And they can also adapt their behavior long enough during a job interview to fool the best of us.

Teresa Abram

Absolutely right, they can hold it together for 45 minutes to an hour. Some people can even do it for a couple of months, but then eventually it does crack and then you're going to see the real person. So, when you're relying on any kind of assessments that are done with them, analyzing the information and giving you the answers, you're relying on ultimately, their honesty and their self awareness. And it also makes people sort of have to choose one thing over the other and put themselves into a little box that maybe isn't even accurate for themselves. Whereas when you look at handwriting analysis, it's the whole person. We don't put people into the box and sometimes people are just so relieved, because we'll say you know what, I see that you're an introvert and yet, you're also an extrovert. And I know I said that to one lady, and she was just like, 'oh my god, you have no idea how much I hate that question—Am I an introvert and or am I an extrovert? Because I'm both'. And her handwriting showed that she was actually both. It's like she was a little bit slow to warm up to people. But once she was there, she was totally the extrovert when she was comfortable, and when she had her bearings, she would dive right in.

Maureen Farmer

That's so interesting. You know, I think the Myers Briggs gives a really nice scale of introversion versus extraversion because you can be on the 50 percentile for introversion, extroversion. You know, the DISC assessments I absolutely love because the ones that we use actually demonstrate and show adaptive behavior. So, we see the real behavior and the adaptive behavior even though it is a self self assessment. But before we dive into more of the questions and the details, I would love for you to tell the listener here today if they don't already know how you got into this business and a little bit about what you do and the types of clients that you like to work with.

Teresa Abram

Well, I have been doing or at least I've been aware of handwriting analysis since forever. I know my dad, when I was really young and just starting to learn even how to do cursive, he would sometimes comment on my writing. And, you know, he'd noticed that going up or down and make a comment, or it was leaning too far to the right or too far to the left. So it was always around me as I was growing up. My grandma took me to get my first handwriting analysis done when I was 14. And I was totally blown away. Because here I am a teenager, I'm getting this thing done. And I was just like, this is actually kind of creepy. They get me—this person got me, which I thought you know, I was really unique and unusual. And nobody could get me because I felt so misunderstood, right? I think quite often teenagers do.

Maureen Farmer

So what motivated your grandmother to take you to get your handwriting analyzed? I think that's so fascinating.

Teresa Abram

Yeah, that was my grandma. She was into everything very different. She was...I remember her doing yoga, way before anybody else was doing yoga. And she was doing vegetarian and healthy foods, she lived in Calgary for a number of years. And at that point, there was only actually one health food store in the city of Calgary, and she would drive there specifically to go get the food she wanted. So she was really, really kind of ahead of her time in regards to just looking at that self awareness piece. Yeah, she was into anything that helped, she embraced it. And so she had books on handwriting analysis as well and she just thought it was just one of those fluky things where we were walking along and she's like, I think you need one of those and sat me down...I don't know if she planned it beforehand. I never asked her but it came across to me as very spontaneous.

Maureen Farmer

It sounds as though she's very intellectually curious as well.

Teresa Abram

Yes, very much so...she loved people. She was absolutely fascinated by people. You know, she was in her 80s. And when you look at her handwriting, you see it like her handwriting is just so extroverted, and so into people with that curiosity streak. And in her 80s, she actually left everything, got on a school bus with one of her granddaughters and the granddaughters boyfriend and toured around to all of the hippie communes in the states for a year. That's the kind of person she was...it was just like, this is an opportunity. Sounds interesting. Count me in.

Maureen Farmer

That is amazing. So, she lived life in the moment.

Teresa Abram

She did.

Maureen Farmer

Well, you know what they say...success favors the bold.

So, I know a little bit about you, because I've heard you on Chris Hadnagy's podcast. I've heard you on your own podcast a few times. So I know that you didn't always have handwriting for your livelihood. So you worked in business before you did this full time. Is that right?

Teresa Abram

Yeah, that's right. Before I decided to do this, I was actually the general manager of a custom home building company. And I actually thought that's what I was going to do for the rest of my life was to build houses for people. And then you know, life kind of happens. And it turned out that that isn't what I was going to do. And when I sat down to really take stock, I realized, you know what, I have this skill. And it's kind of awesome. And I love doing it. And I love helping people. And ultimately, that's what this is about. It's really about understanding, not judgment, when we apply it to the hiring process. It just starts to change the whole interview process, it changes the conversations that you have. And that is just, it's rewarding. I don't know, that sounds kind of lame, but it is...it's just so satisfying.

