Brain-Left What?
I won’t go crazy here on scientific theory, but it goes like this. Experiments have shown that each side of the brain seems to work on different types of thinking.
Left brain thinking includes:thinking that is logical, sequential, rational, analytical, objective, and looking at parts. Right brain thinking includes: thinking that is random, intuitive, global/holistic, synthesizing, subjective, looks at the whole.
To say it in other ways, people who prefer left-brain activities deal well with statistics, analysis that drills into data, information, language, and like to build from the bottom up. Right brain thinkers focus on aesthetics, arts and music, big-picture ideas, patterns, geometry, and creativity. and like to build from the top down. Almost everyone does both. Almost everyone has an inate preference.
Most schools are highly left-brain places, focused on academic subjects.
What does this have to do with business?
Right Brain Left Brain in Business
I bring this up because I was reading this post Left Brainââ¬âRight Brain? by Ted Mininni. In it he speaks of a notable trend in business schools to seek out right-brain thinkers.
What caught my eye as the principal of a design consultancy was the presentation being given by noted speaker, author and former White House speech writer Daniel Pink. Title: ââ¬ÅIdentifying & Leading the New Breed of Workers: How & Why the Right-Brained Will Be Critical to Future Business Successââ¬Â. Wowââ¬âthatââ¬â¢s a mouthful. But a meaningful mouthful.
This caps a notable trend in new business thought and one well worth exploring. Business has sought out left brainers — i.e., MBAââ¬â¢s schooled in analytics, metrics and use of logic — for so long, thatââ¬â¢s it elating for those of us who are right brainers — i.e., innovators and creative problem solvers — to witness this evolution in thinking that finally seems to endorse and appreciate our skill sets.
Mr. Mininni goes on with further resources and further points that most right-brain business person already knew — there are few classes on creativity or innovation in any business school, not even at the top tiers.
The Trend Is Changing
Mininni names the schools that are offering new programs and follows with his hope that this beginning trend will mold leaders in design thinking and strategy. His premise: if our business leaders are expected to become creative thinkers, problem solvers and innovators to keep their companies ahead of ever-intensifying global competition, wonââ¬â¢t an understanding of design (problem solving) processes serve them well?
I sure hope so. I’ve worked with the overly left-brain reliant, business school trained MBA graduate. It takes a long time to tease them out of all of their rules and into reality.
I test out clinically with a right-brain preference. It’s part of what adds to my charming weirdness.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
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I’ve never heard a right/left brain explained like this. I just assumed left-brained thinking = logical and right-brained = artistic thinking. That way I could fit comfortably into the left-brained side because I have very little artistic ability.
Now, by your description I see I might be a bit schizophrenic because my thinking often spans both sides!
good points all liz, we’re going through this right now w/ our anime gifted son sean as we gather lists of colleges for him – he is both right and left brained (aren’t we all), yet has this artistic, intuitive skill that will need the right environment to learn and grow in – fun and scary stuff as a parent but still just part of the fun that life is…
also, in my own career as a technologist, i’ve always enjoyed the moments of intuition that seem to provide the answers when logic and process just wasn’t doing it…
Hi Chris,
That’s us always trying to make everyone neatly fit under a label. They us how to do that in school. I know a little bit about this because my son at age 3 was found to be functioning at 98% right most of the time. The doctors who tested thought it was quite unsual. He also tested at three as an age 10 year old.
It showed it self in the way he used language — whole sentences like “I’ll be right. That didn’t take long did it.” They were perfect in every way: use, tone, timing etc. But if I responded with the right tone of voice and the wrong words, happily saying, “Mommy is really angry about that. Does that make you ugly too?” He would smile and say yes.That’s because he was learning language as a pattern rather than as individual words with meaning.
He’s now a phenomenal writer and an artist. His major is economics and he loves econometrics. He’s still quite visual.
I think that he and I are both like left handed kids who went to a right-handed school. We got the advantage of learning both ways.
Not very many people are as extreme as my son was when he was 3. Most people Are whole brained with a preference.
Yeah, Mike (and Chris).
