news - management -

 

MANAGEMENT RIGHT AND LEFT

by Mark Brown

The knowledge that the human brain is divided into two halves is of far more than purely scientific interest. Managers can already benefit from the contribution which research into the two sides of the brain has made, for example, towards solving the vexed question of creativity - a quality which is probably as difficult to define as is the concept of intelligence. Although there is much debate about the definitions of both terms, there are also tests which attempt to rate those abilities (an interesting approach in the absence of agreement on the definitions). Try this typical creativity test, the Alternate Use Test. After you have read the following instruction, simply take a piece of paper and in one minute jot down as many uses as you can think of for a brick.

An average score, if you have finished, is around six. Those people scoring above 12 are usually described as 'highly creative'. The research on the two halves, the two hemispheres of the brain, casts a useful light on this creative process: on how better creative results can be obtained even by those who are not 'highly creative'-as will be explained later. The same research can be usefully applied in many management activities - such as selling, advertising, writing, planning and training, economic and market forecasting, and also problem solving.

Looking down on top of the exposed human brain reveals not one brain but the two distinct halves, the left and right hemispheres. It is well established that the left brain controls the right-hand side of the body and the right brain the left-hand side. But the accumulation of evidence over the last 50 years suggests that the left and right brain, in addition, have different thinking styles. A British doctor, about a century ago, began to notice, from studies on his patients, that individuals who suffered damage to the left hemisphere would often have their powers of speech noticeably impaired. However, if the same amount of damage occurred on the right-hand side, language ability usually remained intact. Accordingly, the left brain took on the title of 'verbal', and the right brain got the non-title of 'non-verbal'.

New evidence came to light following research on what are now known as split brain patients. The two halves of the brain communicate through a bundle of nerve fibres, some 200 million, which make up the corpus callosum. In certain individuals suffering from acute epilepsy, a group of neurosurgeons decided to cut the corpus callosum, as a last resort, in an attempt to stop the spread of electrical activity associated with epilepsy from one hemisphere to the other. This operation gave rise to a most extraordinary phenomenon - that is, an individual with literally two brains. These patients provided the perfect testing ground for establishing the different styles of thinking of the left/right hemispheres, as no longer could one side communicate with the other through that bundle of nerve fibres.

Research on those individuals and, since then, on 'normal' people has produced the following picture. The left brain in most people, and certainly in 99% of all right-handers, is particularly involved in thinking activities that use language, logic, analysis, reason and mathematical ability. The style of thinking associated with the left hemisphere is given the name 'sequential'. The left side is also associated with awareness of detail.

For a long time, the thinking styles of the right hemisphere remained a mystery. At least one researcher suggested that the right brain was literally a spare tyre, carried around in case the left brain suffered damage; however, he admitted he would rather keep than lose his 'spare brain'. While the left hemisphere is particularly involved in verbal processing, the right hemisphere is more associated with pictorial, image thinking. Some researchers associate the right side with day and night dreaming. The right is more associated with spatial awareness, creative ability, intuitive thinking, musical appreciation. The right, it is argued, is much better at seeing wholes. Some researchers associate it more with body language, voice intonation and general emotions, and the ability to recognise faces and patterns.

The picture presented here of the styles of thinking of the left and right is certainly simplified. For example, some left-handers may have the abilities reversed, so the left 'styles' appear on the right, the right 'styles' on the left, while some other left-handers may, in fact, have the abilities mixed. Be that as it may, no other recent psychological research has caught the public's attention to the same degree: the research on the left and right hemispheres is way out in front. Educationalists and management trainers increasingly refer to the data. This is hardly surprising, for the styles of thinking - these leftist and rightist styles - coincide accurately with various systems of dual classification: the scientist versus the artist, the accountant versus the creative designer, the symbolism of the right hand versus the symbolism of the left, and perhaps even Western society versus Eastern.

