e-Talk Radio: Winward, Heather, 19 September 2000

TEXT TRANSCRIPT: 19 September 2000
Copyright 2001 Quality Plus Technologies and Carol Dekkers. All rights reserved.

Announcer: Welcome to Quality Plus e-Talk! with Carol Dekkers. This program will focus on the latest in the field of technology. All comments, views, and opinions are those of the host, guests, and callers. Now let's join Carol Dekkers.

Carol: Hi. I'm Carol Dekkers, and I run a company called Quality Plus Technologies, based in Tampa, Florida, where we do consulting worldwide on quality initiatives, process improvement, particularly for the software development industry. I'm met today by one of my best guests, my second guest I guess to date, and it's Heather Winward, who's an executive coach and graphologist. Heather joins me from Washington, D.C., where she's attending a Software Engineering Institute symposium this week. And I'm here in Tampa, Florida, and if it happens to cut off, I'm in the middle of a major, major thunderstorm. Hurricane Gordon has gone by, but we're stuck with the remnants of it, which is wonderful lightning. So I'd like to say welcome to Heather.

Heather: Thank you very much. It's good to be here.

Carol: I'm glad you're here.

Heather: I'm glad I'm not there, I think.

Carol: That may be true. But we'll see. The software engineering symposium that you're at is attended by quite a few people who are in the software development industry. Correct, Heather?

Heather: That's true, that's true. Strewn from all across academia, industry, a lot of DoD people attend this symposium.

Carol: And today we're going to talk to our audience, primarily. This is our first live show, and what's going to be interesting about it, is that anybody that's driving home, anybody that's listening to us, has a chance to actually see graphology in action. We've set up a toll-free line, and let me give that to our callers. It's 866-277-5369. And what we're going to allow you to do, if you get on the line, and Candice is going to take our calls for us, once you get on the line, we're going to invite you to fax in a couple of lines of your own handwriting. Graphology is actually handwriting analysis, and you will be amazed and absolutely fascinated by the types of things that Heather Winward can uncover just with a couple of lines of your own handwriting. So I'm going to give out the fax number that you can, if you get on the line, run to a fax machine and fax a couple of lines of handwriting, and Heather, does it matter exactly what people write?

Heather: Absolutely not. In fact, I've had anything from a string of swear words to foreign languages. What you write is not at all important.

Carol: And do you need a signature at the bottom?

Heather: If they would like to, they can include a signature, which would include their first name, middle initial, and last name. If you aren't comfortable doing that, that's fine too. You can do that without it.

Carol: And what we'd like to ask our callers to do is to provide either your first name at the top of the sheet, or a code name, if you want to go by "Mr. X" or whatever you want to use, so that we can identify it as it comes through the fax lines that Heather picks up, that we can actually link that up so when she's talking to callers, that we'll be actually analyzing the same handwriting that's actually yours. So this is something brand new for Renaissance Radio. I don't think they've ever done this before. And while people are thinking about faxing things in, let me give you the toll-free line one more time. It's 866-277-5369, and Candice will have you stand by. And if you want to fax in a couple of lines of your handwriting, I know some of you are probably in the car and may not be able to do that easily unless you have a fax machine in your car, but the fax number is 202-466-9630. And while we're waiting for callers to phone in, I'd like to talk to you, Heather, just a little bit about what is executive coaching? What can you do, in terms of executive coaching, through handwriting analysis?

Heather: You know, people who have gone through any sort of personality type indicators know that when you have gone through something, perhaps the Meyers-Briggs, or some of those sort of personality type indicators, what people come out with is a different view, different languaging of their personality. And what I do with executive coaching and handwriting analysis is because it's very, very quick, and it's very confronting for people, they're able to access personality traits that were latent, that they haven't been able to language in the way that they can then be empowered by. So what I do is I come in and I have the individual show me some handwriting, we go through step by step the communications skills, the ……….. skills, ……. skills, however they want to use, and we look at their goals, how they want to behave in business, what kind of goals they have for their business. Is the bottom line really making money? Is it to increase their communication skills? Are they looking for relationship help? And we go through each one of those avenues and we actually look at the traits they're using. I don't want people to change who they are, but merely augment and be able to access those traits that best serve them for their own goals.

