ST-IM model: a whole brain approach to

implementation
Prasad Deshpande and Suhas Baxi

Prasad Deshpande is Abstract

Director, Empowered
Learning Systems PVT Ltd,
Maharashtra, India (see
www.empoweredindia.
com). Suhas Baxi is
Managing Director, Demag
Cranes and Components
India, Maharashtra, India.
Purpose – The purpose of the paper is to present a practical case study of a mid-size Indian
organisation, where the whole brain thinking (WBT) approach has been successfully used to align
strategy to development needs, based on a simple but powerful model, the ST-IMe; the authors also
share how WBT has been useful in increasing the effectiveness of the implementation of key strategic
projects.
Design/methodology/approach – The approach was to engage the wider team (leadership and
managers) in the formulation and implementation of strategic goals by making them aware of their
thinking preferences/mindsets through a collaborative approach to working. Project teams were then
formed and the project plan – right from the project definition to the milestones – was created, using the
whole brain walk around. This approach helped managers to identify ‘‘gaps’’ and bridge these gaps.
The Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDIw) was used as a tool to ‘‘colour’’ the organisation (the
leadership team and all managers).
Findings – There was a high degree of acceptance of the WBT concept and the HBDI profiles
generated among managers at all levels. This acceptance of their own thinking preferences as well as
avoidances has led to managers being willing to become more flexible in their thinking – to become
more ‘‘situationally whole brained’’ when required, leading to a visibly higher degree of success of
implementation of projects.
Originality/value – The ST-IM model demonstrates a practical way for organisations to engage the
potential of a much wider team in the implementation of strategies.
Keywords Human resource development, Corporate strategy, Project management,
Whole brain thinking
Paper type Technical

esearch on the brain has led us to understand that each of us has a preferred way

R and mode of thinking that affects the way we receive and process information.

The awareness of one’s own thinking style and the thinking styles of others combined with
the ability to act outside of one’s preferred thinking style is known as ‘‘whole brain thinking’’
(see Figure 1). We all have our own unique preferences for thinking – the lens through which
we ‘‘see’’ the world.
The metaphoric model developed from research done by Ned Herrmann at GE is divided
into four separate quadrants, each one different and equal in importance, and has been
validated over the last 30 years with over two million learners worldwide

Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDIw)

At the core of the technology is the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDIw), a
q Prasad Deshpande,
Empowered Learning Systems,
120-question, scientifically validated instrument that measures an individual’s thinking
2011 preferences in four unique quadrants of the brain.

PAGE 228 j INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL TRAINING j VOL. 43 NO. 4 2011, pp. 228-238, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 0019-7858 DOI 10.1108/00197851111137843
Figure 1 Whole brain model

The HBDIw identifies one’s preferred approach to emotional, analytical, structural and
strategic thinking. Since these thinking preferences impact virtually everything we do,
including our communication and decision-making, the HBDIw represents a powerful tool
that can provide individuals with a significantly increased level of personal understanding.
The HBDIw is a cognitive tool and is not personality-based, and while this can be used in a
wide range of areas, there is tremendous depth in terms of its application.
It is very easy to administer, given that it is online. It is visual, and this adds greatly to its
appeal as it is easy to understand at all levels in the organisation.

Why whole brain thinking

Any situation which requires thinking that goes beyond a given quadrant’s specialised mode
can benefit from whole brain thinking. The areas where whole brain thinking is frequently
applied are decision-making, problem solving, improving team interactions, performance
and communication.
In our experience, WBT works really well in helping aligning development to achieving
strategic goals. In most organisations, the challenge really is to ensure that its people are
capable of effectively implementing defined strategic goals.
By creating a common language and identifying gaps in thinking earlier on, WBT helps to
identify specific areas of development which, if addressed, help in implementation.

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 This paper describes how the principles of WBT were applied at a midsize engineering
company to good effect and how the adoption of this organising principle by the company
as a whole has made a significant difference in the way people collaborate in teams, plan
their approach in projects, take decisions and communicate.

