Imagine living a life in which the only positive thing you could say about yourself was that you generally turn up on time to things.” We all sat down with the five adjectives we had selected that best described ourselves – I’m not sure if ‘empathy’ was one of mine or not now. I nudged my friend and said, “Imagine coming here and picking that card. Now, I was working at the time in Strategic Research and we were doing this as a joint exercise with Financial Services. I nudged my friend over one of these – Punctual. Then there were cards I initially thought were put in the mix as a bit of a joke. The cards said things like: Creative, Sexy, Smart, Lively, Porn Star – you know, the sorts of things most of us think we are as a matter of course. (Sorry, an aside: part of the process of working out what you are like was a series of flash cards that were scattered about on the floor and you had to pick up four that you felt best described you. Now, again, if it was me, I would have made the green quadrant beige. The graph was made of four points in four quadrants and each of these had its own colour – green, blue, red and yellow. Unfortunately, it proved to be a kind of graph in a circle. I had hoped that this would prove to be a metallic box with two moveable handles on top which one could use to control friends and family.

My all-time favourite was the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI). Years ago, when I was working in local government, I did a series of personality tests.

This guy has made a career out of precisely this stunt. In Gladwell’s Blink – and I don’t have a copy of the book, so I can’t check that this was actually the guy he was referring to (although, if I was a betting man…) – he talks about how people do remarkably well at judging the personalities of peoplethey have never met just by spending a little time in their room. If I’d been writing this book I would have started off by calling it, “So You Think You Want to be Sherlock Holmes?” Do you know how the start of every Holmes mystery has him showing off by telling his new client (or the ever corrigible Dr Watson) what he or she has been up by his remarkable ability to connect the dots on a series of clues left on or about their person? And do you know how in some stories Holmes gets Watson to have a go first – and after Watson has invariably grabbed all the red herrings and (in my strangely appropriate pair of mixed clichés) made a meal of whole thing, Holmes then points out the correct interpretation? Well, that is as near as I can get to telling you what this book is about. Well, I did enjoy this book, but I’ve a horrible feeling that might not come across. Do you know that feeling you have when you have enjoyed a book and are about to write a review and think, “God, I hope that not everything I say sounds like a criticism.”

Sam gosling books