Left/Right; Think/Blink; Exploit/Explore; Calculate/Meditate

If you're lucky enough to get old (!) you eventually get to see cycles.  Things go in and out of fashion, and you get to watch it happen.  I'm seeing a cycle that's taken about 30 years to come full circle, and it's pretty interesting.

Daniel Pink wrote a piece in the February, 2005 issue of Wired, an excerpt from his book, A Whole New Mind,  that sparked some memories from graduate school in the 70s.  I haven't read the book yet (geez, it's just about impossible to keep up anymore) but I'll comment on the article.

The piece is entitled "Revenge of The Right Brain."  In it, Pink begins by describing the recent evolution of what he calls the, "path to success":

Tax attorneys. Radiologists. Financial analysts. Software engineers. Management guru Peter Drucker gave this cadre of professionals an enduring, if somewhat wonky, name: knowledge workers. These are, he wrote, "people who get paid for putting to work what one learns in school rather than for their physical strength or manual skill." What distinguished members of this group and enabled them to reap society's greatest rewards, was their "ability to acquire and to apply theoretical and analytic knowledge." And any of us could join their ranks. All we had to do was study hard and play by the rules of the meritocratic regime. That was the path to professional success and personal fulfillment.

But a funny thing happened while we were pressing our noses to the grindstone: The world changed. The future no longer belongs to people who can reason with computer-like logic, speed, and precision. It belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind.

Before telling us about that person, Pink works over some familiar neurocognitive territory:

The left hemisphere handles sequence, literalness, and analysis. The right hemisphere, meanwhile, takes care of context, emotional expression, and synthesis.

So, cultural evolution has met up with neurology, and led to Pink to some conclusions:

Until recently, the abilities that led to success in school, work, and business were characteristic of the left hemisphere. They were the sorts of linear, logical, analytical talents measured by SATs and deployed by CPAs. Today, those capabilities are still necessary. But they're no longer sufficient. In a world upended by outsourcing, deluged with data, and choked with choices, the abilities that matter most are now closer in spirit to the specialties of the right hemisphere - artistry, empathy, seeing the big picture, and pursuing the transcendent.

Last century, machines proved they could replace human muscle. This century, technologies are proving they can outperform human left brains - they can execute sequential, reductive, computational work better, faster, and more accurately than even those with the highest IQs. (Just ask chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov.)

And so,

As the forces of Asia, automation, and abundance strengthen and accelerate, the curtain is rising on a new era, the Conceptual Age. If the Industrial Age was built on people's backs, and the Information Age on people's left hemispheres, the Conceptual Age is being built on people's right hemispheres. We've progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers. And now we're progressing yet again - to a society of creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers.

To flourish in this age, we'll need to supplement our well-developed high tech abilities with aptitudes that are "high concept" and "high touch." High concept involves the ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, to detect patterns and opportunities, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to come up with inventions the world didn't know it was missing. High touch involves the capacity to empathize, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one's self and to elicit it in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning.

I concur.

And Malcolm Gladwell is certain singing from a similar section of the hymnal when he encourages us to "blink" and trust "thin-slicing," intuitive cognition rather than only believing the analytic thinking rationale we current use as the foundation for our decision-making. 

Then yesterday, Grant McCracken wrote about Michael Tushman's call for a new corporate model, one that is explorative in addition to be exploitative.  I made a similar point in a post concerning GE's Jeff Immelt's attempts to move his company to a focus on innovation as well as six sigma quality.

Pink, Gladwell, and Tushman are all pointing toward the need for a whole new way of thinking and acting, one that balances out the historically left-brained skills through a focus on the right-brain.

But, where are we going to find people who know how do all this right-brained thinkings?

Then I remembered Heidegger.

I spent a lot of time in the 70s reading existential and phenomenological philosophy while studying psychology at Duquesne University (we were an odd bunch).  A good many of those hours were spent reading the work Martin Heidegger.  Very interesting thinking; very difficult going.  One little book, Discourse on Thinking, was particularly interesting, and difficult. 

In it, Heidegger makes a distinction between calculative and meditative thinking.  The former is our typical "right brain" oriented approach, in which we view the world as objects to be analyzed and manipulated.

Meditative thinking is a more difficult and cryptic enterprise.  It requires patience (not "waiting for" exactly, since that puts us into a mindset that is anticipatively anxious and very close to calculative), and a lingering persistence; the courage to "dwell" in the presence of the world.  Heidegger called this releasement towards things and openness to the mystery.  It is "focused" on the transcendent; a way of getting to the invisible side of the visible.

It is usually right around here that modern readers find themselves getting very queasy.

Pink tries to make the point that:

The sorts of [right brain] abilities that [will] matter most are fundamentally human attributes. After all, back on the savannah, our caveperson ancestors weren't plugging numbers into spreadsheets or debugging code. But they were telling stories, demonstrating empathy, and designing innovations. These abilities have always been part of what it means to be human. It's just that after a few generations in the Information Age, many of our high concept, high touch muscles have atrophied. The challenge is to work them back into shape.

He's right.  These are fundamentally human attributes which have been part of our genetic and cultural heritage for millennia. 

But, I'm not sure it will be all that easy to get people to think and act in these ways in the "serious" contexts, like business or government, in which they are most desperately needed.