Demag: applying whole brain thinking

Demag Cranes and Components is a German engineering company with a global footprint.
It started its Indian operation in 1997 and established a manufacturing plant in India to offer
the wide range of Demag products that would help the company compete in a market
dominated by well established local players.
In 2007, the parent company realised that as a global leader, Demag India needed to create
a local strategy to take advantage of a growing market, in line with the vision and values
espoused by the group (see Table I).
When Suhas took over as the new Managing Director in 2007, he had a new management
team, drawn from a number of different organisations, with each manager bringing in his or
her own set of perceptions.
Suhas was clear at the outset that he needed to understand his team better as well as
establish a strong discipline of execution, given that the success of a strategy depends
largely on those responsible for implementation.
When we discussed this, Suhas and I both agreed that the whole brain thinking model was
the one that would best help the organisation.
Given my experience of working with over 30 organisations, currently deploying the whole
brain thinking model, I believed that the simplicity and the flexibility of the model would adapt
itself very well to the Demag situation.

Guiding principles for implementation

We also articulated five guiding principles based on our experience, which we believed were
necessary to keep in mind for implementation to be successful:
1. involve people at all levels;
2. engage people in their areas of strength;
3. support cross-functional teams in collaborating more effectively;

Table I WBT guiding principles

Audience How WBT helps

1. Individual Creates awareness of individual thinking preferences

Improves awareness of ‘‘blind spots’’
Helps the individual to understand how these ‘‘blind spots’’ possibly limit one in one’s
current assignment/role
Helps one work on a short-term and a long-term development plan to become more
whole-brained, when required
Helps the organization to become more sensitive to the individual’s development
needs and customises the individual’s development plan, leading to a more engaged
employee
2. Team Helps the team become more aware of how the team thinks – the degree of
homogeneity and heterogeneity – through the dominance maps
Helps identify likely areas of conflict based on different thinking patterns so that team
members can be trained on the skills of handling conflict/ disagreement
Helps the team understand how diversity (different quadrants) can actually bring
different strengths to the team. Helps the team function as a ‘‘whole brained’’ team and
come up with balanced objectives

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‘‘ The areas where whole brain thinking is frequently applied
are decision-making, problem solving, improving team
interactions, performance and communication. ’’

4. motivate people through a sense of ownership, by recognising that people work best in
their areas of preferences and giving them that opportunity consciously, as far as is
practically possible; and
5. identify and minimise assumptions or blind spots.

Guiding principles for implementation of the WBT model

I have realised over the years that as the needs of individuals and teams are different, the
WBT approach is most effective if applied while keeping these needs in mind.

The ST-IMe model

The ST-IM (Strategy to Implementation) model presented in Figure 2 evolved over a period of
over 18 months as result of efforts to develop a practical approach to involve all stakeholders
– managers and their teams – in the implementation process. This six-step model is now the
basis of implementing any strategic project in Demag India.

Figure 2 The ST-IMe model

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 Applying the ST-IMe model
Step 1: Creating awareness: ‘‘colouring the organisation’’
Individual profiles. Individuals go online and fill in a 120-question survey form called the
Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDIw) to understand their dominant or preferred
modes of thinking.
Figure 3 shows examples of HBDI profiles, reflecting the dominance of each quadrant.
These profiles also indicate how one thinks under pressure – please refer to the faint white
lines indicated in the profile.
The inner concentric circle indicates avoidance in that quadrant, the circle next to that
indicates secondary thinking preferences and the last two concentric circles indicate
primary thinking preferences in that quadrant.
Each of these quadrants represents different ‘‘mindsets’’.
Manager A would want to approach situations quite rationally and logically. While she will
focus on numbers and facts, under stress, she would be uncomfortable with emotions and
feelings that she would have to deal with from other team members when meeting deadlines.

Figure 3 Examples of HBDI profiles reflecting the dominance of each quadrant

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‘‘ Using WBT, the team took more care to define the project
outcome in a whole brained way. When this was done, the
team discovered that the project objectives became more
concrete, and this process helped in defining milestones. ’’

Manager B, on the other hand, would be ready and organized, expecting a clear plan and
process. She prefers ‘‘doing’’ and professionally she would veer to the side of extreme
caution, her need for security shutting her out to any new approaches for when there is a
crises and also when there is a need for a fresh approach.

