There is a growing focus on using AI to replace humans. This takes a look how this trend forces us to look harder at what humans uniquely bring to their work.

A Deeper Understanding: 01 Celebrating Human Uniqueness

**Vujade™**

Monday, October 5th, 2026
 
*October* **Visual Month**

•       Focus switches from Auditory to Visual
** 
** 
*Tuesday* **A Deeper** **Understanding**

•       Monty discusses his extraordinarily Visual superpower.
 
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**Vujade™ Spotlight**

•       Free online session on Thu, Oct 15th

•       Special guest and celebrated photographer Jim Rodgers

•       Understand his unique Visual style and how it relates to Vujade™
 
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**Meet the Co-Founders**

•       Free online session on Thu, Oct 22nd

•       Discuss Vujade’s design principles

•       Minimalism, Color, our patented Vujade Radial

Articles, online sessions and news about Vujade™

This Week in Vujade for Monday, October 5, 2026

**10: A Deeper Understanding**

**Standard Deviation; Novel Innovation!**
*(Part three of a three-part series)*

Over the last two weeks, I shared my frustrations with traditional assessment instruments in [Why HR Doesn't Produce Many Patents](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/08-deeper-understanding-bear-mountain-endeavours-inc-fgbhc/), and the limits of additive surveys in [Right Place, Right Time, Wrong Answer, Right Question](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/09-deeper-understanding-bear-mountain-endeavours-inc-3vkdc/?trackingId=qEAbdbRB8So2wsKEBXx22A%3D%3D).

What I discovered was a different kind of assessment model: a comparative assessment built on standard deviation.

###  

### **Standard Deviation?!**

Most of us grew up with the additive model in school: the more correct answers you gave, the higher your grade. If everyone answered 100% correctly, everyone earned an "A." But every so often we'd hear the phrase "this class is graded on a curve," and a shiver would run down our spines.

The curve, also known as the Bell Curve, meant most students would land at a "C." The next largest groups would be an equal number of "B's" and "D's," followed by a very small share of "A's" and "E’s/F's (or Fails)."

Many students felt this was unfair. You could know the material very well, score just slightly below a handful of classmates, and still end up with a "C." In highly competitive education systems, a "C" can feel like a death knell, which is why whole industries grew up around standardized testing to help students stand out.

### **The Real World**

In the corporate world, we typically face two types of assessments:

- Skills or competency testing
- Personality and behavioral testing

For the former, additive testing makes sense because it measures whether you can complete a task. The latter is far more complicated. Much of the analysis reflects preferences, not competencies, and in hiring, selecting for a personality can feel discriminatory. (And while it may even point to where someone's highest competencies lie, but it's no guarantee.)

What matters in business is less the individual and more how the team performs. Hiring great individuals may create a dream team, but team results drive most corporate outcomes. Understanding team dynamics is therefore vital, and additive instruments fail miserably at it. Relational instruments are needed.

###  

### **The How**

Standard deviation needs data. It's hard to build a distribution from a single data point, so the first step was building a population. In traditional statistics, a 90% confidence level with a ±10% margin of error calls for a sample of about 68 people. Working with my business partner, Monty Miller, we developed our first survey and built that population.

I'd love to say the numbers crunched perfectly. They didn't. As we added testers and revised the survey, I found I couldn't apply standard deviation broadly; I had to normalize how people answered. That demanded new perspectives and far more advanced statistical tools, and it's part of the secret sauce behind our second US patent. We are now on the fourth version of our survey, after more than three years of validation with our alpha and beta testers.

### **The Wow**

One of our main goals was to gather lots of data. The more granular it is, the more ways we can differentiate individuals, both across types and within the same type. This depth lets us accurately plot people on a quadrant that measures differences, or express how much effort it takes to connect with another person. How does that compare with traditional instruments?

More data may seem intimidating at first, but it opens up a whole new world. Traditional assessments are like looking through a magnifying glass; relational assessments are like using an electron microscope. The fun of this journey is that the added detail lets you ask entirely new questions, because you can observe individual and group dynamics in new ways. (Consider Watson and Crick's discovery of DNA's structure. Think how different our world became once we could analyze life at that level: mapping the human genome, cures tailored to genetics, and more.)

