ORGANISATIONS USE ONLY PART OF EACH PERSON - AND IT’S THE LEAST VALUABLE BIT

When I say we use only part of each person I am thinking primarily about two things. 

First, organisations tend to think only about how they can maximise the use of physical work and thinking work; they hardly ever try to maximise the power of feeling/caring or the power of wanting to leave a legacy. And yet most of the power of humans is tied up in these two. In my consulting work I encourage managers to think about their people as body (physical work), head (thinking work), heart (caring) and soul (legacy). 

Second, we are pushing people into boxes (jobs) that have little or no relationship to the inherent talents of the person. In my consulting work I teach managers that every person has a unique talent and if the organisation is to become great then they must find that talent and put it to work. I use Herrmann's Thinking Preferences to help managers identify and measure these talents.

WE USE ONLY PART OF OUR BRAINPOWER

When I say that we use only part of our brain, I am referring to the way our society favours left brain thinking and in the process devalues about 50% of human potential. At school, by the time we are 6 years old most of the creativity has been trained out of us. We need to learn how to look for alternatives and both/and solutions but we are taught only analysis and either/or thinking. In a recent study of American 18 year old students it was found that on average they had completed over 2000 examinations requiring a right or wrong answer. Creativity is a great untapped potential for organisations. The brain has awesome power, unfortunately it doesn't come with an operating manual and most people don't know how to use it most effectively. Creativity will not just happen, it has to be managed and people have to be given the tools and shown how. When I started out consulting, creativity was the focus of my practice, today it is still one of the cornerstones of releasing brainpower.