left-brain Archives - Successful Blog

Bloggy Question 59: A Whole New Blog Network?

August 12, 2007 by Liz

According to Daniel Pink . . .

For those who come looking for a short, thoughtful read, a blogging life discussion, or a way to gradually ease back into the week. I offer this bloggy life question. . . .

Congratulations! Consolidated Media has acquired your blog for US$100,000. Better yet, they’ve been paying you the same six figures to write for them for the past six months. Life is good. You’ve enjoyed more money, more traffic, more-engaged readers, and a couple of tasteful ads on your blog. You couldn’t feel better about how things have been going. Well, that was until this morning.

This morning, you received an email quoting Daniel Pink’s book “A Whole New Mind.” Here’s what the email said.

_______

Dear Consolidated Author,
Consolidated Media is pleased to announce a new initiative, “The Whole New Network.” This initiative, based on Daniel Pink’s famous work, “A Whole New Mind,” will move us firmly into the 21st Century. To quote Mr. Pink

“Today, the defining skills of the previous era — the “left brain” capabilities that powered the Information Age — are necessary but no longer sufficient. And the capabilities we once disdained or thought frivolous — the “right-brain” qualities of inventivesnes, empathy, joyfulness, and meaning — increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders.”

With these words in mind, Consolidated is setting aside our left-brain, spreadsheet image to support our right-brain thinkers in these ways.

Webinars will begin next week on empathy and play as the driving force of business.

We’ll be renaming your categories to reflect “high touch” and “high concept” values.

We are lifting the posting requirement of 6 posts per week. Post when it’s creatively important.

Blog posts that score well for high-emotion keywords relating to empathy, play, and finding meaning will receive a monetary bonus of US$1.00/keyword. You’ll be receiving a list of words that qualify, please feel free to propose others.

Most of all have fun!

Thank you for joining our initiative to launch a Whole New Network. Feel free to offer feedback on how we might make this plan more successful.

Sincerely,
Consolidated Media
________

You can see plainly that Consolidated Media has missed Dan Pink’s message — that both left and right brain thinking are needed to be successful in this new age.

How do you respond?

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Left-Brain, Right-Brain, Whole Brain Think

June 6, 2007 by Liz

Analysis and Synthesis

It’s no secret that our brains have two hemispheres or that the two work differently. Despite how we talk, people aren’t really right-brain thinkers or left-brain thinkers. Everyone uses both sides of their brain in everything that they do. Each hemisphere takes charge of certain specialized thinking.

What is managed by the left hemisphere of the brain?

action and response on the right side of the body
sequential and linear thinking — a, b, c, . . . 1,2,3
reading left to right
interpreting the meaning of text without context
analyzing details — drilling down into spreadsheets
knowing logic

What is managed by the right hemisphere of the brain?

action and response on the left side of the body
simultaneous thinking — That’s a math book. That’s newspaper.
reading right to left
interpreting the meaning of context
synthesis — the global view
knowing the world

People do have attributes that lean toward left-brain directed thinking or right-brain directed thinking. Here’s what Daniel Pink says about that in his book A Whole New Mind.

Call the first approach L-Directed Thinking. It is a form of thinking and an attitude to life that is characteristic of the left hemisphere of the brain — sequential, literal, functional, textual, and analytic. Ascendant in the Information Age, exemplified by computer programmers, prized by hardheaded organizations, and emphasized in schools, this approach is directed by left-brain attributes, toward left-brain results. Call the other approach R-Directed Thinking. It is a form of thinking and an attitude to life that is characteristic of the right hemisphere of the brain — simultaneous, metaphorical, aethetic, contextual, and synthetic. Underemphasized in the Information Age, exemplified by creators and caregivers, shortchanged by organizations, and neglected in schools, this approach is directed by right-brain attributes toward right-brain results.

Of course, we need both approaches in order to craft fulfilling lives and build productive, just societies. But the mere fact that I feel obliged to underscore that obvious point is perhaps further indication of how much we’ve been in the thrall of reductionist, binary thinking. Despite those who have deified the right brain beyond all scientific evidence, there remains a strong tilt toward the left. Our broader culture tends to prize L-Directed Thinking more highly than its counterpart, taking this approach more seriously and viewing the alternatve as useful, but secondary.

But this is changing . . .

What changes do you see? Are you using your right-brain talents more? Are you feeling less appreciated for your left-brain abilities?

–ME Liz” Strauss
Behind every successful business is an outstanding manager –The Perfect Virtual Manager.

A Silly Left Right Brain Test

June 9, 2006 by Liz

Here’s a Fun Test

Here’s a fun test on right and left brain thinking with only a few questions. If you know this stuff you can easily skew it. I tried not to, but I did anyway. We know that I am very right brain. But I also have left brain qualities. I won’t give you my results before you take the test.

Have some fun with it, but don’t plan your life on the results. Click on the title below to try it out.

We all use both sides of our brain and we can develop the side that we don’t use.

–Me “Liz” Strauss

Knowing How People Think — As a Business Tool

June 8, 2006 by Liz

Creative Logical

Hardly anyone is right brain or left brain only. Some of us lean heavily one way or the other.The side favored by most people is the left-brain. It’s also the side that schools spend time developing. Most of us, however, use both sides of our brain when we need them.

Here are some interesting facts about the brains of men and women.

Men have more brain cells than women–about 4% and 100 grams more.
Women have more dendritic connections between their brain cells.
Women have a larger corpus collusum, which is the organic network between the left and right brain hemispheres.This means women have a faster data transfer pipeline between the two sides.
For most men, the left side is their dominate side.
For most men, language skills are only in their dominate side. However, more women seem to develop language skills on both sides.

Different not better is the key here.

Knowing about Thinking

We all have brains. It’s easy to assume that all brains workthe same like legs and arms do, but that’s just not so. Still we tend to think that people who think the way we do are smart . . . and those who don’t, well, they’re not. [Read more…]

Right Brain Creative? Business Needs You

June 7, 2006 by Liz

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? [Read more…]