Carol: And I think it's probably pretty scary, in some cases, to have somebody kind of look at your handwriting and you're almost afraid, in some cases, that they might be reading your mind. And what I've seen that you've done before is executive coaching in groups, where you take the highest, the best strengths, and allow people to work together and say, "You know, I didn't know you had that strength. Here's how we could use it in terms of team building.

Heather: Exactly. In group situations, so much of this… If you work on a team, we've all decided what we call each other in the team. So when I come into a group, then we work with the people and realize, maybe what this person is exhibiting looks like stubbornness, when in reality it's precision. And if I understood that you, or the person that has that, is trying to be precise, how much more latitude would I give them to be themselves, rather than deciding they're very stubborn and I can't work with them. So in a group dynamic, when you give people these different ways of articulating who they are, and people hear it, it creates dialogue and communication, and everyone know that when you increase communication you increase productivity, and people are happier. People seem to work better together. They seem to stay on longer. And they feel it's a better work environment.

Carol: One of the things that The New York Times published, I think about six months ago, was an article where they said one of the casualties of having mergers and downsizing and outsourcing, and all of those types of things, that one of the biggest casualties is feeling safe at work. Being able to work on a team. If your co-workers that you worked with for even a couple of years are suddenly gone, and you're now faced across a desk or across a cubicle with people you don't know, sometimes that may take a long time to get to know them.

Heather: You bring up a good point. In fact, sometimes in these mergers, you may be sitting across a cubicle from someone who has been your direct competitor. And when you get in those situations, that happens a lot, then we can come in and we can actually say, "Okay, let's start from where we are. There's no reason to bring out baggage. It's not about parent blaming, boss blaming, it's just about who you are right this minute." And then it gives people a chance to choose who they want to be. And then people can be in a group, where everyone can hear what everyone's working on. But it feels safe, and it's actually very fun. People enjoy it. They come back and do it again and again and again. I've helped people in business, and I've also helped people in their families, or with their… people from their past, or people who are going through divorce. And everyone in the world wants to be able to communicate better, because they want to be able to feel safe. That's a great point. And when you can do that in business, it benefits everybody. It benefits whatever project, and the team at large.

Carol: Right. Now, I've seen, in IT in particular, people don't go into IT because of their people skills, because of their socialization, because you're going to work with, you know, great social surroundings. So we end up with people who are developers, people who are programmers, who have to sit down and work with a user community that essentially speaks a different language. Would graphology assist with any of that team building?

Heather: It's true. In fact, one of the things I hear when I work with engineers and programmers, they believe that they are not good communicators. Consequently, they don't communicate very well. I have done extensive work in the IT community, working with these individuals to really get them to be able to say that they can be ………… themselves, and not have to depart and turn into some sort of extrovert. To be able to use the skills they have to say what they need to say and deliver the message they want to deliver. They didn't go into IT, as you said, to be the social butterfly or to be the person that's everywhere talking to everybody. But they are in a position where maybe they need to do a presentation, or they need to communicate with that co-worker. So what we can do, we can come in and help them be able to use the strengths that they have already and be able to communicate what they want and what they need from someone else. We help them learn how to ask the right questions to really get what they want. We help facilitate, when there's a problem, how do I get to what I want, how do I say what I really want to say? How do I express my discontent?

Carol: Right.

Heather: And that's invaluable in a situation, because so often, things go unsaid in this community, in the IT community, because people don't feel maybe as though they are prepared to confront the situation.

Carol: Right. And I've found that, particularly in the outsourcing arena, and for any of our listeners who don't necessarily know what outsourcing is, that's when an entire department, and sometimes it's accounting, more often than not lately it is the IT or information technology department, that is actually wholeheartedly, how do I say this, sold off to an outsourcer. So a company like IBM or Andersen Consulting or EDS comes in, offers the business a price to take those people, employ those people, and do the information technology systems development for the business company. And it's been compared, in a lot of cases, to being really an arranged marriage. A lot of people that actually end up implementing outsourcing arrangements feel sometimes like stepchildren in an arranged marriage or feel very much like the partners in an arranged marriage, where the parents are long gone and, you know, the marketing department and the lawyers are long gone golfing, and they're sitting there looking at the people that they used to work with on the same side, and saying, "How do I work with these people? Now we have to make a partnership work."