Are managers left, right or both? Superficially the research could suggest that a great scientist - for example, an Einstein - had greatly developed the left styles. An artist of genius - Picasso, say - could be argued to have developed the other side, the right, the creative and spatial abilities. A story tells of Einstein gaining a major scientific insight, while looking up to the sun, with eyes almost closed. The sunlight was broken down into small shafts of light which he described as dabbling through his eyelashes. It was at this point that his insight occurred.

Top

Numerous leading scientists describe original insights as arriving intuitively, often in pictorial form. With such scientists, exclusive use of the left side does not appear; you see a combination of both sides. The same principle applies to the fine artists - the idea of the artist as living in creative havoc occasionally strolling up to his canvas and daubing erratically with his paintbrush, while spasmodically hurling handfuls of paint at the canvas with his other hand, is as misleading as the idea of the top scientist as all analysis and mathematical ability. Creativity without analysis and order may amount to no more than an idle day-dream. Analysis and logic without creativity and inspiration can only produce what is old, nothing new. In art, science, and business management, it is the interaction between the two styles that produces the creative leap forward.

Business, like other areas of life, witnesses the phenomenon of partial or total 'half-wits'-people who are using half their minds. The highly creative individual may be incapable of understanding a balance sheet. The figures man may lack creative insight. Such phenomena, it is argued, rather than being natural, are more a question of the education and training received. Much can be done to improve both styles of thinking. More interesting still, by developing both sides, the combined effect is more than the simple equation of 1 + 1= 2. The combined effect of both styles is the highly creative useful insight.

Many management activities can be illuminated by this research. For instance, consider human relations. What is the word for somebody who is not very articulate? The adjective 'dumb' may be used -and the word is used to refer to somebody who does not talk as well as somebody who appears to be stupid. We tend to think of intelligence in terms of verbal ability. Therefore the left/right research can be used as a tool to produce the understanding that a person may not have been encouraged to develop verbal ability and yet may have useful skills and excellent ideas.

In interviews, much information can be picked up about a candidate who is non-verbal. While the left brain is particularly involved in verbal communication, certain research suggests that the right is much more involved in voice intonation, body movement and facial gestures. This 'softer' information is often as important as the 'hard' verbal information. For example, the voluble salesman who does not really believe in the quality of his product, although verbally eloquent, may give incongruous physical clues to his overall belief.

Writing, planning and problem-solving are also susceptible to this research. Physically, where are you when you have some of your best ideas? When this question is put to a seminar group, replies like gardening, relaxing, drinking, walking, running, meditating, in bed, in the bath, in the lavatory, etc. are among the favourites. These answers highlight the fact that people often come up with useful insights when their minds are not particularly focused on the area of concern. This is a well-known phenomenon in trying to recall somebody's name, and also in trying to solve crossword clues. If you keep striving to force the recall of the name, you may get nowhere at all. Give up the struggle, and some time later the name just pops into the mind. In the same way, with a crossword clue, the answer to 10 across' flashes into consciousness just as you are dropping off to sleep.

Within the terms of the left/right research, much problem-solving writing and planning involves high-level left-side use. However, when the left side is at a lower ebb, and the mind is more involved in spontaneous activities, or is more relaxed, it is as if the right side has carried on working on the problem, which was originally presented by the left side. Finally, in the more relaxed state, the right side communicates the useful insight to the left, which can then articulate and act upon the idea.

When tackling problems is the issue, a typical recommendation is the idea of a rest or an incubation period. During that incubation period, the right hemisphere restructures the problem and so often solves it. The same insight can occur in planning. This knowledge emphasises the importance of contrasting activities, breaks during and from work and the vital need for relaxation.

Breaks play a particularly important role in analytical tasks, analysis of figures, and also in writing. For example, many people describe themselves as not writing their own material, but allowing their minds to write it for them. One of the best examples is Bertrand Russell. He described himself as researching a book and then leaving the material for several weeks, even months. He would then come back to his notes and find that, in the interim, his mind had carried on working on the information, structuring, solidifying and organising it. With the deadline imminent, he would then simply write out the material that his mind had prepared.

