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!

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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, but I had my first profile done when I worked for Sainsbury's, a supermarket here in 2001.

Johan Olwagen:

There we go. Fantastic.

Johan Olwagen:

Again.

George Araham:

Interesting, that's a similarity.

Johan Olwagen:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Darren A. Smith:

So we've got about 50 years between this of Herman thinking. Wow, wow, wow, wow. OK, OK. Brilliant. Brilliant. So we've got some credibility. We've been using it for a while. And in this room, I think we've got a red, a yellow. And I think we've got some blue as well. So we might be missing green. But as we've said in our preparation, George wore a green shirt. So we've nailed the green. Lovely.

George Araham:

Yeah.

Darren A. Smith:

All right, we're going to come over to George for our first question and then we'll take turns, I think, and we'll build on those. So, George, what's our first question for Johan, please?

George Araham:

So I'm going to start hard. I always like to jump deep into the subject, so I'm going to start by asking like today in it's very trending that companies are very much masking in land of like they tend to be very rigid in their approach and a lot of employees prefer the freedom of choice which they are not being given. I'm not going to go deep into it but like this like this is. A bit of context around the question, so my question to you, Johan, is how would you as an employee for example?

George Araham:

That has a blue, a yellow, a green, or a red personality type. How would you cope with this problem? Yeah.

Johan Olwagen:

All right, so I want to say this first upfront because, as you've mentioned the word personality part, I think it's definitely more thinking preferences. So for me, the starting point is always this: how you think is how you act is who you are, because our thinking, if we look at the behaviour that people display, behind that is a lot of thinking, and you're so right. I mean, we all grew up with particular thinking patterns and ways of doing things. Organisations need to understand that we're in a new world of work. It's a VUCA world, volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and so the old ways of being and the old ways of thinking.

George Araham:

Yeah.

Johan Olwagen:

What got you there is not going to take you here. And I think that's a critical understanding in that changing world; we've literally got to learn to shift our thinking gears, if I can use that analogy because if we don't shift the thinking gears, the elements of the model that you don't apply will bite you in the end. In other words, if we really look at whole brain thinking. It really implies for me that we need to climb out of our comfort zone. We can't expect other people to change.

Johan Olwagen:

Or to accommodate us, we need to do that accommodation. And so what you will find in the new world of work, especially with the new generations, very flexible, very open, very willing to discover and explore. And unless you shift that gear to also accommodate them, you're going to run into difficulties. And we see this. How do we see it? We see it in organizations that want to force people back into the workplace.

Johan Olwagen:

That are not open to work from anywhere, and they're running into difficulties and we can talk about what the kind of leaders are that do that. But I would say that shift your gears. It's a new world. It's a different world and you know Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, said in 2018 already.

Johan Olwagen:

That the world has never changed as fast as it is changing now. Think about that. The world has never changed as fast as it's changing now. It will never be this slow again. So unless you accommodate that, unless we are agile, we run into difficulties, so I'm not sure if that's answered the question directly, but that's a start.

Darren A. Smith:

All right. Well, I've got a subsequent question off the back of that. So if I'm one of those colors, I might assume that the Greens might struggle with this more because they're more rigid in their thinking than the yellows. I'm happy to be wrong. I'm just sort of mulling this over. What do you think?

George Araham:

Yeah.

Johan Olwagen:

So, so. So let's talk about what those colors are. You know, if you think of in the whole brain model, yellow is about holism synthesis, integration, it's about innovation, forward thinking and and I think if one can use the F word for yellow, it's about future. So how do we how do we accommodate this future?

Johan Olwagen:

Blue very much about goal-directed focus is the F word there. How do we solve this problem? How do we deal with the issues? How do we capture the chase, whereas for green, green wants a format? Once structure it wants clarity, it wants certainty. If you think about it, green very often. Struggles with change. It's not that they can't change.

George Araham:

Yeah.

Johan Olwagen:

But the change must; they need to be able to see how that change is going to add value and what the process is going to follow. So now post COVID. The world has changed. Suddenly, people are working from different places. New demands are coming in and blue says, excuse me. What part of did you not understand? You get back to the office. This is how we've done it. Green says hello. This is a workplace. Can you just come in here? There's due process and policies that we need to follow. Yellow says, whatever. What policies? What are you talking about? Alright. And then obviously the Red Quadrant people-oriented collaboration.

Johan Olwagen:

It's about teamwork now. Can you imagine? They run into people who tell them this is how it will be. Yeah. An office space or a factory space? There's no problem. They do it immediately. But if it doesn't make sense. So what do you want? Do you want me to spend time and hours? Or do you want the output? And does it matter where you get the output? Or is it where you want me to be? The green quadrants if for them they can see. How it unfolds sequentially and how ultimately it would add value. They will buy in, but don't you come and just change things for the sake of changing.

Johan Olwagen:

Yeah, let's go. Where do you want me to work? I'll work. I can be anyway, but but certainly I think all of those quadrants are open to change that or yellows.