Heather: …pressure's off to perform. In fact, in those situations, then it needs to be heightened pressure to really perform, now that we've made this so-called better environment that's working out well for the business people, but now these people need to actually perform and perform well, it is oftentimes when their jobs are really on the line. And in any situation, I don't know a person that really welcomes wholesale change in their life. So as you go through these things in your personal life and professional life, that's when you start building up certain walls, we start creating a façade of who we are, and in some cases it can work for a long, long time, but what are we losing? We're losing the quality of life, and we are affecting our productivity and our quality of work that we do, when we actually build up this false Who I Am and How I Deal with Other People.

Carol: Now, you've done some handwriting analysis and some team building and some executive coaching with senior officials within the Department of Defense. And some of those people, who are very, very senior in their roles and oftentimes CIOs in private companies, they express amazement of the types of things that you've been able to uncover just by taking a glance at handwriting samples.

Heather: It's true. In fact, what people are most often surprised at is that it's not a horoscope. It's not that I would see the person's handwriting and say, "Oh, you're going to have a good day." It's really about, "You know, I can see right now that you're the person that can formulate ideas and implement the ideas that are agreed upon." Or "You have a good attention to detail. (inaudible) Or, a little closer to home, "You're very, very honest with yourself, but you tend to deceive other people for your own purposes." When you say those things to those people, and the way I analyze handwriting, is I don't gloss over it. I don't make it neat and tidy, because I know people will want to know the truth.

Carol: Now, we're going to have to go to a break. But I want to give the toll-free number out again. It's 866-277-5369. If you get on that toll-free number, Candice will answer the phone, and we'll give you the fax number, so that if you want to have your handwriting analyzed, and again, you can use code names or whatever you'd like. We're going to go to break, and we'll be back with Heather Winward shortly.

We're back. I'm Carol Dekkers. I run a company called Quality Plus Technologies, specializing in process improvement, increased requirements definition, and pretty much a lot of different services for the IT industry. My guest this evening is Heather Winward, who joins us from Washington, D.C. And Heather is a professional executive coach who uses one technique called graphology to uncover some of the ideas, some of the personality traits, that people on teams generally hide. Sometimes it's things like people like to work teams, different things that people are motivated by, and I welcome Heather back to the show.

Heather: Thank you very much. I'd like to bring up something interesting, too. You know, oftentimes in an interview, well every time in an interview, if you want the job, you're going to say what you think that person wants to hear. Whether it's "I can work in teams," "I'm honest…"

Carol: And when you say, "I'm beautiful." That's probably one of those things, too.

Heather: Absolutely. So what happens, too, is (inaudible) what happens sometimes after you've paid the money to train that person, you find out they're not the person they portrayed. So that's when I can come in and say, "You know what? We don't want to get rid of this person because people have value, and people can bring something to the table." I can actually look at a trait and say, "Well really, what you're really good at doing is not working with other people. This is a job where dadadada…" and you can actually work with the manager, or the team to really identify where people are most comfortable. And the difference is that you can actually have that person buy into what their job's going to be and have the manager understand that person and how they like to work. And that's information that's invaluable, considering the turnover that people have, the manager-practitioner relationships that are so caustic or can be so hard to live with. And that's just one more thing how you can use it, and how I've used it.

Carol: And Heather, we have our first live caller.

Heather: Beautiful.

Carol: Candice, do we have a handwriting sample? Or Heather, I guess you're going to have to run down quickly and grab the handwriting sample from the caller who's called in.

Heather: Okay, I'll be right back.

Carol: And you'll be right back. I'll start talking to the caller. Hi, you're on the air.

Caller: Hi. I'm not going to mention my name, because I might be heard over the valley. I think it's wonderful what you're doing, and have her not run to the fax machine. My fax is not working at home, and I'd have to fax it from the office. Which I would like to do, but that would be tomorrow.

Carol: And Heather is probably running down right now. She's on a different floor.

Caller: That's okay. It's good exercise.

Carol: That's true. She'll come running back.

Caller: I think it's wonderful in terms of the money that you can potentially save a lot of companies, because I know a lot of people in management don't have the ability, they really judgmentally judge people by certain characteristics, when every characteristic has a plus and a minus to it.

Carol: Right.

Caller: And they don't know how to draw it out.

Carol: And that can be difficult. Are you in the IT industry, or are you…?