Maureen Farmer

No, no, no, no, I understand completely. When you can help an organizational leader make a good decision that's based on not just one dimension. We talked about the handwriting analysis, the DISC profile, those DISC assessments, you know, maybe we do a 360 assessment, I mean, all kinds of things, all kinds of data points that go into making, what I would say isn't an evidence based decision.

And these stories are everywhere in the media today, unfortunately. But we, in a city not too far from where I am, we had a the CEO and a CFO collude to embezzle money out of the organization that they were in charge of. And you hear it and you see it in the news all the time. And what's really intriguing to me in a very perplexing way is how an organization can make a decision like that. So from what I understand, these two individuals were not vetted through an official background checking service. And I don't know what the process was. But I think it was like two years after they had taken office, there had been an audit. And this is how it was discovered that they were stealing money from the organization...it was a nonprofit, and found out later on that the CEO had done the same thing in another part of the country to another similar type of organization. And I think what could they have done to mitigate that from happening, from stopping that from happening, and you know, and I think one item on its own, like a reference check, or a disc profile assessment on its own may not be enough. So that's where I see your services as coming in and really offering insight that the others don't provide.

Teresa Abram

It does, it's also a big check. So if you have people doing certain things, and you get some of your results back, it's a great way to even check it to say, were they being honest, were they being truthful? You know, just to give you sort of an example of that, Maureen, I'm gonna go back to the Big Five, just because that's the one that...it's pretty straightforward. It's only the five different personality traits that you look for, and are rated on there. And it's really easy. If you have somebody who comes along and they say, you know, 'I'm really good at taking instructions. And I enjoy having structure and taking instructions'. And then if you look at their writing, and you see, they're not so good at that...that's not something that they're really good at doing, they're much better at being able to step up and to take control of the situation, then, you know, right there, okay, they're not being entirely truthful. And that can really help you just to start to, you know, start to understand if they're not willing to tell me the truth about that, what else might they not be telling me the truth about?

Maureen Farmer

Oh, for sure. And I think, I think sometimes, too, and I'll be the devil's advocate, I don't always think that people intend to deceive.

Teresa Abram

No, they don't.

Maureen Farmer

I think that in my experience, that people have the best of intentions. They may believe that, you know, that is the right opportunity for me, and I'm going to make my size 10 foot fit into a size 8 shoe that kills me. Because I want that job, or I need that job, or whatever the the motivator is. And when you can help people understand that the fit is absolutely critical to the success of the role and for the success of the person...this type of a tool could be a real a real tiebreaker.

Teresa Abram

Yes, exactly. It is. And I like what you're saying there where people aren't always...it's not intentional. I know I had one person that I was doing a check for. And we were talking and she said she was very, very organized. And well, you know, she planned things out well and was very organized. But in her handwriting, it showed there was actually a lot of confusion, and disorganization. And it was just, you know, a gentle question of...are you sure? Are you sure that's maybe who you weren't before, but not necessarily who you are now, you know, and she did pause and kudos to her for in that situation, right? Being able to pause and take that into account...'You know what, I'm so stressed right now that I feel like my life is out of control'.

Maureen Farmer

And that would come out in her handwriting?

Teresa Abram

That's what I was picking up in her handwriting...is just that lack of organization, that lack of control, showing up that disorganization is what was showing in her handwriting. So once we get that clarification, it's like, okay, now this lady has just proven that she can stop, reflect in a, you know, in a pressure situation, and absorb feedback. It's like...you're hired. Right?

Maureen Farmer

Right, exactly!

Teresa Abram

That is, you know, that's a phenomenal skill right there. You know, now you have somebody who, who is going to listen to feedback. And in some organizations, actually, I think, in most organizations, that's an important skill to have. 

Maureen Farmer

Oh, that is a tremendous leadership skill to have...somebody who is coachable. For sure, and who's resilient and self aware and, and all of those things, you know, it's the denial that causes the worry and the concern when people do that. That's so interesting.

