Susan Robertson, CEO of Sharpen Innovation and instructor at Harvard, spoke at this year’s FourSight Forum for FourSight Certified Facilitators. She identified ten surprising ways that online problem solving can beat in-person, even in the best of times.

Human Nature 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 energy. To underscore the latter, when we follow an established pattern, we don’t need to think, problem-solve, or exert effort to learn something new. Thus, we conserve energy, and in nature, energy is a precious resource. 

Recently a FourSight facilitator wrote in the following question: Can I use FourSight profiles for hiring? —Harry

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 PMI.  The agency had been generating momentum, expanding business with current clients and earning new ones, and was poised for greater growth. Boney, however, knew there was room for improvement in their approach to strategic planning.

Developers are the rarest of the four profiles. Only 6% of people in our database are single-preference Developers.

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.

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.

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.

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.