Vujade™ is the first instrument to emerge from this shift. The engine beneath it, the Cabo™ Platform, can power traditional assessment tools with only slight modifications to their survey mechanisms, converting them to a relational assessment tool giving them the same granularity and much more value. Once on Cabo™, multiple tools can overlay one another for a richer understanding of individuals and human behavior.

### **** 

### **The Pow**

With so much data, the natural worry is being overwhelmed. Fortunately, technology has advanced to such a level to overcome those concerns. While building the model, I did my research and analysis in Microsoft Excel, where constructing a team comparison for 12 people took roughly 28 hours. Today, Vujade™ does those calculations in seconds, on the fly.

The next concern is interpretation. We've addressed it with multiple user levels (Intro, Advanced, and Expert) and entirely new chart types that make complex data easy to visualize. (That's another story, and the subject of our first US Design Patent.)

With this progress, I reached a simple conclusion: we no longer have to memorize people's profiles, because nearly all of us carry a powerful computer with us. Vujade™ works across phones, tablets, and computers. We can get very detailed without worrying about memorization, and the details can be actionable.

Vujade™ helps people communicate better with others:

- **If you're a leader (or aspire to be one):** Effort Charts show you how to align your communication style with each team member. That helps them feel comfortable expressing themselves, which leads to more authentic ideas, greater engagement, and eventually trust.
- **If you're a coach:** Select a team member and see the world through their eyes, including the specific challenges they face when interacting with their team. That leads to coaching tailored to their unique circumstances.
- **If you're a team member:** Look at team dynamics to decide whether to act from your Superpowers (your preferences) or to lean on a competency and take a different role, preventing a significant team blind spot.

### **The Now**

The world has shifted. We can better understand not only how we behave, but also how others behave and how teams function. I don’t have the hubris to take credit for this amazing journey I’ve been on…many of our best ideas have come from our Alpha and Beta testers.  I am thankful for their candor.  I’d love to hear your ideas as we continue on this journey!

**— Doug Breckenridge, Co-Founder of Vujade™ and Cabo™**

Doug describes how standard deviation creates an explosion of comparative data and how Vujade™ and Cabo™ were developed to operationalize data leading to Bear Mountain’s second US patent.

A Deeper Understanding: 10 Standard Deviation; Novel Innovation!

**Vujade™ Spotlight - Free Online Session**

Thurs, Oct 15 | 11:30 AM EDT / 8:30 AM PDT
 
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Vujade™ Spotlight: 02 Photographer's Eye with Jim Rodgers

*This Week in*

**Vujade™**

Monday, September 28, 2026
 
*Tuesday*
**A Deeper** **Understanding**

•       Bear Mountain earned its’ second US patent earlier this month.

•       Part 3…Doug shares how standard deviation revolutionizes an industry.
 
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**Vujade™ Spotlight**

Thursday, October 15, 2026

•       Free online session!

•       Special guest and celebrated photographer Jim Rodgers

•       Understand his unique Visual style and how it relates to Vujade™

This Week in Vujade for Monday, September 28, 2026

**09: A Deeper Understanding**

**Right Place, Right Time, Wrong Answer, Right Question**
*(Part two of a three-part series)*

In last week's article, [*Why HR Doesn't Produce Many Patents*](https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/08-deeper-understanding-bear-mountain-endeavours-inc-fgbhc/), I shared my frustrations with traditional assessment instruments. Specifically, I pointed to:

- Their tendency to sort people into stereotypical categories (aka "boxes"),
- Their vague, broadly applicable guidance (the [Barnum-Forer effect](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnum_effect)),
- Their significant bias — baked into both the design and the "additive" methodology used to construct and score them, and
- Their inability, as a result, to offer meaningful comparisons between individuals and teams

After two years of trying to mitigate these limitations, I was still stuck. Then, while turning over that last bullet — the trouble with comparing people — I had a realization: the additive model itself couldn't produce comparative data. It wasn't a matter of refining the model further; the model had simply run its course. These assessments were built to give individuals self-awareness, not to compare people to one another. The moment you try to use them for comparison, bias creeps in. As these traditional models grew popular, their designers stretched them to explain human interaction — but given how they were built, that stretch never quite worked. The assessment industry had a blind spot.