Remember, most of us who have attained credibility in those serious contexts have earned our stripes primarily by virtue of using left-brain, calculative, skills.  And we've built complex systems to reward and select others based on those same skills.  Furthermore, when we did bring in people who were expert in right-brain oriented work (usually to, "be creative"), we typically segregated them in "purple hair ghettos" in which they could be easily monitored and controlled, lest the virus spread.

Now we are saying that we not only need to allow the Righties to live amongst us, but that Lefties should begin practicing "ambicogterity," post haste.

But, as we see in Heidegger (who is one of the most complex calculative and meditative thinkers in modern Western thought), truly engaging in right-brain, meditative, dwelling thought, is very challenging. 

And, don't forget, the culture as a whole is still fiercely left-brain, objectivist.  Remember, "art" is still suspect in most polite society.

In this cultural context, how are we going to facilitate the development of individuals and organizations skilled in whole-brain thinking? 

First, we're going to need lots of examples of successful whole-brain value-creation before folks who used to only pay attention to half of themselves start taking meditative thinking risks.  We're going to need a bunch more "bottom line driven by non-linear problem solving" and, "great ROI coming from a 'going slow to go fast' approach" stories before left-brain dominated organizations will see the light.  Remember the new equation: Stories + Numbers = Evidence.  In the meanwhile, celebrate every instance you can find of whole-brain collaboration by groups or performance by individuals.

Second, lots of dialogue.  People need to understand the need to match approach with problem (if all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail; if all you've got is a paintbrush, everything looks like a canvas).  The first step is helping Righties and Lefties to talk to one another.  There is more than one way, and every way is part of The Way. (Sorry)

Finally, lots of practice.  Each of us needs to start developing our non-dominant hemisphere today.  This goes against the conventional wisdom in the individual and corporate development world: focus on strengths.  Well, sometimes focusing on your strengths will only make you more narrow-minded.

And in this Right/Blink/Expolore/Meditate world, narrow-minded is the last thing you need to become more of.

Comments

[Peter Flaschner]

Tom,

It's precisely because of this willingness to accept "leftyness" that I thing blogs will succeed in the business world. As I put it a while ago on my site, "Ads talk to my head, blogs talk to my heart." There are a million and one reasons why this is true: media ennui, constant over-stimulation, our ever shrinking personal time...

In my part of the world, we've seen an explosion of yoga and similar activities. I agree that this seems to resemble a 30 year cycle, but I think the motivating factors are different. Compare the history leading up to the 70's with the history leading up to the 00's (what on earth are we going to call this decade?) and you'll find considerable differences. This is an interesting topic, and one that requires more time than I have at the moment (back to the shrinking personal time thing - besides, I'm late for yoga!).

A blog's ability to connect on personal levels

[Tom Guarriello]

It's easy to get these things confused, Peter, but I think you mean it's the ability to accept "rightyness" that will make blogs successful, since they talk to the "heart" (right brain) and not merely the "head" (left brain.) I concur. Blogs are a good start, but there's a very large hill to climb, which is what this post is about. Just look at how the organization control mechanisms (very much a left brain meachanism) snap into play when internal bloggers pop up.

The predominantly personal voice of the blogosphere is, indeed, a move in the right (no pun intended) direction.

[laura]

and what is your review of Gladwell's Blink, as a whole?

...and I'm of the opinion for what it's worth that GOOD advertising simultaneously shoots two sharp arrows, one targets the brain, the other the heart (or gut) and goes for the kill. The heart / explorative side of humans has more influence in our daily decision-making than big business tends to think.

Right on, Doc!

[Tom Guarriello]

Overall, I thought Blink was only fair. I wrote my dissertation on "coming to know other people," with lots of emphasis on rapid impression formation. So, maybe I'm just jealous of someone making big money for writing about things academics (not counting me!) have been writing about for decades. But, that's a talent as well. I just didn't find it as compelling as The Tipping Point which was brilliant (although it, too, was based in gestalt psychology.)

No doubt, left/right targeted messages will be the most effective, but most people, including advertisers, are not so good at playing both sides. As you say, if you're going to stress one over the other, go right, for sure!

Hi to Salty D.

[Dzana]

This is so right. these days is more important not just do things right alone but manage do it together with other pople, who can be very different than us. so, emphaty, conceptual thinking and seeing big picture I find very important, essential...concience effort must be made to understnad that ''other''person, use all our given abilities (emotions, senses, thinking, skills..)in order to understand him, and get him on the road of solving common problem...these values are extremelly needed on the workplace today...

[Oliver]

My best friend is left brained, and I am right brained. Sometimes I feel like he takes advantage of me by "talking over me" in conversations, especially when there is a large group. I find this quality (if one would think it such) in most left brained people. They like to be "right" all the blasted time, and it's quite annoying. Right brained people are more willing to accept other's points of view if they make sense because they want to reach an understanding rather than saying "I'm right".

If there were an island or country or state or county somewhere that was mainly right brained, then I would drop everything to leave for that destination without hesitation. Often I think it's California, and I should just go back to LA and pay the higher rent so I can be around "cool" people ;).

--Oliver

[Christina]

Greetings,
At present I'm trying to research targeted age groups of children that can relate to imagery. This attempt is to teach simplistic photography including field trips. My question is do you know of a website that could tell me what age children (groups)learn best utilizing right brain. Today, I'm at ends and thought maybe someone may could give me a lead. Thank you for your time.

Enjoyed reading your blog.

Regards,

Christina Osann