Teresa Abram

You know, and there's another part to that that I just want to touch on really quickly too Maureen...is people aren't lying on purpose some of the time but they're pretty nervous. They're going to rehearse their answers ahead of the interview and they know they're going to get asked what's your strength and what's your weakness in some form or other and that's gonna come out and they will rehearse it, trying to find one that they feel maybe is acceptable.

Maureen Farmer

Oh, I do. That's what I do for coaching. I coach executives through this all the time.

Teresa Abram

Right? 

Now here's the thing with a handwriting analysis, if you as the interviewer have one, you have the handwriting analysis of the person in front of you. And you can say, you can say, 'you know what, I see that you, you know, you work well on your own, you don't actually need somebody to hold your hand'. It allows them to break in a way that they couldn't another way, and it just relaxes them, because it's like, oh, they see that there's a strength. And they can talk to that. Conversely, if you say something that could be construed a little bit as a negative, right, again, going back to that, maybe you have a struggle following orders. In that person, there's a bit of sense of relief. And you move the conversation from this pre-planned, thought out interview response into a genuine conversation. And you've just let them know that you see that weakness, and you still invited them into the interview.

Maureen Farmer

Yes, vulnerability is another leadership skill, you have to be able to, you know, stay in the moment and, and as my, my coaching instructor used to say, you have to stand in the fire with your client.

And if they're able to do that, that is a tremendous asset...

Teresa Abram

Absolutely, but you also break their frame, right? You break their frame, because now you're saying I already see this, what do you see, and then you can move into what they might have thought now that you've broken that frame. And now you're going to start to see the real person there. And that's really what you want. You don't want to wait until you've hired them to see the real person, you want to see it in that interview.

Maureen Farmer

For sure. No, absolutely. So in terms of helping organizations make decisions around high potential leaders and high potential performers, does the handwriting analysis indicate to you...can you determine from a handwriting analysis that, you know, this person, George Smith, is... So George, we've identified him as you know, the next CFO of our company. He's got all the technical skills, he seems to have the leadership skills, you know, let's put him through the process and see, will he be suitable for a high stress leadership role? Can you assess that through the handwriting analysis?

Teresa Abram

So, in a situation like that, I would work with the company to identify what are the traits that you want that leader to have? Do you want him to be the visionary, where he's thinking really big picture, and he's got the team to, you know, he can delegate it to the team? Do you want him to be involved in every piece where everything is getting vetted by him? You know, do you want him to be proactive or reactive? Or, you know, how does he handle conflict? That's a really big one.

Maureen Farmer

That's a huge one. Yes, for sure.

Teresa Abram

Yeah, you know, you're just going to go through and you're going to pick your top five for that position of what is it that's really important for this person. And then we can go in, and we can find it in in his handwriting as to what degree it's there. The other really nice thing is if you start having handwriting analysis with people within your company...let's say for this person who's within the company, and you hired him on and you got a handwriting sample, a year down the road, you're doing his performance review, and you get another handwriting sample so that you have a really good idea of what's going on in his head, how happy is he with his job? By the time you get to this position where you're saying, let's look at promoting him, you can get another handwriting sample, and you can compare it to see is he living up to his potential? Or is he going backwards? Like, where are we at? And how happy is he actually within our company? Because that's a key one too, right? You don't want to promote somebody if they're actually not very happy. Promotion isn't going to work!

Maureen Farmer

No and succession planning, you know, requires appropriate analysis and appropriate decision making around who are we going to put in these different seats. And I think I read a Harvard Business Review article not that long ago, it was called After the Handshake. And I'm going to forget the percentage, it's really high, something like 80% of executives don't last in the CEO role after 18 months or something like that. And that number might be really, really high. I don't have it in front of me, but I just read it not that long ago, it was really, really high. And there are all kinds of different reasons for that. And one of them, they suggested that the decision makers didn't dig deep enough into motivations and into behavioral competencies. Think about the impact on the organization when a decision like that's made and think about the impact too on the person, on the CEO who was hired into that role and all of a sudden this opportunity is not what was promised to him or is not not what he or she perceived it to be. And then you've lost what...18 months of productivity and that person's last 18 months out of his or her life that he or she can't get back.

Teresa Abram

You know, that's an interesting one that you've brought up Maureen...is motivation because that is something that handwriting can tell. Not everybody is motivated by money. And you might think, well, as long as you're paying them enough, they're gonna stay. And I mean research and everything is showing that that is just not the case.

