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MAJOR LESSONS FROM HERRMANN

1. People are fundamentally different from each other. No amount of hoping or wishing, pushing all pulling will change this fact. Roughly 25 percent of the population falls in each of the four quadrants. People who understand this have a major vantage in terms of interpersonal relationships and communication.
2. If we treat everybody the same we will get a tepid mixture of mediocrity, and yet this is what most organisations do on a regular basis. They treat everyone the same. Those that happen to fit, stay; those that feel out of place eventually leave will cause disruption. This must be one of the most wasteful business practices ever. Today we have the technology to treat each person as an individual.
3. People who are similar (in the same quadrant) communicate very easily together and come to solutions quickly. The trouble is, the solutions are often one-sided and are not robust. People in diagonally opposite quadrants have much more difficulty working together and communicating, especially if they don't understand their differences, value them and even treasure them. However if these differences are understood and valued, the level of communication and the quality of work is far stronger from diagonally opposite teams.
4. The underlying fundamental reason for having teams that is so that whole-brains can be put to the task at hand. Teams consistently perform better than the individuals. Research shows the quality of a decision generated by a team is better than the average decision of the individuals in the group, 87% of the time. And the group decision is better than the decision of any individual in the team on 76% of the times.
5. The Golden Rule: 'to treat others as we would like to be treated', is not the best way to think about communication. Herrmann's rule would be 'to treat others as they would like to be treated'. This means when we communicate with another person, it's important to understand the quadrant from which they communicate and to flex into their quadrant in order that our message is understood.
6. Herrmann says that your profile is the best possible place for you to be. You should grow your strengths rather than your weaknesses. The best way to cover your weaknesses is to team up with somebody who is strong where you a weak.
7. Genius is like the golden Buddha, it needs to be cracked open so the the golden centre can be exposed. Everyone has some form of genius. Most of this don't know what it is and even if we do know what it is, we don't use it very often. The trick is to discover your genius and to use it far more often. This is the way to become significantly more successful. Genius is closely associated with talent. Herrmann is a good guide to your talents.
8. Herrmann is a measure of thinking preferences not intelligence or competence.
9. Today intangible assets are the most important part of the value of any organisation. Knowledge assets, emotional assets, relationship assets and time assets are the heart of intangible assets. Herrmann is a language that allows us to talk about these softer issues in a way which was not possible before.
10. Preferences come from both the nature (born with) and nurture (environment and training). The profiles tend to remain stable over time but they do change, especially if the person is immersed in a type of thinking for a significant amount of time.

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