Blog

I love coaching sports teams. They share many of the same dynamics as organizational teams. In the case of field hockey, you have to rely on others to help you achieve big goals. When I was in high school, I played on a championship field hockey team. Field hockey was where I learned to be fierce, play hard, and work

You often hear people bandy about the terms “climate” and “culture” as if they mean the same thing. They don’t. Culture is the deeply rooted set of values that manifest into every aspect of the organization’s character. Culture doesn’t change quickly. Climate, on the other hand, is a snapshot of

At FourSight, we believe the fastest way to high performance is to give diverse thinkers a common language to solve problems together. Drawing on twenty years of data from our FourSight Thinking Profile assessment—we reveal our unconscious problem-solving patterns that cause conflict and stall progress.

Last month marked the passing of my beloved high school field hockey coach, Muriel Brock. She was 94. She never married. Never had kids. Her memorial service was last Saturday. I drove six hours to Detroit to attend. I wanted to make sure she had a good showing. I shouldn’t have worried. The church was packed.

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

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

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,

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.

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