Caller: I would like to be, and I'm getting ready to make a midlife decision on whether or not to go back to school. I've been in business most of my life, and computers I enjoy. And I enjoy the systems and how they interact and interwork and I'm thinking that might be where I want to go.

Carol: And did you hear our show last week, where we talked to Howard Rubin? He had some incredibly promising news for anyone thinking about changing careers or going into the whole IT industry.

Caller: Right. Because that's going to be forever, if we all choose to co-exist on this planet. That's the way it's going to be. You know, the IT industry will be in the forefront.

Carol: Right.

Caller: And the fact, though, as far as what Heather is doing, just to give some insight to people as they really cultivate the people they have, because usually there's so much tribal knowledge within companies that that will be lost if the people walk out, because they're miffed or disappointed or hurt or whatever. Those people don't have a way to really confront situations. They're… For some reason, confrontation is a nasty word, and it's not really, because it gets things in the open.

Heather: Are you there?

Carol: Yes, we are Heather. And just when you went on your sprint… She doesn't have a fax machine that's working.

Heather: There's one from Magdalene, it says.

Carol: Well, we could analyze somebody that's not on the phone. But I don't think that would work. Our caller mentioned that in these days where management may or may not know the skills and the competencies of their people, a lot of times we have tribal knowledge, which I think is a wonderful coined phrase.

Heather: Absolutely.

Carol: Tribal knowledge walking out the door.

Caller: Exactly. Tons of it.

Heather: That is so true.

Caller: And I've seen that happen, only because I've chosen to stay within a large bureaucracy for approximately 15 years. I've moved around considerably, but I see that seems to be the biggest negative about huge bureaucracies, is the inability to communicate.

Heather: That is. In fact, if you look at any kind of a situation where human beings are, what's the problem? When things don't go well, we're not talking.

Caller: Exactly. That's why the divorce rate is up, too.

Heather: Absolutely. It sounds so trite and so cliched, we forgot the real bottom line. It's all that, it's verbal, it's my body language is everything. And when you can identify these things through handwriting and be able to get people to be empowered by who they are…

Caller: Right. The company will save a tremendous amount of money.

Heather: That is so true. You're so right.

Caller: But is you would leave a number, either for the gentleman you spoke with last week, so I may contact him, and also for Heather, so I may contact her in the future and bring up some handwriting to get another view on who I am and where I'm coming from.

Carol: And Heather does handwriting analysis as part of our trade shows that we do as Quality Plus Technologies. Last week, we were in San Diego, and she analyzed approximately, I'm just guessing, about 150 different people who walked through the trade show that we were at. And the gentleman who was on last week, Howard Rubin, is going to actually be on at the end of the series, and we're going to have him live so that we can have people phone in and say, "Where should I go in IT? What type of career path would have a job for me?" And we have Heather Winward with us. Again, I'll give out the toll-free number, 866-277-5369. The fax number, if you want to fax in a sample of your handwriting and just give it a try, is 202-466-9630. And we'll be back after a few short messages, and take a look at some of the handwriting that's come in.

Hi. Welcome back to Quality Plus e-Talk. I'm Carol Dekkers. I run a company called Quality Plus Technologies, based in Tampa, Florida, where we have a major thunder and lightning storm going on right now. We specialize in executive coaching is one of the areas. And my guest today is Heather Winward, who is a professional executive coach who does work with us. We also specialize in a lot of different services for the software industry. We specialize in helping people write better requirements for software, we help the software developer understand the requirements and be able to get people to articulate them better, for them to be able to realize what's complete and what's incomplete in terms of software requirements. We also help people with process improvement. And today we're talking to Heather Winward about executive coaching and a technique which is based in science called graphology, which analyzes handwriting of teams. And I'd like to welcome Heather Winward back.

Heather: Thank you very much.

Carol: We have an opportunity, for anyone who's just joined us, to actually get a sampling of what handwriting analysis is all about, and that's to call in on the toll-free line, which is 866-277-5369, and once you get on the air, Candice will take your position, run over to a fax machine with a couple samples of your handwriting, couple of lines, it doesn't matter what, and fax it to 202-466-9630, attention Heather. And Heather, we haven't really talked about the science behind graphology, but I know that there's… that you're actually qualified, you've taken some courses and received certification in graphology.

