It was really unfair: a detention for insolence at age 14. The new maths teacher explained that I had scored 0 out of 20 for the maths test. Impossible; it had to be impertinence. In vain did I and my classmates object that this was not done on purpose.

So, from an early age, the left side of my brain seemed to be sleeping -- figures were not "my thing." My aptitude for English led me to a career in journalism/communication. Then as communication manager for a large travel company, I was also made responsible for a new staff survey. Fortunately, I was able to draw on the experience and support of the external research agency we were working with, MORI, to help me organize the first project.

When I received my first results, I was fascinated. When I was studying a page of figures on the computer tables, a colleague passed. "How boring," he observed. "Not at all," was my response, "this is the story of our company." Indeed, that was how I saw the results; the seemingly dull figures were a gold mine of information, but they did need to be excavated for insights and understanding to recognize what was great, as well as issues to address to bring improvements. During the follow-up phase, I learned a great deal. In my innocence, I imagined that passing their results to individual managers would result in them taking action. Big mistake. So next time around I spent much time in communicating not just the results, but also how to understand them and take action.

Another discovery was the positive action that could stem from those figures. One resort manager had particularly low scores. Having been recently promoted, he was clearly finding it difficult to manage staff who had been his peers. Accordingly, the company provided advice and training for his new role; his much higher results in the next survey showed that this had worked well.

After six years in this role, I was ready to move on. But where? An organization with an open attitude to communicating with staff similar to my present job? Where was the challenge? Or a company with poor communications? That might be frustrating after the freedom I had enjoyed.

Then, out of the blue, came a phone call from the founder of MORI, Sir Robert Worcester, asking me to join his research firm. I was amazed, saying I was no researcher. However, he convinced me by explaining that they had all the research expertise; what he wanted was somebody who had developed and implemented an effective action program.

Thus I joined a research company and -- after much absorbing of the research techniques to awaken that left brain -- headed the employee research practice.  My time there was both challenging and exciting; I loved combining both my communications and research experience to tell the organizational story. Indeed I still regarded myself as a communicator -- the research was just another channel.