I think of it like a society that only has cars — no air travel. If people in that society want to get somewhere faster, they build a bigger engine, make the vehicle more aerodynamic, and/or lighten the load. Those changes help, but only to a point. Push a car fast enough and it becomes unsafe, and no amount of engineering lets it cross an ocean. To travel long distances quickly, you need a fundamentally different approach — an airplane. And building one requires a lot of math and engineering.
**** 
**Math. Ugh!**

I was a decent student growing up, fortunate to attend strong public schools in Detroit and Farmington Hills, Michigan. Most of my teachers were genuinely passionate about their subjects and their students:

- I built a love of reading thanks to Phyllis Jackson, who challenged me to read every book in our elementary school library, and Rita Pieron, who turned Shakespeare from baffling phrases into meaningful reflections on the human condition.
- Physics gave me the scientific method and a taste for experimentation, thanks to Tom Krupka.
- History became a passion through family vacations and teachers like Mr. Hayek and Mr. Beardsley.
- Music mentors — Grant Hoemke, Margaret Koltz, and Paul Barber — gave me a lasting appreciation for art and culture.
- And math? I had excellent teachers, like Mrs. Miner and Miss Jackson, but no spark ever caught. I could do the work — just grudgingly.

The year before college, my mother was laid off. I earned some scholarships, but not enough to cover all my college tuition. Exploring my options, I applied for an Air Force ROTC scholarship at Michigan State, intending to study International Relations at James Madison College. In my interview, the Air Force offered me a full four-year scholarship on the spot — with one condition: I had to study engineering, since that's what they needed. I couldn't bring myself to accept. I thought I was finally done with math. I turned down the scholarship but still joined the Air Force ROTC unit at MSU. (Fortunately, my GPA later earned me a full non-technical scholarship for my last two years.) And due to policy changes while was in in Air Force ROTC, I was required kto take Calculus, which I completed without much enthusiasm.

Suffice it to say, I hated math!

After being commissioned as a USAF officer, I was stationed first in Sicily, then England. I. requested the UK assignment to stay in Ground Launched Cruise Missiles (GLCM) and to pursue a strong master's program. The Air Force was excellent about encouraging officers and NCOs toward higher education, though remote postings usually limited access to top programs — this was well before online learning existed. Being stationed an hour outside London opened a different door: Boston University's overseas campus offered a master's in Management, with leading professors, including financial experts from London's "City," the UK's answer to Wall Street.

The program required a statistics course. Taking it at the end of my first year turned out to be life-changing. Suddenly, math made sense — because I could apply it and see a real outcome, I dove into understanding the mechanics of statistical theory. I fell in love with math.

Looking back, I sometimes feel a pang of regret. It wasn't that my math teachers lacked skill — no one had simply shown me math in a way that clicked. I wonder how different things might have looked if I'd encountered statistics earlier. I might have been a far more dedicated math student.

Still, even in my mid-twenties, that moment sparked a lifelong love affair with math. After leaving the Air Force and starting an Organizational Development (OD) consulting firm, I sought out data everywhere. That instinct eventually led me to teach Six Sigma for Motorola University and to build statistics into every startup I touched.
**** 
**HR and Math**

After nearly forty years in OD, I've noticed that most people in this field aren't especially comfortable with numbers. That's not to say there aren't excellent quantitative minds in the space — particularly in academia and among HR data scientists. But they're a small group compared to the much larger majority drawn to the field for its qualitative, relational work.

That gap is exactly where the opportunity lived. HR has lagged behind fields like finance and marketing in applying statistics. Call it serendipity or dumb luck, but I happened to be in the right place at the right time — not because I'd found the right answer, but because I'd finally stepped back far enough to ask the right question.
**** 
**Out-of-the-Box Thinking Leads to the Right Question**

Once I stepped back from the problem — the inherent limits of traditional additive assessments — the answer became clear: I needed to build a model that was comparative, not additive. My goal wasn't just to improve self-awareness the way earlier models had, but to make it possible to accurately compare individuals and teams.