Heather: That's right. It is based in science. In fact, in years past, there were artists that would use graphology to capture the personality of the person before they would then paint their portrait. There have been many applications throughout time. Years ago, when just the elite or the privileged were able to learn to write, then it was something they would do among those classes is analyze people's handwriting to find out if they could trust them, or those kinds of things. Now that everybody can write, or most everyone can, it's something that in America we don't use nearly as much as they do in Europe. Years ago, 70% of companies in Europe used handwriting analysis to do selection for employment. In America, we don't do that. But I have found that we are just as interested in identifying those traits that help us to further our own goals. Further our goals as a business, as a team. And it's been my experience that people love to hear about themselves. And this is just one more way for people to look at who they are and be able to make some life choices about what they want to do and how they want to apply themselves to whatever they're doing.

Carol: And we have a brave soul named Mike, who's on our line. And I'm not sure if he's faxed in his handwriting to you yet, Heather, or not. Did you want to run down, take a sprint and…

Heather: Is he on the line right now?

Carol: Let's talk to Mike for a second. Welcome to the show, Mike.

Mike: Hi. How are you?

Heather: Actually, I do have his writing right here.

Mike: I actually gave you a sample this evening.

Heather: He was at dinner with me.

Carol: So you had dinner with Heather beforehand.

Mike: I did.

Carol: Hey, this will work. So you're kind of our online guinea pig. And would you like to know about yourself?

Mike: I would.

Heather: Well, first of all, Mike is communicative. As opposed to being talkative. And what that means is, he is not interested in small talk or chit-chatting at all. People that are communicative are interested in talking as long as it's about something, not about people, and not about nothing. And Mike is making that kind of a transition in his life, it looks like. His goals are way above average, and there's some very self-castigating, or low goals, which tells me that there's something happening in his life that's giving him cause to look at things and reevaluate things. He also has good attention to details. He's very loyal. His decisions are gaining strength, which means that when he's making decisions, he's actually setting it in concrete in his mind, which is also something people do when they're in transition. He has to listen to or uses sarcasm a lot, a real lot. He also has something called acquisitiveness, which is a desire to acquire things, ideas, and people. Mike, is this sounding like you?

Mike: Right on.

Heather: Fabulous.

Carol: But he didn't use a sarcastic comment there.

Heather: He may have to listen to it a lot. Sometimes people that are deluged with sarcastic comments, it almost turns into a digestion of statements, because it's not a straight way of speaking. Let's see, what else? Mike is extremely selective of his friendships. He can be very social, but here again, in the mode he's in now, he's really choosing to look at friendships rather than associates or superficial things. He's repressing some kind of emotion. He also has… Because his goals, when he's in his normal mode are above average, he can accomplish a lot. He's also defiant, so if I were Mike's manager, I would make sure that he understand the vision of what we're doing. Because people that are defiant need to know how what they're being asked to do fits in with the program or the picture. He also is someone who's very dynamic, and he also is dominant. So that tells me that when he speaks, people feel like they need to do what he says because he's saying it. So that's a lot of responsibility for him in his life. Because then people pay attention to what he says and actually think they have to do what he says.

Carol: Mike's somebody that you've just met. And have not done handwriting analysis, this was not pre-staged.

Heather: Right. I mentioned that we were going to be on the show tonight, and I asked him for some writing. And I'm glad he called in. I'm actually kind of impressed. He also likes to read, or he has to read a lot. He has a real literary stroke in his writing. And there's so much more I could tell you. He's direct. People in handwriting analysis that are direct are able to express their opinion, they're able to express other people's opinion as it pertains to a general fact. So the way we talk about this is if Mike and I work together, and someone… and I was not there, and people knew that Mike and I disagreed about a certain subject, if someone asked Mike, "How does Heather feel about that?" He would represent my opinion as best he could. He's someone who wants to be direct with the information, and he trusts people to make the decision that's good for them. So he's someone that in business, you'd absolutely want Mike on your team for that reason, because he's going to be objective. And he's going to give people the chance to say what they need to say. And if they're not, he'll still try to represent what they say as best he can. He's also honest with himself and other people. If he's going to be dishonest, it will be with himself. And that's usually things like, "I'm not doing enough. I ought to be doing more. Maybe I ought to be working." Things like that.

Carol: Is any of this surprising to you, Mike?

