Have you ever thought about the impact your preferences have in the workplace? There are plenty of management development tools out there that are capable of measuring preferences. Perhaps more important than the measurement, is to better understand the interplay between your preferences, and the preferences of others.

Have you ever been to a dinner party and thought someone was an idiot and then subsequently when chatting on the way home found that everyone else thought the idiot was delightful? I am sure like me you can identify someone that just does not connect with you and in some cases there is permanent friction even though you cannot readily put your finger on what the problem is.

Have you ever worked for someone, who in your view, had undergone a personality and charisma bypass operation and the operation was a complete success? It is recognised that 75% of people who leave employment with some sort of grievance do so because of their immediate line manager. That is a thought-provoking statistic, especially if you are a manager.

Are you one of those people who can brighten up the room when you walk in or when you walk out? The cost of recruiting people, developing them for a specific role and then watching them leave sometime afterwards, is not a recipe for sustained success.

Some organisations can go through this process with alarming regularity and regularly blame the recruitment process, when it goes wrong. I can empathise with this as recruitment is not an exact science, and I have got it very wrong in the past.

There are sophisticated profiling systems, assessment centre methodologies and interview techniques which aim to help make the right decisions and select the best candidates. One or two large corporations have tried alternative techniques, in the hope of ensuring the recruitment process delivers the right candidates. One company I have worked with, uses Graphology, handwriting, to assess the candidates’ capabilities. Beware all those whose writing slopes backwards to the left! Another uses Phrenology, the bumps on your head to recruit engineers! Perhaps the most bizarre for me is a company that has in the past used Astrology, which I think is nonsense but then again, I would, I am an Aries!