Jerry Folz leads a team of a dozen small business owners who meet monthly to develop themselves as leaders. Every month, Jerry starts his team meeting the same way, by calling on the host to share the team’s purpose. The host, often a new member, invariably jerks to attention. Everyone else smiles knowingly, as they
Topics:
April 9, 2024
March 5, 2024
A fast-growing HR firm based in Sydney was stunned when revenues suddenly plummeted. LinkedIn had just entered the Australian market. The HR firm had heard of LinkedIn; the tech start-up had launched in the United States seven years earlier, but the firm’s management team had been so focused on growing revenues, they
January 31, 2024
Watch the 80-second video. Here's the transcript: A good goal is like a steering wheel. It lets you or your team move toward things that are positive and away from things that aren’t. At least that’s what happens when you pick a good goal. But sometimes we pick bad goals. Ones that are unattainable or just not that
November 16, 2023
For me, Thanksgiving used to feel like a command performance. As a mom who prefers to implement, I considered it my job to land the turkey, potatoes, yams, hams, beans, rolls, cranberry sauce, and gravy on the table, hot and delicious, in front of a dozen expectant family members, in record time.
October 10, 2023
Dorte Nielsen, founder of the Center for Creative Thinking in Copenhagen, gave the FourSight assessment to the faculty of a Danish high school. She gathered all the teachers in the cafeteria, handed out their results, and asked them what they had learned from their thinking preferences. One teacher stood up and said,
August 29, 2023
As a team leader, you have lots to do. You have goals to meet and people to manage. You have to make assignments, clarify roles, communicate, fix problems, build systems, track trends, set strategy, and put out countless large and small fires along the way. Oh, plus your own work.
July 11, 2023
The following is an excerpt from the upcoming book, Good Team, Bad Team: Lead People to Go After Big Challenges, Not Each Other, written by FourSight partners, Sarah Thurber and Blair Miller When our son got his first corporate job, he discovered the workplace was full of competing problem solving processes (e.g.
May 5, 2023
Two years after training, the organization could still measure the positive impact. In 2013, Brett Richards, PhD wanted to test his new culture survey, which measured an organization’s growth potential. He found willing participants at Sheridan College, one of Canada's largest colleges. Nearly a hundred administrators
March 7, 2023
Building a good team is harder than it looks. People’s personalities, approaches, backgrounds, and styles don’t always line up. In fact, they don’t usually line up. If your team struggles to collaborate (and most teams do), team-building activities can help. But what’s the best team-building approach for your team?
February 13, 2023
The FourSight colors were chosen deliberately, if not exactly scientifically. Here’s why we chose blue for clarify, orange for ideate, green for develop and red for implement.
January 31, 2023
What happens when your team's thinking preferences are really lopsided? When I was in grad school, everyone in my class took the FourSight Thinking Profile.
December 22, 2022
Burnout rates among physicians almost doubled. Is it the hours? The stress? Or something else entirely?
December 8, 2022
While teams can lead to great accomplishments in the workplace, they can also be unproductive. More often than not, the difference is dictated by how team members relate to one another. Teams that collaborate well and take advantage of each other’s strengths perform well, while teams afflicted by interpersonal
November 24, 2022
Do you know what Lego, Google, and Tesla have in common? Aside from being wildly successful, these businesses place a strong emphasis on teamwork and innovation. When teams are able to communicate and work together effectively and bring their unique knowledge and skills together in pursuit of the same goal, that’s
November 10, 2022
We’ve all experienced it: group meetings where you sincerely felt like you just wasted an hour of your life. Group projects that went nowhere fast. The final results weren’t that great because interpersonal conflicts took over. These occurrences are not uncommon, but they’re definitely unfortunate—especially when
September 28, 2022
The thinking profile that risks “losing their own voice,” has plenty to say. They may just have a hard time saying it to you.
August 30, 2022
We all have thinking preferences. Each of us has a high, neutral or low preference for every stage in the problem-solving process. We like to spend time and energy in areas of high preference. We may lose energy and focus in areas of low preference. Great solutions need all four types of thinking. So, if you let your
August 26, 2022
What if I told you that the Golden Rule—the one that says “treat others the way you want to be treated”—can actually kill collaboration and innovation? My area of expertise is teams and innovation. I’ve seen the Golden Rule create conflict, miscommunication, and frustration when people expect their teammates to
August 18, 2022
"I'll never see people in the same way again..." How learning about thinking preferences impacts individuals, teams and collaboration.
August 10, 2022
Hear how one team expert enhances two of business's most popular process models by using FourSight to understand the people side.
August 2, 2022
Dive into the intricate world of innovation with this compelling video that explores the universal creative process we all undergo when faced with challenges.
October 27, 2021
Learn how your team can collaborate better together, apart. In this guide, we’ll look at the upsides and downsides of remote work, and explore how a team assessment tool like FourSight can transform collaboration.
October 23, 2021
A tale of two employees: She was the best of employees. He was…well, let’s just say he didn’t last.
October 5, 2021
As part of our nature, humans are born into the world with two innate qualities that promote survival and growth. All humans are wired to find and follow patterns. We are innate conformists. This bias towards conformity has many advantages. It promotes cooperation, establishes norms, enables learning, and saves
October 5, 2021
It was six hours before the big workshop in Las Vegas. 88 people were signed up, and less than half had done their FourSight assessment. The group activity I planned to facilitate hinged on knowing people’s profiles. It wasn’t going to work with half the results.
October 5, 2021
“How might we…” Those are 3 of the most powerful words in innovation. Learn a turn of language that can transform a complaint into a question that draws fresh ideas and new thinking.
