How You Can Enhance Strategic Impact with Team Profiling

Building a high performance team isn’t just about selecting the most skilled individuals; it’s about understanding how those individuals think, collaborate, and contribute to collective goals. One powerful tool that organisations are increasingly leveraging to achieve this is team profiling. By understanding the cognitive diversity within a team, leaders can unlock new levels of efficiency, innovation, and strategic impact.

What Is Team Profiling?

At its core, team profiling is the process of assessing individual thinking preferences, communication styles, and behavioural tendencies. This provides organisations with a deeper understanding of each team member’s strengths and how those strengths complement others. Tools like the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument® (HBDI®), DiSC, and CliftonStrengths empower leaders to evaluate their workforce effectively.

Team profiling, however, is not about labelling employees or reducing them to categories. Instead, it’s about understanding cognitive diversity. When leaders recognise varying preferences and behaviours, they can build balanced teams that drive innovation and strategic decision-making.

Understanding Individual Thinking Preferences with HBDI®

A key player in the realm of team profiling tools, the HBDI, stands out. HBDI evaluates individuals’ thinking preferences within four quadrants:

1. Analytical (Blue) – Logical, data-driven thinkers focused on facts and problem-solving.
2. Practical (Green) – Detail-oriented individuals who excel in planning and implementation.
3. Relational (Red) – Empathy-driven individuals who prioritise teamwork and interpersonal communication.
4. Experimental (Yellow) – Big-picture thinkers who thrive on creativity and innovation.

Each team member typically exhibits preferences across these quadrants, creating a unique cognitive “map.” By assessing these preferences, leaders can:

• Identify gaps in team capabilities.
• Cultivate balanced teams.
• Tailor communication strategies to resonate with all thinking styles.

This tailored approach to leadership and collaboration is what makes HBDI a preferred tool for organisations aiming to develop high performing teams.

Benefits of Team Profiling for Strategic Impact

Why should executive leadership and teams invest in assessment and profiling tools like HBDI? Here are four compelling reasons:

1. Enhanced Collaboration

Teams thrive when members understand each other’s cognitive and behavioural tendencies. Profiling helps individuals appreciate different perspectives, leading to improved empathy, smoother communication, and reduced conflicts.

Example: Imagine a team where a data-driven member (Analytical) collaborates with a big-picture thinker (Experimental). By understanding each other’s strengths, they can merge their skills to balance out details and strategy.

2. Data-Driven Decision Making

Cognitive diversity creates a robust decision-making process. Analytical thinkers excel at logical problem-solving, experimental thinkers bring innovative ideas, relational thinkers ensure stakeholder alignment, and practical thinkers focus on feasibility. Profiling tools reveal these strengths, allowing teams to optimise their strategic planning.

3. Personalised Leadership Development

Through leadership profiling, organisations can develop tailored growth plans for team members. For example, if a leader shows a stronger preference for green (Practical) thinking, a training program can help them strengthen relational (Red) or experimental (Yellow) capabilities to make them more versatile.

4. Increased Team Performance

High performance teams are built on complementing strengths, not unrestrained similarity. Profiling ensures that the right individuals are in the right roles, empowering teams with the balance they need to exceed expectations.

Case Study: Jobsbank’s Success with HBDI®

When Jobsbank, an organisation with a commitment to fostering inclusive employment programs, decided to transform their leadership culture, they turned to HBDI. This tool became the foundation for their leadership program, allowing individuals to uncover their thinking preferences and leverage their cognitive strengths effectively.

Through HBDI assessments, Jobsbank’s leaders gained valuable insights into their own preferences, as well as those of their colleagues. Employees started recognising the value of diverse thinking styles, and this shared understanding fostered collaboration and empathy.

According to Taylor Burge, a participant of this leadership initiative:

“The work we did with the HBDI® preference thinking and seeing how, without realising, we’re applying that to day-to-day operations within the team… has given everyone just a deeper understanding of each other and a little bit more empathy as well. When it comes to how we approach tasks, who we pull in, and why.”

The results? Jobsbank unlocked higher levels of collaboration, communication, and strategic decision-making. By valuing cognitive diversity, they created an inclusive organisational climate that thrives on innovation.

Implementing Team Profiling in Your Organisation

Now that you understand how team profiling drives strategic impact, how can you introduce it at your workplace? Here’s a step-by-step guide:

Step 1: Choose the Right Profiling Tool

Start by selecting a reputable assessment and profiling tool. HBDI is especially valuable for organisations who are developing leadership capabilities and understanding cognitive diversity.

Step 2: Train Leadership Teams

To successfully implement team profiling, train leaders in understanding and applying the results of the assessments. This ensures that the new insights are seamlessly incorporated into team dynamics and project workflows.

Step 3: Facilitate Assessments for Teams

Conduct assessments for all team members. Tools like HBDI provide detailed reports that will help both teams and managers understand individual thinking preferences and behavioural tendencies.

Step 4: Interpret and Act on Insights

Once assessments are completed, focus on deriving actionable insights. For example:

• Are there any dominant thinking preferences within your team?
• Are some quadrants underrepresented?

Leverage these insights to ensure balanced teams and support areas that need development.

Step 5: Foster Continuous Improvement

Team profiling isn’t a one-off exercise. Revisit assessments periodically as your team grows and evolves. This ensures optimisation over time and provides opportunities for reflection and further team development.

Step 6: Build a Culture of Awareness

Finally, create a culture that values understanding and collaboration. Encourage open communication and ensure profiling insights are used for constructive growth rather than stereotyping.

Shape the Future of Your Team

Team profiling isn’t just a “nice-to-have” for businesses serious about strategic success. By leveraging tools like HBDI, organisations can create high-performance teams rooted in inclusivity, empathy, and data-driven strategies.

If you’re ready to take your organisation to the next level, start by assessing your team’s thinking preferences. Not sure where to begin? Contact us to learn more about implementing HBDI and other profiling tools to unlock your team’s potential. Together, we can shape the future of your business.