Manager C would often prefer to engage in dialogue about the situation with her close
network and seek to understand always what other people ‘‘feel’’ about the project. Manager
C is guilty, under stress, of drawing quick conclusions based on feelings.
Manager D is perhaps, the only person who still appears upbeat and willing to talk about the
opportunities that are available. On the professional front she would be willing to take more
risks and as a decision maker she is unlikely to scale down existing plans in a hurry.
Dominance maps or team profiles. The dominance map (Figure 4) indicates the preferences
of the team members relative to each other.
This map indicates that there is a preference for left brain thinking in the team and that the
team is largely homogenous. This is typical of an engineering organisation.
The constant emphasis throughout was to enforce the message that there is no ‘‘ideal’’
profile to strive for. In fact the only ideal profile is the one you have; there are situational
consequence of your profile that need to be understood.
Creating teams. Rather than creating teams based only on functional roles, team and
individual profiles help managers form whole brained heterogeneous teams to lead various
strategic projects. Using thinking preferences as a criterion for creating teams was unique.
There were a number of advantages of doing this, such as more ideas, more debate and
better solutions.

Step 2: Whole brain walk around

Strategy template. Based on the whole brain model and applied to a business scenario, the
strategy template (Figure 5) covers key aspects represented in four quadrants on five
common parameters, i.e. strategic issues, team action, problem solving, communication,
getting people together.
This particular tool is very useful to explore any strategic initiative from a WBT perspective. It
was used while thinking through the objective of each project as well as while thinking
through the milestones required for accomplishing the project.
Using the tool. While analysing any project, the team moves from the blue to red to yellow
and finally the green quadrants, and while in each quadrant, the team analyses the situation
on five common parameters stated above. For example, while considering team actions –
which is one of the five parameters – the analysis in each quadrant would differ and would
depend on the questions the team would address in each quadrant (see Table II).

Teams found this tool very useful and started understanding the importance of asking critical
questions at a much earlier stage. The teams also learnt that the key to successful
implementation lay in asking the right questions before and not after.

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 Figure 4 Dominance map

Step 3: Critique process

A peer review using this template, allows a constructive structured critique of the formulation
of a strategic initiative (see Figure 6), and in the process achieves two purposes:
1. captures ‘‘gaps’’ and identifies areas that the team might have missed and helps to
redefine the objective of the strategic initiative more sharply (Step 4 of the model); and
2. involves the larger organization in the specific initiative, at the planning stage.

Step 4: Operationalise strategy – planning and implementation

A unique three-tiered project team structure was devised to implement each project,
comprising:
1. a sponsor, who would provide resources;
2. a Strategic Facilitation Team (SFT) leader; and
3. a project manager.
In terms of roles, the SFT leader puts the team together and provides support while planning,
reviewing and monitoring (the cerebral inputs); the project manager focuses on the
operational details (the limbic inputs); and the SFT leader and project manager together
form a whole brain team.

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 Figure 5 Strategy template (adapted from Hermann International Asia, 2008a)

Table II
Blue Green Red Yellow
Do we have . . . Do we have . . . Do we have . . . Do we have . . .

Clear performance goals,
objectives and measurements?
Budget/financial issues and
outcomes?
All the data and research we
need?
How can we use technology?
Any knowledge of each other?
A facilitator(s)?
An understanding of our
‘‘customer’’?
Clear roles?
A good way to communicate
between us and our customer?
A vision of our successful future An agenda and guidelines?
outcome?
Assumptions? What we need to prepare?
A strategy? The best processes to use?
A challenging of new ideas and Clear priorities, a plan and a time
solutions? line?
An idea of the big picture and Clear responsibilities and
global aspects? accountabilities defined

Using WBT, the team took more care to define the project outcome in a whole brained way.
When this was done, the team discovered that the project objectives became more
concrete, and this process helped in defining milestones.

