Didi Summers has been passionate about working in the areas of business strategies, personal growth and child development over the past 20 years.  Along with other distinguished colleagues at the Hilton Head Institute, Didi led the team developing a new method to examine and rethink problems in order to create new and better solutions. The Hilton Head Method was used to address complex issues such as the effects of poverty in education and access to healthcare. As a result of working with families and children, she developed the Kinnectix Theory and Personality Diagnostic Tool after becoming certified and working with Myers Briggs (MBTI®) and DiSC® and finding the results did not always accurately describe the individual and/or did not always help find positive outcomes. At times, the results ended up labelling the individual or confirming previously held beliefs that did not take into account their own motivations or particular circumstances.  The Kinnectix Theory and Personality Diagnostic Tool was developed to answer these questions and ensure each client was best served by understanding their own individual characteristics and motivations, and also by identifying their own personally held beliefs, values and circumstances.

Didi started her career as a New York corporate lawyer before moving to Geneva, Switzerland and London, UK. While raising a family of three children, she founded a music production and artist development business and consulted in child playground developments, among others. After moving to Hilton Head, SC in 2006, she has served on the boards of The Hilton Head Institute, Historic Mitchelville Freedom Park, a non-profit foundation assisting rural school development in South Africa, and was the founder of a non-profit therapeutic riding center on serving special needs children and adults. Didi received her law degree from Fordham University Law School in New York City and a Bachelor of Music from California State University, Fullerton.

THE METHOD
Breaking down problems – rebuilding solutions

Every complex problem is comprised of one or a series of issues.  This theory holds true for small and large problems alike; even for the largest and most complex problems we face today. Behind each issue is one or more questions that must be answered. The more complex the problem, the more issues are present, and the more questions are raised. A misguided answer to one component question can cast doubt on or even negate the efficacy or correctness of an entire solution, but often the reason for the failure of the solution is overlooked or remains hidden, as people debate the solution itself.

It is the thorough and honest critical analysis and examination of the first three steps of our process that is the basis for building the foundations needed to create new solutions that address the complexities of our rapidly changing world.

The four-step process:

• identify and break down a problem to the underlying issues, and frame the questions that need to be answered

• examine current evidentiary findings and facts with clarity and from multiple perspectives

• identify the entity (or entities) that have historically addressed the question, and assesses whether there is one entity that could address the issue or does it require more than one, perhaps working together 

• develop new solutions and test the feasibility

KINNECTIX THEORY

Personal motivations very often change throughout a lifetime, and may even be changing constantly depending on our different situations. Motivations are kinetic - constantly adjusting. Our own preferences, desires and inclinations connect who we are with who we want to be. This is the principle behind Kinnectix.

People function (interact with others, interpret the world and themselves) based on a combination of many facets of motivation.

There are three types of motivations that are present throughout a person's life:

• Intrinsic (what a person is born with)

• Learned (based on learned or observed values and become so ingrained that these motivations become a part of a person's authentic self), or

• Situational (based on a temporary factor a person consciously or subconsciously wants or needs to address)

Other factors that affect motivations are

• How much something motivates them

• How much bandwidth they have to give to that motivation

• How motivation for one thing interacts or conflicts with motivation(s) for another

Motivations are filtered through the person’s

• Beliefs

• Values

Beliefs include the facts and reality that make up their unique world. Values include their priorities and innate sense of self and authenticity.

Motivations, beliefs and values can be identified. 

In addition to a person’s motivations, beliefs and values, other factors that can affect the way a person interacts are their abilities, i.e., talent, conceptual thinking ability, IQ, EQ,, that influence they way they turn their thoughts and feelings into outcomes through actions; in other words, how they connect who they are with who they want to be and what 'workarounds' (healthy and/or compensatory workarounds) they use to help reach their desired outcomes.

OBJECTIVES

These tools and methods will:

• be used in an ethically moral and useful manner to raise self-awareness (not apply judgment or labels)

• help individuals, relationships or teams understand each other and work together

• raise acceptance and understanding of different psychological characteristics

• identify incongruities in individuals, relationships or teams that are keeping them from functioning optimally

• encourage finding alternative ways of adapting education to fit differing individual needs

• increase self-knowledge to make better choices

• help us understand the complexity and inter-connectedness between individual preferences and constantly changing personal motivators