The Projective Differential is a powerful tool to help you anticipate and address potential threats or opportunities hidden in the unconscious attitudes and perceptions of people in the organization.
What is the Projective Differential?

The Projective Differential (PD) is unlike any other assessments available today in that it uses a projective technique to uncover the latent understanding and perceptions of and attitudes towards an issue or topic by directly tapping into the deeper levels of the mind. Most assessment and evaluation tools in business rely on the verbal, rational, logical levels of perception and understanding of the topics or issues being studied. Attempts to understand people's latent perceptions must typically be inferred from data collected through self-report assessments and/or lengthy observation of behavior. The PD provides a means for revealing this hidden level of awareness much more directly, and quickly.

The PD creates a forced-choice situation employing abstract images displayed too briefly for the conscious mind to influence the choice through rational thought and analysis; instead, the a-logical right-brain processes are engaged and the choices are made at an intuitive level. The results of a PD session therefore provide us with information about how the participants perceive the topics at a deep level, in ways of which even they may be quite unaware.

Being a general purpose assessment technique, the PD is extremely versatile and can be customized to the particular situation and the types of information sought.

A diagnostic tool

  • The PD can assess the general "health" of an organization's culture, assess readiness for change, reveal the true level of "buy-in" for a new direction, assess degree of alignment of purpose or values among departments/levels, and commitment.

An evaluation assistant

  • The PD can enhance the decision making process by actively engaging an intuitive understanding of the options and their closeness to the "ideal" option.

A creativity block-buster

  • The PD can help break through blocks to the creative process caused by an inability to find any more ways to perceive an issue or situation. It also primes the creative pump by providing an abstract image onto which to project associations and symbolic understanding.

An intervention & development aid

  • The PD can help uncover the deeper causes that may be producing blocks to a team's effectively working together. It can also help build greater understanding and appreciation among team members (or among whole departments), leading to more productive working relationships.
Tapping into implicit perceptions and understanding and bringing them to the surface will enhance your ability to anticipate and proactively deal with potential problems that are borne out of unconscious resistance or differences in understanding. It can also uncover opportunities that would otherwise remain hidden.

By engaging the right-brain processes, utilizing abstract images that prompt associative thinking, the PD also enhances the creative process, bringing to light ways of seeing the issues at hand that had not previously been explored.

Designed specifically to help individuals and organizations to tap into the deeper levels of perception and understanding, those that are below the surface of conscious awareness, the PD is incredibly valuable when deeper (less biased) meaning, associational information, or more creative thinking is sought about some issue, quality, or entity than is usually available through conventional methods.