Zealand recently gathered for Practitioner Conferences hosted by Herrmann International Asia to network and learn about the latest developments in Whole Brain® Thinking. A mix of fun and education, the events also provided participants with the opportunity to hear from Herrmann International's CEO Ann Herrmann-Nehdi and share their best practices and experiences in applying the Whole Brain® system in their organizations.

We caught up with a few of the attendees to find out what they're doing and the results they're achieving. View the video to hear their stories of Whole Brain® Thinking applied.

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Outthink, Outpace, Outperform: Top Stories of the Year

In this issue of BrainBytes™, we’re taking a look back at some of the major themes we covered in 2011, a year that also happened to mark the 30th anniversary of Herrmann International.

If anything, the challenges organizations have been facing and the skills everyone will need to master going forward have shown that the Whole Brain® concept is not only just as relevant today as it was when Ned Herrmann first established the company in 1981; in many ways it’s more significant and applicable now than it ever has been.

Breaking out of the survival mindset: The business environment has changed, and it’s changed for good. For many organizations, this year marked a turning point—a shift from the survival mindset of the past few years and back into growth mode. As a previously unpublished chapter of the Whole Brain® Business Book discussed, the kind of thinking that’s essential for short-term survival actually hinders long-term growth and development, and that means leaders need to embrace and apply more situational Whole Brain® leadership thinking to take their organizations to the next level.

For sales leaders, in particular, this will be a major differentiator, the key to outthinking, outpacing and outperforming the competition. Our white paper, The Mind of Successful Sales Leadership, explored how sales leaders can use a single, practical framework to optimize their people, processes and strategies; draw on the collective intelligence available to them; and manage today more effectively while positioning the organization for long-term growth.

In one client example, CLP India showed us that the Whole Brain® system, when embraced as a way of doing business, can help an organization lead its industry and achieve aggressive growth goals.

Managing attention in an age of information overload: One common theme over the past several years has been the struggle to keep up with the volumes of information we’re all bombarded with on a daily basis. Between increased responsibilities, greater complexity in our businesses, and a non-stop flow of emails, social media streams and other inputs, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to stay focused on today’s tasks, much less have the “forward-look” necessary to plan and create the future.

Whether the topic is leadership development, where agile thinking skills are becoming the defining core competency of successful 21st century leaders, or learning design and delivery, where engaging learners’ brains is key to creating learning that gets results and “sticks,” managing attention has never been more critical. A good place to start? Managing our time more effectively, using what we know about thinking preferences and the brain.

Innovating by cross training the brain: “I believe the visionary right brain can’t do it. The logical left brain can’t do it. Great success only comes from collaboration—from Whole Brain® Thinking.” – Doug Hall, inventor, entrepreneur and CEO of Eureka! Ranch

In a year when we lost one of the pioneering innovators of our time with Steve Jobs’ passing, we also heard more and more about the importance of creative and strategic thinking in today’s business world. The University of Maine’s Innovation Engineering® program is tackling the subject head on by helping students across disciplines learn how to use HBDI® data and Whole Brain® Thinking to harness diverse thinking so they can rapidly create, communicate and commercialize meaningfully unique ideas.

As the program’s creator Doug Hall notes, and as Steve Jobs’ experience has shown us, innovation isn’t a left-brain or a right-brain process; it’s a Whole Brain® process. In developing “Kinect Adventures,” the innovative game that ships with the ground-breaking Kinect peripheral for Xbox 360, Microsoft Game Studios demonstrated how a Whole Brain® framework can dramatically improve product development times, consumer testing processes, team interactions and the end product itself.

And proving that innovation isn’t just about abstract ideas, Telecom New Zealand showed that innovating customer service and call center processes can deliver a huge return.

A central reference point for managing a complex world: In February’s issue of BrainBytes™, we told you about the running list Ned Herrmann used to keep of the ways Whole Brain® Thinking can be applied under the organizing principle of the brain. From family relationships to strategic thinking, health to post-merger integration, his list covered a lot of ground.

But we challenged you to add to that list, and with examples ranging from action learning and safety training to patient care and customer experience design to organizing the wealth of data we have access to in our information-overloaded world, you showed us that as our environment evolves, we can use the Whole Brain® Model to manage the “new normal” and growing complexities of today.

If you haven’t visited the Whole Brain® Blog lately, be sure to check out the latest entries and particularly read the comments on this post. As you look at your plans for 2012, it’s sure to spur your own thinking about innovative and everyday ways you can apply the Whole Brain® concept to manage more optimally in both your personal and professional life.

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Video: Ned Herrmann on the Brain, Creativity and Unleashing Your Inner Capability

With Herrmann International celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, we are delighted to share with you rare footage of the company’s founder, Ned Herrmann, discussing how he initially developed the Whole Brain® concept.

In this video interview conducted by Leland Russell, President of GEO Group Strategic Services, Ned discusses the origins of the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument® (HBDI®) and Whole Brain® Model, and he shares some of the initial reactions he received when he began talking about this idea of the brain’s role in management.

He also provides advice for anyone seeking to improve their creativity. With an understanding of thinking preferences, individuals, teams and whole organizations can take the initiative to claim their creative space, he says, and when they do, they “unleash enormous inner motivation and capability.”

View the video.

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THINC™ Webinar: Don’t Lose Your Top Talent!

It's a tough job market, but your best employees could be planning their exit strategies. The question is, why do they want to leave?

All too often, the problem is at the top. If your leaders aren’t able to communicate effectively and build connections with employees, they could be helping to push those top performers out the door.

To be relevant and relatable to their employees, leaders first have to understand how they think. Join Roger Blackstock, Founder and CEO of Peer Synergy Group, for an interactive THINC™ Webinar that will reveal why Whole Brain® leadership needs to be a key component of your employee engagement strategies.

Find out:

Working with a variety of organizations through his company and as a Vistage Group Chairman, Roger has gained unique insight into the challenges leaders face in keeping an increasingly diverse employee population meaningfully engaged in today’s demanding environment. He’ll show you how applying what we know about the brain makes it easier for leaders to recognize what different employees pay attention to, understand how they prefer to think and approach their work, and connect with them on a one-on-one basis.

Don’t Lose Your Top Talent! Engaging Employees With Whole Brain® Leadership
Presenter: Roger Blackstock, Founder and CEO, Peer Synergy Group
Date: January 25, 2012
Time: 1:00 PM EST / 12:00 PM CST / 10:00 AM PST
Register Now!

Please Note: The January THINC™ Webinar is open to HBDI® Certified Practitioners only. You will need to log in to the Practitioners Area of our website to access the registration page.

> Upcoming Webinars: Mark Your Calendar!
All live webinars are held at 1 PM ET.

Public Webinars:
March 1, 2012: Outthinking the Competition: Optimize Your Sales Organization for Better Results
THINC™ Webinars, for Practitioners Only:
March 28, 2012: Brain Science Goes to Work: Solving 4 Common Business Problems, Dr. Mark Schar, Co-founder and Managing Director, Three Point Solutions

Check the webinars page of our website for updated details and registration information.

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Practitioner News: New HTMS™ Features

The community has spoken, and we’ve been listening!

Thanks to feedback from our HBDI® Certified Practitioner Community, we’re making some exciting changes to the HTMS™ (Herrmann Thinking Management System) that will allow self-processors to find and pull together data faster and more seamlessly.

These initial improvements include: