Sowing Seeds

Those who know me would say that I’m a “people person” – the one who creates connections, collects contacts, crafts collaboration. And I trace my curiosity for understanding people and what makes us human back to my teenage years. I remember my dad brought home from work a personality psychometric assessment (16PF) and I had questions, through which I would discover I was a “practical problem solver”.  It made a lasting impression.

I’m sure that early insight played a part in my decision to study Psychology at University, where I took modules that focussed on behaviour, cognition and criminology. After Uni, I did consider quite a different path – I wanted to be the UK’s equivalent of FBI Agent Clarice Starling (The Silence Of The Lambs) – perhaps one of my “sliding doors moments”, but I’d say it all worked out well in the end!

Burgers to Brains

It’s not really a surprise that I found myself at McDonald’s; a company that is very much “people-first”, looking after both customers and “crew”. From my early days in customer experience and business management, then moving into the corporate HR world, in every role, I was perfectly placed to continue learning about people and to gain exposure to more psychometric assessments (Belbin, Insights, MBTI, DiSC).

In 2018, I was introduced to Whole Brain® Thinking and the HBDI®, an assessment of thinking preference. With this, came the opportunity to gain a practitioner certification, which reignited a spark in understanding who we are, how we think, what we do and why we do it.