Are You a Right-Brain or Left-Brain Thinker?
Roger Sperry, a Nobel Prize winner, initiated the study of the relationship between the brain’s right and left hemispheres. Sperry found that the left half of the brain tends to function by processing information in an analytical, rational, logical, sequential way. The right half of the brain tends to function by recognizing relationships, integrating and synthesizing information, and arriving at intuitive insights.
In other words, the left side of your brain deals with a problem or situation by collecting data, making analyses, and using a rational thinking process to reach a logical conclusion. The right side of your brain approaches the same problem or situation by making intuitive leaps to answers based on insights and perceptions. The left brain tends to break information apart for analysis, while the right brain tends to put information together to synthesize a whole picture.
Research into the brain’s function and individuals’ brain dominance was further enhanced by Ned Hermann, the former manager of management education at General
Electric’s Management Development Institute. Herman developed a brain-dominance profile instrument to help people assess the manner in which they use their brains.
Hermann’s research suggests that people in various professions tend to be either leftbrain or right-brain oriented. Managers, for instance, tend to be left-brain dominant, focusing on organizing, structuring, and controlling situations. Social workers tend to be right-brain dominant, drawing on their ability to relate to emotions to achieve insights about situations.
Quality and brain dominance
The quality field, by its very nature, covers a broad range of concepts, tools, and techniques. Some of these concepts, tools, and techniques are clearly in the left brain arena, such as using statistical tools and organizing plans to ensure the quality of projects and processes. Others are in the right-brain arena, such as using relationship diagrams to
In other words, the left side of your brain deals with a problem or situation by collecting data, making analyses, and using a rational thinking process to reach a logical conclusion. The right side of your brain approaches the same problem or situation by making intuitive leaps to answers based on insights and perceptions. The left brain tends to break information apart for analysis, while the right brain tends to put information together to synthesize a whole picture.
Research into the brain’s function and individuals’ brain dominance was further enhanced by Ned Hermann, the former manager of management education at General
Electric’s Management Development Institute. Herman developed a brain-dominance profile instrument to help people assess the manner in which they use their brains.
Hermann’s research suggests that people in various professions tend to be either leftbrain or right-brain oriented. Managers, for instance, tend to be left-brain dominant, focusing on organizing, structuring, and controlling situations. Social workers tend to be right-brain dominant, drawing on their ability to relate to emotions to achieve insights about situations.
Quality and brain dominance
The quality field, by its very nature, covers a broad range of concepts, tools, and techniques. Some of these concepts, tools, and techniques are clearly in the left brain arena, such as using statistical tools and organizing plans to ensure the quality of projects and processes. Others are in the right-brain arena, such as using relationship diagrams to
References: 1. Ned Hermann, Participant Memo (Los Angles, CA: The Whole Brain Corporation, 1982). 2. Brain Mind Bulletin, a publication of The Whole Brain Corporation in Los Angles, CA, Vol.6, No. 4 Aug. 24, 1981. By Dr. John Robert Dew