Mike: No. It's… What time is it? It's about a quarter to nine on the East Coast, and I'm just getting ready to do some more work for the evening.

Carol: Take a break. Do you have any questions for Heather in terms of characteristics that you know you might want to work on, or things that you see as strengths, or any questions that you've got for her?

Mike: Yeah, just… Where should I be focusing my energies?

Heather: Since you're going through a transitional time, and it looks like what's happening is there's some sort of foundation that's shifting, something you had planned on maybe isn't going to be the way it is… If it were me, I would want to go through what I know is already concrete. What do I know? What do I believe? What are my values? And go back and say, "What do I want to be doing? Is this what I want to be doing?" And then re-choose what you're doing. If you're not happy with where you are, then one of the best things to do is either get out of it or choose to do it again, and actually redefine it. If it were me, I'd write down a list of things that I've done, not things that I need to do. Because for someone like you, you're already good at kind of punishing yourself when you're not working hard enough. You know what I mean?

Carol: Some good advice. And we need to take a break, but we will be back after a few short messages with Quality Plus e-Talk!

Hi, and welcome back. We're in pretty much our second to last segment, and we've been talking to Mike, who called in and had provided Heather with a sample of his handwriting this afternoon. And Mike, what do you really have to say about what you found out?

Mike: Well, I just… Heather mentioned a few things to me earlier, when she said she was going to be doing this. But she didn't go into a lot of detail, and then I really got a lot out of what she mentioned just here recently on the call. I think what it really does for me is, it brought to the surface a lot of things that I really wasn't aware of. Now I can actually do something with them. And I think that's the real benefit of graphology.

Heather: That's what I want people to know about it, is that very thing.

Carol: And would you see this benefiting your organization? Or any department of defense organization? Or information technology, tech department?

Mike: I think it really keys on the individual and just opens up some lines of communication within any organization. I think it's applicable anywhere.

Carol: Great. Well, thank you for calling in to us. And wish you all the best in your transition, and where you emerge and find out that you're going to be doing.

Mike: Thank you. Goodbye.

Carol: We have another caller who's on the line, and I believe her name is Doris. Do you have a handwriting example, Heather?

Heather: Yes, I do. Doris, are you here?

Doris: Yes, I'm right here.

Heather: Well, this is very interesting writing. First of all, it looks like you're very self-reliant. And in this conversation, what that means for graphology is you see what needs to be done, and because of your education or experience, it's much easier for you just to do it than to delegate it. You also have… Your goals are above average. Here again, someone that… I think it must be an American thing, but you have to listen to or use sarcasm a really lot. You also like to read, or you have to read. In your life.

Doris: Definitely.

Heather: You also have something… You're analytical, you can analyze data in front of you very, very quickly. In the type of work that you do, you probably have to make decisions very quickly and be the one that's level. Because while all can be breaking down around you, you're someone that has to analyze it very quickly and decide if we can get emotional or not about something. You also are someone that has tenacity, something that belongs to you, whether it's an opinion, a person, or a thing, you hang onto it very, very tightly. It's not that you're not able to get rid of things, which you really try to make sure that you have things for as long as they will serve you. Some people tend to toss off things before they even know if they're valuable. You also have desire for responsibility, and for this conversation, what that means to me is that you either want more to do, or you want to respond better to what you currently have, which would be response-ability. You also have the ability to see relationships as they are, not as they should be. So what that would mean is that, if we're friends and you see me the way I am, not the way I ought to be, which gives me a lot of latitude to be who I am and make changes when I'm ready. That's a really nice trait. Most people don't have that. Most people have expectations that they then hold people to. You're also someone that is very, very direct. If I don't want to know how you feel about something, I shouldn't ask you. Even though you possess dignity, if I ask you, you're going to tell me just what you think. And you also have idiosyncracies. And what that tells me is, well, is that you are someone that does not like to be the same as everybody else. You don't want to necessarily blend in all the time. Even if you're the only one that knows what makes you different, that's what you're going to do. So how's that? There's so much more, I could go on. She gave me a really good sample, and I could go on and on and on.

Doris: Wow, really?

Carol: What are you thinking, Doris?

Doris: I think she hit the nail right on the head.

Heather: I'm pleased. That's good.

Carol: Do you see how this might work in your line of business at all?

Doris: Yes.

