I’ve been working with a really phenomenal bunch of people from Group Risk at one of the big 5 banks in South Africa.

What a privilege.

I’ve gained so much insight into myself and other people during this time. What we do at Avo is about self and the other person, try looking at any course we run and you’ll find it revolves around that dynamic. So how privileged am I to be constantly working on myself while I’m working with others?

So to my point; I have a pretty equal combination of analytical and very steady behaviour in my personality profile and by far the majority of people coming from Group Risk are analytical - their behaviour fits the analyst personality profile very closely.

Just last week a group came along on our Persuasive Conversations course, and every single one of them were very strongly analytical. Many people misunderstand the analyst type person. An old stereotype of this group of people was that they didn’t have much of a personality. Analysts know this is not true but I sometimes get the feeling other people are not always so sure. Later research indicates that they may be some of the most complicated personalities to be found.

On this series of courses I have experienced this complexity and have been through the widest possible range of emotions and experiences that you could think of. We’ve had so much fun but at the same time have had some incredibly serious, deep discussions. There has been laughing and joking mixed with thinking (lots of it), discussing, explaining, wondrous stories, debate… about senior managers, exploring family relationships and the minds of teenagers, some tears (yes some of my own as well), challenges, challenging situations brought to the table, worries, solutions, ideas and learning.

Yes, every single programme makes my mind spin, at some point I usually consciously feel myself thinking how great it is to be alive, enthusiastic and stimulated with the people around me. When engaging with people and attempting to work out how to connect with them be aware that you don’t box the analyst too rigidly, they have incredible depth and bring massive value.