That’s the fun, learning to use both side of our brain — not discount to value of our intutiton. Sometimes the information in our fingers is more valid than anything the emprircal data has told us. That’s the whole point behind Gladwell’s book “Blink,” which though it has it’s detractors makes some solid points on this isssue.
the story of your son is real interesting liz, especially since we have two very different teenage boys ourselves…
both are what most folks would consider bright kids and do very well in school: we consider one to be left-brain dominant and the other to be right-brain dominant…
the left-brain one is right handed, analytical, deductive and aggressive by nature – we think of him as our intense one…
the right-brain one is left handed, very visual, artistic and passive by nature – we think of him as our sweet one…
the left-brained one wants to be a pro snowboarder, actor, football player in that order & the right-brained one wants to go into video game design…
from our perspective, complete opposites from the same gene pool – yet they are the best of friends, the younger one (left) idolizes the older one (right) and the older one always includes the younger one in any of his plans…
thus, even though they’re predisposed towards one side of their brain by nature, they are very balanced and use both sides depending upon what they’re up to…
MIke,
The first word that came out of my mouth when I finished reading your comment was “Exactly.” What some is by nature some is by choice. Two brothers that close don’t ever choose to be good at the same things either. 🙂
My son these days lets few folks know about his artistic abilities. Though he runs a TV station and makes videos and draws maps of the world from his visual memory. He wouldn’t take art class ever because he thinks of those things as natural, like drinking a glass of water would be. 🙂
Dan Pink’s book on the subject is very good. I posted a bit of a review here:
http://thesmallbusinesscoach.com/blog/2006/04/24/who-wants-a-whole-new-mind/
Hi John,
Thanks for adding your post to the conversation. I’d love to hear some of your comments here too. How about joining in with us?
Though I don’t have the skills to analyze this post, I have a feeling that it is really on target…
Robert you cracked me up! 🙂
Robert,
I sense that I see a pattern in what you’re saying.
Hi Liz!
I did a series on Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind and the six senses that he says will be critical to business success in the years to come. It really is fascinating stuff. The line I liked in the book the most was about how left-brain thinking isn’t wrong – it’s just inadequate alone.
http://managetochange.typepad.com/main/2006/04/a_whole_new_min_1.html
Chris,
You’ve got me laughing again. I think you’re contagious
Hi Ann!
Thanks for leaving the link to your post. That’s a great contribution to this discussion. So is this.
The line I liked in the book the most was about how left-brain thinking isnââ¬â¢t wrong – itââ¬â¢s just inadequate alone.
We need the discipline and the creative, the structure and the expression. Neither one is good enough without the other. It’s like having only one hand. You can do thing, but you’re limited in ways that two hands wouldn’t be.
How true! I answered your comment back on my post with an observation. Lately I’ve noticed a lot of these ” black and white” types of debates. It seems as though people gravitate toward one single answer for everything (i.e. left brain is better than right, is the “book” dead?, or (like the debate about Seth Godin’s blog) “it’s not a blog if you don’t allow comments, stuff like that). People seem to have a real hard time blending the extremes and judging situations individually. Why is that?
Hi Ann,
I hear you. Those black and white lines scare me, so I pay attention to them. I worry that people who judge there one day will judge me the next.
My guess on the subject is that . . .
Some folks feel more comfortable with rules to hold onto.
Some folks go with the first definition they heard.
Some folks take stand and never move. They think that’s prinicple.
Some folks just can’t see gray ever no matter how hard they try.
Some folks think if they do see gray, they’ll be lose something to you.
Some folks just like to argue and always will take the other side.
Our culture protects folks who speak out and now some folks think that, if they don’t disagree, they aren’t talking at all.
We’ve lost the need to be a melting pot and become a culture of minorities and causes. That doesn’t help. As Joseph Campbell said . . . compared to any other country, we’re teenagers. That explains a lot about how we act. 🙂
Teenagers – that does explain a lot (I have 3 of them myself – well two and an “almost” teenager).
Teenagers. Then you know. 🙂
I have never been clinically tested for my natural preference / relaince to a particular hemisphere of the brain, but i am sure if i ever take a test i will test as right brain reliant… and honestly i am proud of it… What i would really like to know is how to apply right brain thinking in work to make it a strength. Not that i don;lt apply it to work – i am regarded as a forward lookin g problem solving pt of the box thinking kind of a person at work… but u know how to leverage it to the max.
Also, I mentor MBA students in India, I would really like to gain access to some game and exercise ideas to help my students figure out which brain they use more and how they can strike a balance. Please let me know if this is possible.
Hi Viraj!
Welcome! I was skewed extremely to the right as a child (as was my son). It made our view of the world quite different from what the other kids saw. I don’t think I fully understood that until my son was growing up. So the left-brain skew of school worked in our favor, because it developed us in the way a left-hander learns to live in a right-handed world.
It is good to be different. It is also good to be the same. For me, it was struggle to learn when each of the two states — different and the same — are of value to myself and others. It was part of that struggle to realize that I valued all of my brain. 🙂