Step 5: Building people capability – developing people to implement the plan using whole
brain thinking
Building people capability involves either or all of the following activities;

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 Figure 6 Critique template (adapted from Hermann International Asia, 2008b)

B developing the manager;

B coaching the manager to develop his team; and
B training interventions for the team and others.
Developing the manager. While managers have to plan, it is equally important for them to
execute and get things done. The challenge really is to narrow this gap between thinking and
doing through either training sessions for managers or individual coaching on specific
areas. The discussions during project reviews form an important input to help design these
interventions.
WBT is again useful to help identify quadrant specific actions to build capability, for example
for:
B skills and competence levels (red);

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B innovative ways of achieving the outcome (yellow);
B clarifying the strategy (blue); and
B communicating clearly to the team (red);
Manager as a coach. This is the critical step as the role managers have to play in changing
mindsets and thinking, and to do so managers are provided with:
B dominance maps of their teams;
B soft copies of the individual HBDI profile of their team; and
B the individual development plan for each person;
The manager analyses this data and calls for a team meeting, where he shares his profile
and his own action plan in a transparent and open way. This plan also serves as a guide to
individual team members to prepare their own plan. He shares the strategic goals and his
assessment of his challenges, and involves the team to evolve a team action plan to meet
these goals.
B The manager spends time separately with each team member on a one-to-one basis to
help to support the individual plan. He will also discuss the individual profile with each
individual as well as subsequent implications.
B These discussions would be very useful to identify development needs before coaching
sessions with individual team members.
The most challenging part of this step in the model of building capability are Steps 2 and 3;
developing managers as coaches and for them to hold structured coaching sessions with
each individual team member.
The implementation of these steps has still not happened in the way that was envisaged and
our experience is that significantly more effort will be required to make this more
self-sustainable.

Observations and learnings

B This innovative team structure works. The SFT leader acts as a mentor and does provide a
bigger picture perspective (the cerebral focus). The project manager focuses on the
operational details (the limbic focus).Together, the SFT leader and project manager form
a whole brain team. The sponsor provides the accountability as his resources are
involved.
B Defining the project objective is the most important step. This was borne out time and
again in various projects. Quite often the team went back to the drawing board to clarify
the project objectives. For example in the case of one of the projects – Refurbishment
Services – the team realised that the objective was not only in terms of providing a service
but also building a services organisation. This insight changed the subsequent
milestones as well.
B An awareness of thinking preferences does help the team to think differently. An
awareness that the team’s dominant preference is for left brain thinking, more specifically
in the A quadrant, helped the team recognise during the project milestone reviews the
extent to which ‘‘red quadrant’’ thinking and ‘‘yellow’’ quadrant thinking did not come
readily to the team.
B Creates a common language. WBT and the visual representation has created a ‘‘common
language’’ that has improved communication among teams and cross functional groups.
Since the framework focuses on thinking and not individual behaviour, feedback from
each other is more easily acceptable and a project critique is not viewed as a personal
critique. For example, all that it required was for one team member to tell the others that it
was time to be more ‘‘red’’ – and almost instantly the team shifted focus without time
being invested in convincing or ‘‘selling’’ the idea.

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 B Developing an operational mindset. A limbic approach still remains a significant area of
improvement for managers, both SFT leaders and project managers. By ‘‘developing an
operational mindset’’ we mean attention to detail at a much more significant level, the
ability to anticipate what can go wrong, understanding team members’ strengths and
weakness and the ability to assign the right person to the right task, developing /coaching
the person before and not after, so as to measure up to the task, and working on these
activities as a matter of course.
B Collaboration is the key to raising the bar. We believe that the ST-IMe model and the
approach of aligning development to strategy significantly contributes to collaborative
working within teams, as well as in cross-functional teams. While what is meant by
‘‘collaboration’’ in an organisation may be difficult to define, the absence of collaboration
is very strongly felt. This is an approach which at its heart is about involving people at all
levels, supporting the philosophy that everyone wants to and can contribute and that
differences amongst people are honoured and not just tolerated. The approach can tap
the latent potential present in any organisation and consistently raise the performance
bar.

References
Hermann International Asia (2008a), ‘‘The whole brain model’’, available at: www.herrmann.com.au/
(accessed 22 March 2011).

Hermann International Asia (2008b), ‘‘Whole brain project management’’, available at: www.herrmann.
com.au/ (accessed 22 March 2011).

Corresponding author
Prasad Deshpande can be contacted at: prasad@empoweredindia.com

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