September 24, 2021
When he landed a job at a major East Coast children's hospital, Chris Grivas was determined to make the right diagnosis— not for a patient, but for the organization itself. Chris was hired as an internal organizational development consultant. He wanted to get a read on the health of the organization and its 1,500
September 24, 2021
Building a Culture of Innovation – One Team at a Time People don’t often say the words “regulatory agency” and “innovation” in the same breath. But those people haven’t met Ruth Kennedy.
July 30, 2021
In a team building session with 25 members of a leading French luxury brand, Paris-based facilitator Patrick Duhoux found a simple way to help team members understand their differences so they could work together better and speed their path to high performance.
July 12, 2021
Like so many corporate leaders, Anne Price wanted more innovation, but wasn’t sure how to get it. As Director of Global Marketing Capabilities at UPS, Price wanted a way to help UPS marketers live up to their new corporate strategy: “Innovation driven.” Her solution came in the form of a training course, inspired by
March 11, 2020
Recently a FourSight facilitator wrote in the following question: Can I use FourSight profiles for hiring? —Harry
February 18, 2020
Ad agency president, Stacie Boney, knew she wanted to make a big improvement in her team’s approach to annual and quarterly strategic planning sessions. Boney heads up Hanson Dodge, a full-service ad agency based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, that serves clients like the Utah Office of Tourism, KEEN Utility and Stanley
October 23, 2019
Developers are the rarest of the four profiles. Only 6% of people in our database are single-preference Developers.
July 16, 2019
Patricia Flanagan is an innovation consultant, helping students and community members in Northern Ireland develop a common language and framework for solving big, complex problems.
March 17, 2019
In this brief yet insightful video, the FourSight team presents intriguing research findings on how thinking preferences can influence career choices. The video explores the connection between how we think and the vocations we are drawn to, providing valuable insights for individuals and organizations.
December 13, 2018
Global prestige beauty leaders The Estée Lauder Companies prides itself on having a worldwide reputation for quality and excellence, and has always been held up as a leader for best practice in collaboration.
November 22, 2018
This Thursday, it’s Thanksgiving in the USA. People come together for a feast of community and gratitude. Now that you understand FourSight preferences learn to bring everyone’s best thinking. Follow the recipe below for a collaborative holiday. Happy Thanksgiving from FourSight!
August 27, 2018
In this enlightening video, researcher Serap Ozdemir delves deep into teachers' perceptions of the "ideal" student. Through a comprehensive study involving 275 teachers, Ozdemir uncovers the surprising and often unconscious influences that shape these perceptions. By using the "FourSight Thinking Profile" and
July 8, 2018
Ideas fuel innovation. No ideas? No innovation! But what are ideas exactly? In this interview we ask Gerard Puccio PhD, author of “Creative Leadership” and the “FourSight® Thinking Profile” and chair of the oldest Master of Science program in Creative Studies, to illuminate what ideas are and where they come from.
June 13, 2018
In this insightful video, Sarah Thurber, the Managing Partner at FourSight, debunks five common myths and misconceptions about creativity that might be hindering your potential. She emphasizes that creativity is not a magical or spontaneous phenomenon, but a transformational process that involves connecting things in
April 12, 2018
I’ve worked as a productive thinking facilitator for most of my professional life—strategy sessions, creative problem-solving workshops, innovation initiatives, conflict resolution, mediation, community engagement, organizational restructuring, and negotiations, from mergers to breakups.
March 18, 2018
A few years ago, I backpacked through Southeast Asia with my best friend, Lauren. We started in Kuala Lumpur, and by time we parted ways in Ho Chi Minh City, we were in the throws of violent food poisoning and barely on speaking terms. I was exasperated that Lauren had no interest in decision making, and Lauren was
January 15, 2018
#1. Creativity fuels innovation. Today, it’s hard to find an organization that doesn’t have “innovation” in its mission statement. Professor Felix Janszen stated, “After the age of efficiency in the 1950s and 1960s, quality in the 1970s and 1980s, and flexibility in the 1980s and 1990s, we now live in the age of
December 29, 2017
A recent study on health and wellbeing reported a surprising discovery: People with the longest commutes have the lowest life satisfaction.
May 15, 2017
The FourSight database reveals a remarkable shift in cognitive profiles as leaders move up the organizational ladder.
October 17, 2016
What do assessments and your nose have in common? Believe it or not, your nose is the perfect analogy for assessment.
September 21, 2016
A decade into the 21st century,educational leaders at Sheridan College in Ontario, Canada saw the writing on the wall. Technology was eating up routine jobs. The traditional curriculum couldn’t guarantee work. They knew that to make students employable, they would need to teach creative thinking and creative problem
August 29, 2016
Secrets of Extraordinary Performance Mozart was a creative genius. The question is, why? Find out the three keys to extraordinary performance.
August 15, 2016
(hint: It isn’t criticism) Often our first instinct is to criticize new ideas. But there is a better approach and one that leads to more creative outcomes.
July 2, 2016
According to the Innovation Network, 88 percent of all organizations have the word “innovation” or “creativity” in their mission statements. But less than 5 percent of those same organizations have programs in place to teach innovation or creativity and make it part of the culture.
June 2, 2016
In training sessions, half a world apart, two innovation experts told the same story. Art Beckman and Silvi Steigerwald are two of the key architects of the innovation program in HP Software. Part of their job is training HP Software managers, more than a thousand worldwide, to support a culture of innovation.
May 4, 2016
Q&A with John Champlin, Human Resources Team at Wake Forest University How did you hear about FourSight? When I joined the HR staff at Wake Forest University, MBTI, Gallup Clifton StrengthsFinder, and the Intercultural Development Inventory were the assessment tools we used for team and leadership development. After a
