Sunday 19 September 2010

A week of looking inside my head - physically and metaphorically

As I looked back at the last week it occurred to me that amongst the normal ebb and flow of the days 2 things stood out - and both concerned looking inside my head.

On Tuesday I met an ENT consultant to look at the results of an MRI scan that I had a couple of weeks ago.  (A few years ago I had a couple of operations to remove a cholesteatoma from inside my right ear.  Not unsurprisingly I have been left with a residual tinitus in the ear which isn't a big problem but did get worse earlier this year.   The MRI scan was mainly a precaution to check whether there was any sign of the cholesteatoma regrowing.)  I'm pleased to say that the results came back without any evidence of return.  It was fascinating to be able to see the scans of the inside of my head even if the orientation was a bit difficult.  The image showed nose at the top but right ear was on left of screen - ie you need to imaging that you are standing at you feet looking up at a cross section through you head.  Lots of detail of bones inside the ear, brain etc and, as he moved the computer mouse to pass through the images, an alarming sudden appearance of my eye balls in brilliant white on the screen !!  There was some white stuff on the image inside my ear which is probably swelling due to a previous cold or other similar infection and should hopefully just sort itself out over time.  Consultant said there were 2 options ... A) leave it alone and it should hopefully settle down by itself or B) open the ear up again to have a look around inside.....  pleased to say that we both felt option A was the best.

In preparation for a workshop that I am attending later this month I had to complete a Hogan Test this week.  The test is designed to give some insights into my leadership strengths, risks around how I may behave under stress, my values etc.   I completed the lengthy questionaries and booked a 1 hour feedback session where the results would be explained to me.   I've done a number of these sorts of tests before and am always fascinated to see what the results come back as, and how what they say maps to my own self perception.  On Friday I had my call to discuss the results and was very fortunate to be assigned a lady who clearly had a lot of experience in administering and explaining the results of these tests.  We had a great discussion about what the results said about me and more broadly what sorts of things the survey can highlight.  I am going to be moving to a new role in IBM in October so this also gave an opportunity to think about how the profile identified by the test fitted with the likely needs of the new job.   I'm pleased to say that the fit between my profile and the new role look good - I thought it was a good fit when I accepted it but it's nice to see some validation of that choice in the data from the test.  Really looking forward to the workshop in a couple of weeks and learning more about the test and what it shows.