Framing the problem this way, combined with my love of statistics, pointed me toward the obvious tool: a comparative, relational model using standard deviation.

—     Doug Breckenridge, Co-Founder of Vujade™ and Cabo™
 
**Next Week**

Doug describes how standard deviation creates an explosion of comparative data and how Vujade™ and Cabo™ were developed to operationalize data leading to Bear Mountain’s second US patent.

In the second of a three-part article in obtaining our second US patent, Doug learned that asking a better question is more important than getting a better answer.

A Deeper Understanding: 09 Right Place, Right Time, Wrong Answer, Right Question!

*This Week in*
**Vujade™**
Monday, September 21, 2026

*Tuesday*
**A Deeper**
**Understanding**

- Bear Mountain earned its’ second US patent earlier this month.
- Part 2…Doug finally realizes to stop looking for the right answer, but look for the right question.


*Sign up now*
**Vujade™ Spotlight**

Thursday, October 15, 2026

- Free online session!
- Special guest and celebrated photographer Jim Rodgers
- Understand his unique Visual style and how it relates to Vujade™

This Week in Vujade for Monday, September 21, 2026

Anastasia Byler of Integral Path LLC shares her experience with Vujade™ at NASA.

Recording of Anastasia Byler of Integral Path LLC sharing her experience using Vujade™ at NASA discovering that it has powers that no other instrument possesses.

Vujade™ Spotlight: 01 Vujade@NASA with Anastasia Byler Recording

We earned our second US patent last week.  In part one of a three part article, Doug explores the catalyst for that journey.

A Deeper Understanding: 08 Why Doesn't HR Produce Many Patents?

•  Bear Mountain earned its second US patent this past week
•  Anastasia Byler joins us in a Tuesday online session to discuss Vujade@NASA

This Week in Vujade for Monday, September 14, 2026

### **Ears Wide Open: How I Compliment Listening with My Eyes**

Some people are born with ears tuned like satellite dishes. Mine came with a little more static.

On the Vujade™ profile, my Auditory score sits as low as it can go. That puts me in a tiny slice of the population—about 0.013%. I did not need a score to tell me this. At 13, my grandfather figured it out while chasing me with a shovel and shouting, “You are the most bullheaded thing I have ever met; you don’t hear a damn thing I am saying.”

He was not entirely wrong. My ears had already taken a beating. As a young kid, I held corrugated galvanized roofing while my dad cut it with a Skilsaw blade turned backward—no ear protection, just minutes of screaming metal. I grew up on a farm driving tractors from age four on a tractor with no cab.  I was surrounded by loud equipment and music I could appreciate only when it played instrumental.  Later, in college, I learned to fly and loved the view from above, but I never pursued aviation. The thought of missing an air traffic control instruction made me too uneasy.

The twist is that where my auditory channel is weak, my visual channel is wide open. If I see it, I get it. So, over the years, I have built a playbook for turning listening on—especially in conversations, meetings, and facilitated sessions.

## **** 

## **My listening workarounds**

·       I summarize out loud: “This is what I am hearing…” Then I check whether I got it right.

·       I reflect key words back. If someone says, “This is a monumental occasion,” I might simply say, “Monumental.” People often light up and keep going.

·       In meetings I sincerely appreciate name tags, so I can connect written spelling of a name to face.

·       I write often write what people say on a flip chart or whiteboard. When I can see the words, I can better appreciate the content—and people feel heard.

·       I design exercises where participants write first their thoughts/observations, then discuss. They tell; I see.

·       Sometimes I close my eyes to shut down the visual noise and turn up the sound. It works—though it can send the wrong message to observers in the room or online, they might think I have gone into “screen saver mode.”

·       I sit where I can see faces, lips, body language and the room. For me, listening is a full-body engagement.

·       And I have found my apology for missing what someone says with: “I am having a low auditory moment!”