Maureen Farmer

Oh yes—I worked with people back in corporate I remember, I worked in an energy control center for a large power company. And the director of the energy center, he had a stack of paychecks in his drawers (this is before direct deposit). And the audit department came looking for them because they weren't paying cash. So, he was clearly not motivated by money,

Teresa Abram

When you gave me a handwriting sample as well, and when I look at yours, I know that you're not motivated by money. You know, you want approval, you want recognition. There are people who are motivated by money. And if that's the case, great, that's okay. there's actually nothing wrong with that. It's just if you lump everybody into that, that's where the problem comes in.

Maureen Farmer

Well, it's trying to match the fit, you know, you wanted a size 10 shoe with a size 10 foot.

That's so interesting. I wasn't sure if you were going to mention the handwriting analysis, I've been looking at my handwriting with a different perspective these days, you know, and I'm looking at my m's thinking, 'Oh, my heavens', sometimes the second hump is larger than the first one. And I started, you know, thinking, 'Oh, dear, What's she going to see?'

Teresa Abram

Yeah, I won't get into a lot of your handwriting. You know, the one thing that I think really, there's several different pieces of your handwriting that, you know, the most prominent aspect of your handwriting really comes down to that, on the surface, your manner appears to be low key, very respectful, but you're not about to submit or yield to anyone, you're a little bit of a rebel. And that is what that second hump of the M being a little bit higher, it shows that 'Nope', you're not going to just lay down and let somebody walk all over you. Your K has quite a buckle on it. And the buckle is that the lowercase k where you come down on the stem, and then you go back up and you make a big loop at the top of the K and then come back down for the last stroke. And that buckle again, shows that you know what, you're not going to be pushed around and you're not going to be talked into doing something that you do not want to do.

Maureen

My mother used to call that being stubborn!

Teresa Abram

There you go. I guess that is a fun way to put it. But I think it goes a little deeper than that. Stubborn has such a negative connotation to it. 

Maureen

Yeah. I remember in grade five, a teacher said to me, I asked a question. And she said, 'Maureen, don't contradict me'. And I said, 'I'm not contradicting you'. And I had no idea what that word meant! I was just asking a question. Managing her a bit. I don't know.

Teresa Abram

Yeah, that's right. Right. Just because of her position, you weren't going to just accept whatever she said.

Maureen Farmer

So fascinating. So, I'm sure a person listening here today, like I did, wonder about the scientific validity of handwriting analysis. And I think you talked about that before in another podcast. And I think you said it was around point eight or something like that, is that correct?

Teresa Abram

So for me personally, Maureen, I do have an 80% accuracy. So, if I do something for somebody, this applies more to personal assessments, because I do work with people privately, and it's going to be 80% accurate, or I'll refund them because, you know, that just would not be acceptable, because handwriting analysis, we have the information that we should be at least that much correct, if not more. The problem, of course, comes into the fact that I'm human. And sometimes, I see it wrong. And that's why I can never get really, I would never, ever say that it would be 100%. Because I just can't, I'm human too. And I will see the handwriting and certain things will pop out at me and I may interpret it correctly or not. So, I do have 80%. As far as the science goes, it's really based a lot around psychology. The Gestalt, or Gestalt psychology is a really big part of handwriting analysis, the law of polarity, which just really talks about the fact that you know, it's the yin yang, light dark, where one exists, the other has to as well...that plays actually a really big part into handwriting analysis to where sometimes what we see or the inference that we make about somebody is based on the strength that one particular stroke appears in their writing, which tells us that actually, underneath operating in the background is the opposite. And that's where we can start to get the motivation for somebody.

Yeah, that's so fascinating. I'm here looking at (in preparation for our call today), I did some research online on crime statistics and white collar crime. And I was quite fascinated by some of the the statistics that are presented here. And just interesting statistics, over 62% of white collar criminals are married and 50% own their own homes. The gender breakdown of defendants and financial scandals between 2001 and 2018 found out that just 7% of those involved were women. Isn't that interesting?

Teresa Abram

That is, you know, and that is interesting, but I think overall, men are bolder. I don't like to lump you know, gender-assign people, certain traits. And that's one thing actually with handwriting, if you want something that is completely neutral, we cannot tell gender from handwriting. Can't tell gender or age from it. So, but I think overall, men are bolder, they just care less about what other people think. And that's just from my experience looking at handwriting.