Second, in writing and general analytical skills, the person who works without breaks finds that his overall performance drops. If a manager decides that he must finish a report for the following morning and so works late into the night, he may believe as the clock strikes 12 that he is writing some of the most elegant and precise prose he has ever penned. On reading through the report the next morning, he may find that he has written garbled nonsense. The problem is rather like that of a drunk trying to judge his own behaviour in his own eyes, his drunken carrying-on seems quite sober. This is because he judges his lack of sobriety through his intoxication. The same problem occurs with writing quality - the fatigued left brain producing poor syntax, is also bad at judging the quality of syntax. The need to take regular breaks can hardly be over-stressed.

In assessing markets and the economy, remember that the right brain is particularly associated with the ability to see overall patterns or trends. When an economic or market change begins to occur, the evidence to substantiate that such a change is occurring may not be hard enough to satisfy the logic of an economist or an accountant. However, companies which want to lead any trend need to act before hard statistical evidence can confirm the pattern - for usually such evidence is not available in hard figure form until it is too late for most companies to benefit from the trend. An essential function of management is to detect these general patterns, again relying upon more intuitive hunches - and these time and time again turn out to be correct long-term forecasts. This is not to play down the importance of rigorous analysis in forward planning, but to highlight the way in which many sound management judgements can be, and often have to be, founded on hunches and intuition which in turn are based on years of experience.

Top

For many managers, training and learning are areas of difficulty - much greater difficulty than need exist. At management seminars, course delegates, when asked what sort of information they are particularly good at remembering from courses, reply as follows:

(1) Information which is humorous;

(2) Information which they experience directly;

(3) Information which is based on case studies;

(4) Information where analogies and examples are given.

These are all good examples of greater right hemispherical activity.

In anybody's list of the 10 greatest teachers in the history of the world, Jesus Christ would be almost certain to appear. In Christ's case, and that of many other great teachers, the teaching style relied heavy upon the use of the image in the form of metaphors and parables. Image-based information can live on for years in memory - rather like a time-bomb that finally explodes when experience makes that image relevant to the individual. The greater use today of experience-based training, case studies and video indicates a natural awareness that any audience needs a combination of left (that is, verbal) and right (that is, more creative and directly experienced) information. This same dual impact is very evident in effective advertising.

Finally, to return to creativity. The human brain is the single most complex and, in many senses, the most powerful, system that we know in the universe. So it is a little disappointing that, given a minute, it can only come up with six uses for a brick. One reason for using that test is to illustrate the way in which left hemispherical styles of thinking can inhibit the right. When people hear the word 'uses', they tend to restrict themselves to the ideas of 'sensible' and 'existing' uses. If every idea that management ever inspired had to be sensible and existing, there would be no new ideas, no new products, and no inventions.

Creative thinking and problem-solving require a phase of highly divergent, non-conventional, uninhibited thinking. During this phase the mind may present ideas which later on turn out to have very valuable uses. The Alternate Use Test is not therefore so much a test of creativity as of the number of limitations which an individual puts upon him/herself.

There is a very simple way to break the test. Jot down as many objects as you can think of which bear no relationship whatsoever to a brick. For example, you might write down clock, cup, ashtray, etc., etc. How can you use a brick as a cup?-some bricks have the centre scooped out of them and you could use it as a birdbath or a drinking trough. How could you use a brick as a clock? - as a sundial. How could you use a brick as an ashtray? - in the same way as for a drinking trough. If you juxtapose any object with the brick, you can nearly always discover a particular use. Adopting this approach, within one minute you can probably jot down between 20 and 40 uses. Talking, rather than writing, you might be able to manage as many as 50 to 100.

This approach does much more than just breaking the creativity barrier as erected by the test. It raises the very useful suggestion that, in looking for new ideas, left-brain constraints must not be placed on right-brain ingenuity. First allow a highly creative phase; then follow up with the analytical phase. Going from right to left, from the creative through to the analytical, will show, when you come to analyse the creative ideas, that, although a high proportion may be redundant, there are often a few new and useful ideas which would have been suppressed had you entirely relied on analytical thinking. Socially, educationally and in management, left-right brain research is being used more and more to stress that 'both is best'.

Top