These workarounds contribute to advice from:

[NPR’s Life Kit: Want to listen better?  Turn down your thoughts and tune in to others.](https://www.npr.org/2021/03/08/974786825/want-to-listen-better-turn-down-your-thoughts-and-tune-in-to-others?renderPlatform=nprone_ios&unified=true)

## **** 

## **When my eyes outrun my ears**

My visual wiring has also created some memorable moments. On a recent hike with my nephew, thunder clouds rolled north of us while a light rain commenced. He was concerned. My response? “We will worry about thunder when we see a flash of lightning.” That was my visual system talking—and my outcome-driven side saying, “The goal for Pear Lake is still in sight.”

At airport security years ago, an agent moved his wand in a way that looked to me like an instruction to stand. I stood and moved into position. He yelled that he had not told me to “stand up”. I had followed the visual movement, no memory if there were instructions.

At Disney World this past June, I stepped off a bus, looked right and saw no buses, looked left and saw the buses parked, and headed that way while Security shouted behind me. Again: goal in sight, ears optional.

Even in work, this pattern has followed me. I asked a boss 40+ years ago for an opportunity to ride with sales reps and he told me, “People in your position don’t travel. Learn it over the phone.” For a highly visual learner, that was like telling a fish to climb a ladder. For the next two years, I was called insubordinate at least once a month by the boss who I suspect was highly auditory. I was not trying to defy anyone. I was trying to understand.

## **The gift—and the gap**

I remain fascinated by highly auditory people. They can pick up meaning from words, sounds and tones with a speed that feels almost magical to me. I often say they have both a gift and a handicap: their gift is how quickly they absorb spoken information, sounds and tone; their handicap is assuming the rest of us can do the same.

That is why loud restaurants, bars, stadiums, and busy cities can drain me fast. Yes, I am an introvert. If I cannot hear a one-on-one conversation, I am ready to wrap things up and leave. But put me in a museum, concert, film, or show—somewhere I can watch, focus, and take it in—and I am fully alive.

My low auditory, high visual, introverted, outcome-focused combination can send unintended signals: aloof, disconnected, uncaring, even rebellious. That has never been the intent. The lesson is simple: I have to work harder to turn my auditory on. I have to choose to be ears wide open.

And that is the real richness of Vujade™— it reminds us that every person is a unique blend of core traits, talents, blind spots, and brilliant workarounds. Some people listen best with their ears. I just happen to do a lot of my listening with my eyes.

—     Monty Miller, Co-Founder of Vujade™ and Cabo™

Monty shares the challenges and work-arounds for accessing his Auditory competencies

A Deeper Understanding: 07 Ears Wide Open

All of this week's Vujade™ content and events for this week

This Week in Vujade for Monday, September 7, 2026

Please join us as Anastasia Byler of Integral Path LLC shares her experience with Vujade™ at NASA.

Vujade™ Spotlight: Vujade@NASA with Anastasia Byler

Monty and Doug share how a Kinesthetic and an Extraordinary Visual built their auditory competencies. Invest 30 minutes to learn how to be more effective and efficient in your conversations.

Monty & Doug discuss techniques for improving your auditory skills.

Meet the Co-Founders: Improve Your Auditory Skills

Learn how AI can make you a better listener.

Doug Shares His Personal Auditory Journey

A Deeper Understanding: 06 Doug's Auditory Journey

A practical application of Maslow, Scarcity/Abundance and Vujade™.

A Deeper Understanding: 05 Leveraging Vujade™ in Client Sales

Great leaders understand that Servant Leadership delivers results when they align their communication with their team.

Servant Leadership: Leading by Serving Others

A Deeper Understanding: 04 Servant Leadership enabled by Vujade™

Monty takes the helm to describe 'Effort Bridges' at 8000 ft in the beautiful Rocky Mountains!

A Deeper Understanding: 03 Vujade™ Effort Bridges

Jeff Walter and the team at Latitude Learning introduce how Vujade™ ushers in a new era of 'Communication Intelligence' with this insightful case study.

Vujade™: Transforming Communication Intelligence into Strategic Outcomes

A Deeper Understanding: 02 Transforming Communication Intelligence into Strategic Outcomes

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