Maureen Farmer

It says here, the average white collar criminal is 41 years old.

Yeah. So, I see so many applications to your skill, and your craft. I see it, you know, in criminology, recruiting, and coaching and there's so many different applications for it.

Teresa Abram

There is and that's one of the parts where handwriting analysis is really strong is when it comes to security checks and risk assessments, which really just means how likely is this person to commit a crime. And sometimes those crimes are really big, we're gonna see a lot of stuff that will say like, Okay, this person is really scary. That's where we start getting the red flags, where, you know, be careful about this person. Or, you know, sometimes it's just like, you know, this person, you might want to just check a little bit about this person and see what's going on with them. And the reason that we're really strong with that is because a lot of our research is done on the prison population. We have this lovely group of people that we can work with. And so a lot of the research is done with them. And so we actually have a really good understanding of criminal behavior and how it appears in handwriting.

Maureen Farmer

So interesting. So does it also uncover illness, things like mental illness, like if a person suffers from schizophrenia, or bipolar disorder is that picked up in the handwriting as well?

Teresa Abram

So first off, like I am not a psychologist, I'm not a therapist. There are certain psychosis that show up so we can look at it and say, this isn't normal. This is beyond the realm of what's considered normal. And that's where, you know, we would let you know that just be beware that this person could be volatile. And there are very distinctive handwriting's for different types of people. Psychopaths have a distinctive handwriting, they can do their test to see where they rate on a psychopathic scale, their handwriting reflects that as well. So we can see it, but we would never make that diagnosis. I would never ever say that person is truly, you know, schizophrenic, or paranoid or anything like that. I would just say there's a red flag or yellow flag there somewhere.

Maureen Farmer

And then maybe, so if you have a really high potential leader, and you want to promote this person, because the organization needs it, and the candidate wants it. Has it been your experience that employers will or decision makers will go a step further and ask that candidate to be assessed by a psychologist? For those reasons?

Teresa Abram

I have not had that at that level. So, I haven't had it to the point where I've said, boy, this person is dynamite. And, fortunately, I have not actually encountered that. Really, they're a very small percentage of our population, those types of people. I've certainly had ones where I will say that this person is a little bit secretive, you know, you're going to have to make a point of asking them very direct questions. Are you prepared to make those direct questions because you're setting yourself up for a really bad situation.

Maureen Farmer

So, your process also helps to inform the questions that are presented to the candidate?

Yes!

Maureen Farmer

Well, look, I could talk forever on this topic. And I would love to maybe have you back another time. But in the interest of time, I have one more question if that's okay, relating to...we talked a little bit about this before about the use of graphology, or handwriting analysis in corporations. And I think you mentioned that in Europe, that it's more common in Europe, for European corporations to incorporate this as part of their risk mitigation.

Teresa Abram

It is, handwriting analysis does seem to be more widely accepted in Europe, the birthplace of graphology, was in Germany, Switzerland, France. And so that seems to be where it still is more accepted. There are courses that are taught in universities, it's often part of a psychology program, where they will put it in—clinical psychology, or clinical graphology is much more accepted over there. And that's where a graphologist would work hand in hand with a psychologist or psychotherapist.

I'm curious if any of the industrial psychologists that, that I'm aware of, from corporate had ever used any of those tools. I had been aware of it before I met you but not...I didn't realize its application was so broadly used.

Teresa Abram

I think over here in North America, we are much more behind them. We're still really trying to make it just to raise the awareness of it. Up until I think it was 1970, we were listed as an occult business. They locked us in with fortune telling and tarot card reading, which this is not. It has nothing to do with that. So it wasn't until 1970, where we were actually switched into...No, this is a legitimate business. It's based on science. So I think we're still you know, we're still pulling ourselves up that hill of saying, 'Hey, you know, we are legitimate, give us a chance'. And I think Canada lags even a little bit behind the States—they're a little bit ahead of us as well.

Maureen Farmer

So interesting. I'm curious, because there are a lot of companies in North America that are headquartered in Europe. So actually, I know somebody who works with one of those large organizations, I'm going to have to ask him, their head office is actually based in Switzerland.

Teres Abram