Right brain versus left brain thinking - which is best?   by Dennis A. Martin

in Self Help    (submitted 2010-09-20)

Are you thinking with only half of your brain?

Most of us are familiar with the concept of left and right brain thinking and that we have two brains inside our heads. Many of us, however, through many and various experiences (including education), have learned to prefer to use only one of those brains. For many people, their left brain thinking dominates their right brain such that, in effect, they are thinking with only half of their brains.

So what?

Well, this is a dreadful waste of thinking power and human potential, of course. But, there is nothing inevitable about it. We have other choices. Let's paint the picture by beginning with some clarity about the terms, "left and right brain".

Right brain vs left brain - what's the difference anyway?

As early as 400 B.C., Hippocrates noted that injuries to the left side of the head often resulted in impaired function to the right side of the body and vice versa.

Hippocrates concluded from these observations that "the human brain of man is double".

In the 19th Century, researchers began to focus on the left hemisphere as the possible location of our ability to speak. After conducting post mortem studies on patients who had lost their ability to speak, the French surgeon, Paul Broca, came to the conclusion in 1864 that the location of speech is in the left hemisphere.

In the early 1940's Willian Van Wagenen performed the first "split brain" surgery to control epileptic seizures. Later experiments by surgeons Philip Vogel and Joseph Bogen were highly successful in controlling epilepsy.

Later testing of these patients by Roger Sperry and his associates resulted in much of the knowledge of the specialisation of the hemispheres as we know it.

That is, that the left hemisphere is responsible for speech, linear, analytic and rational thought, and that the right hemisphere is more holistic, conceptual, emotive and spatial.

In the 1970's, Ned Herrmann built on this work, and the Triune Brain Theory of Paul MacLean, to create the whole brain thinking model and the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI), a self-diagnostic survey that enables a profile of individual, and team, thinking preferences.

Right brain vs left brain - how does it apply to YOU?

You probably already have a pretty good idea of your left vs right brain thinking preferences.

As a quick assessment of how you see yourself, allocate 100 points between these four descriptions:

* rational -_____points

* organised -_____points

* interpersonal -_____points

* imaginative -_____points.

If you add together the points you allocated to, "rational", and, "organised", this will give you a total that represents your left brain thinking, and "interpersonal", and, "imaginative", added together represent your right brain thinking.

How you prefer to think, of course, affects everything you do and how you do it.

Those with a strong preference for right brain thinking will go about things quite differently than those who prefer to rely on their left brain.

This will often show in their behaviours and may well drive others nuts. For example, strong left brain thinkers will often like to make lists and cross things off their lists and will tend to be punctual and well organised (e.g. a place for everything and everything in its place).

Strong right brain thinkers tend to be more spontaneous and unstructured, less punctual, more disorganised and will likely value creativity above reliability.

People who are left brain dominant in their thinking will often describe the right brain thinkers as, "flaky" (i.e. informal, crazy or eccentric), whilst the strong right brain thinkers nearly always use this exact word to describe their perception of the left brain thinkers, "boring".

Right brain vs left brain - so what, does it really matter?

"Yes", is the short answer not least because, as the above may illustrate, right brain vs left brain thinking can significantly affect relationships and communications (e.g. remember "The Odd Couple"?).

Left vs right brain, or right brain vs left brain, or left brain vs right brain, or any other variation that contains that "vs", by implication, misses a vital point.

Which is?

That BOTH right brain AND left brain thinking are inevitable (by a single person and between people) and the implication that one is "better" or "superior" to the other is not valid or helpful.

More accurately, the key is to be able to use BOTH left side of brain thinking AND right brain thinking appropriately. That is, to be able to match the different types of thinking to the situation.

This creates whole brain thinking and gives us the best of both worlds.

That is, some situations require predominantly left brain thinking (which for many people is a definition of critical thinking) and other situations need predominantly right brain thinking (for many people, what is creative thinking? - it is right brain thinking).

For example, systematic problem solving of a technical issue will probably be best served with left brain thinking whereas emotional relationship and communication issues may be best responded to with right brain thinking.

If you approach every situation with the same pattern of your dominant thinking preferences you will weaken your effectiveness and be using less than your potential whole brain thinking.

On the other hand, if you invest in your self help improvement by learning the key diagnostic skill that will enable to match your different thinking options to the situational characteristics, you will likely achieve much better results and develop your mental agility.

This article is taken from our website where you can learn more about whole brain thinking and how to obtain a profile of your unique thinking preferences.

In the meantime, raise your awareness of your own thinking preferences, and others' (especially those with different thinking dominance patterns to yours - value the differences and explore them as this is where the significant learning is).

Also, learn to use this question in ALL situations: there's another way of thinking about this, isn't there?, and then do it.

About the Author

For the past 30 years, as a consultant and coach, Dennis Martin has helped hundreds of companies and thousands of people to release and realise more of their potential. He has recently built a web site, http://www.i-choose-self-improvement.com, which shares these business tested self help improvement skills, to help people create the future of their choice.