Heather: There's something, too, that Doris has. She is someone that has manual dexterity. Now, manual dexterity can be either that you use your hands and/or your feet very, very well. That doesn't mean you're going to necessarily do craft projects. You may, but it could be typing, computers, gardening, wherever you're using your hands and/or your feet, you really, really can express yourself well, or can actually decompress after a hard day, if you do something physical with your hands and/or your feet. There's so much. I could tell you so much.

Carol: And we probably have to cut it off short. I don't mean to cut you off there, Doris. I'd like to ask Heather just a few wrap-up questions, in terms of… When you take a look at handwriting, is it kind of a formula? Do you see that, you know, you said that both callers were direct. Is that a trait that comes up all the time? Is it like a standard set of five traits that just get mixed up? What do you look at when you look at handwriting? Is it slant-shaped…

Heather: It's all of those indicators. It would be weight, the spacing between the letters, if they write several lines, it would be the spacing between the lines, it would be the forward slant, the backward slant, the shape, the circles, it's everything. Since I don't read what people write, then it's just really the strokes. The two people… It's interesting, both Mike and Doris had directness. But it's interesting, because a person that would call in probably is going to be direct. Because they do want to know how they fit into the world and how they see things. What I look at first is, I look at internal emotional response. How much can the person handle? How much can I really say to them when they think that they're going to be hurt over the airwaves or something like that? So that's what I look for first, to see what the person can handle.

Carol: And we have to go into our final break. But we'll be back after a few short messages to wrap this up.

And we're back into our final segment. This has been a wonderful hour for me. I learn something new every time I talk to Heather Winward, who's our executive coach. I'd like to thank Heather for being the guest this week, and really doing things live, kind of on the spot. So thank you, Heather, for spending time with us.

Heather: Thank you. I was just so much fun. Thank you.

Carol: And I'd like to tell people about Heather's one-day on-site executive coaching sessions. Sometimes it may take longer than one day, but oftentimes you can get a lot accomplished with your teams, get much more productivity out of your teams, through a one-day on-site coaching session. And if anyone is interested, I'd like to have you send an email to [email protected]. Or if you're interested or have some comments on this show, I'd like to also invite you to send us an email and just let us know what you think. Let us know what you'd like. We're going to have Heather Winward back at the end of our segment, probably closer to the end of November, where she'll do a similar type thing, and allow callers to phone in. So if you didn't phone in this time, maybe you'll feel comfortable to do it next time. I'd like you to join me next week, where we have our guest is Mauricio Aguiar, who is working for CAIXA Economica Federal, which is one of the largest banks in Brazil. And he's going to be with us, and we're going to be talking about why is every information technology shop, why is every IT department a Dilbert society? Dilbert being the most popular cartoon that has come our way in a long time, and has really almost been a cultural phenomenon, with books, papers, tapes, records, and even his own TV show. Do I'd like you to join us next week at the same time, at the same point on your dial, or if you're joining us through streaming audio, welcome, and we'd very much like to have you join us as part of that. Heather, any final words that you'd like to give our callers, our audience out there? Anything that you'd like to say in terms of better communication in the information technology area?

Heather: Well, I can't say enough about the bottom line for being a human being, whether you're at work or at home, and especially in the IT industry, where people don't think that they can be communicators, so often, that this is a way, this is a tool, this is a course that you can bring into your group, and it makes a difference. When I leave your group, it's not like all the tools will leave with me. When I leave you, you'll be able to access who you want to be. You'll be able to really communicate what you want to say. You can ask the questions that get the answers that are going to help you do your work a little bit better. If that happens, it just increases productivity, which really affects the bottom line. And if for you, the bottom line is making more money, it can affect that. If for you, the bottom line is having a better work environment, where people want to stay, it can do that. I'm absolutely convinced that by using graphology and using the skills that I have, you can get to a point when people feel like they want to do a better job for themselves and for the team. And it's a lot of fun. People have a great time.

Carol: And I think sometimes we have so little humor in the workplace. We've had downsizing, outsourcing, we've had people who have lost their jobs. The loyalty at work is gone. And if we can have something that really brings the team together, improves productivity by even one percent, that's a huge, huge thing.

Heather: Absolutely.

Carol: So I'd like to thank you again. And we will talk to everyone next week. Please join us for Mauricio Aguiar, and we'll be talking about why are IT shops the Dilbert Society?

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