What Is the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument?

Background

Even in ancient times, scientists and philosophers such as Hippocrates postulated the dual nature of the human brain. But our understanding of the brain's complex and specialized functions has been very limited until the second half of the twentieth century.

Now, thanks to spectacular developments in new technologies and the landmark work of Nobel Prize winner Roger W. Sperry and others, we have gained more knowledge about the brain in the last 20 years than in the previous two thousand.

As a young man, Ned Herrmann was intrigued by the unusual richness of his own brain preferences. Although a physicist by profession, Herrmann was also an accomplished musician, sculptor and artist. In the 1970s, his work as Corporate Manager of Management Education at General Electric offered an opportunity for intensive study of individual and group preferences for certain styles of thinking. A desire to improve the effectiveness of management training led to his creation of a powerful thinking style assessment tool--the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI). Starting his research with large groups within GE, he expanded it over 20 years through tens of thousands of surveys.

Explanation

The HBDI is based on an understanding of the four-quadrant nature of the human brain. The brain is comprised of left and right hemispheres, but there are also two parts of our thinking brain: the limbic and the cerebral. (See Your Whole Brain.)

Each quadrant of the brain is responsible for highly specialized functions and thought processes. Ned Herrmann's Whole Brain model is a metaphor that demonstrated the preferred modes of each quadrant.

The HBDI thinking styles assessment is a 120-question survey that provides a visual picture of an individual, team or group's mental preferences. It illustrates the "lens" through which we view life and helps provide a better understanding of how we process information, work, learn and relate to other people in our daily lives.