Our broad approaches to understanding people have been validated through years of experience and follow-up research.

Strong organisations and leaders have a distinctive signature

Bright people can often get it wrong and those that are the most successful are rarely the most intelligent. We believe that in assessing people's intelligence it is important to look at not just how well they do on reasoning tests but how they use their intellect. Also, social, emotional and practical intelligence is not assessed in IQ tests but can often lie behind the achievements of successful people.

There is no such thing as personality

People generally label others but resent being labelled themselves. We believe people behave in different ways in different situations. For example we would never say that somebody is either confident or under confident as a blanket statement. Rather we would attempt to understand the situations in which they feel comfortable and the ones in which they feel less self-assured. Once you put to one side the notion of people having set traits you are able to see others in a truer and more insightful manner.

We don't believe in psychobabble

We believe in using psychology in a pragmatic way to help businesses. Our consultants are business people first and psychologists second. We speak to managers in their language and work in a creative way to make psychology relevant. We do not hide behind academic mystique and abstract theorising. We communicate with people who want us to solve issues in the real world.

What people believe and actually do is all that matters in organisations

Strategic plans, organisational structures or short-term targets mean little in themselves unless they are internalised by people and influence the way they behave. We believe many organisations pay lip service to the importance of people but often engage in activities which will not 'bite' because the people component is missing. Changing organisational structure or putting into place a new strategic plan can give the illusion of progress but achieve nothing if people are not touched. We help businesses understand how to change the way people actually operate and behave.

People want belonging and meaning in their work

We do not believe people can be measured by administering tests. Psychologists who claim that they can are frankly being simplistic. When seeking to understand people we talk to them rather than putting them through a "battery hen" testing procedure. We use tests as a starting point for discussion rather than as tools that provide definitive judgements. In the final analysis, we believe it is more important to understand how people have lived their lives and operated in the workplace rather than the scores that they have obtained on a 15-minute test.

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