Have you ever noticed that sometimes when you’re talking with someone, they seem to get frustrated with what you’re saying or how you’re saying it? Saying to you such things as, “Yeah, but what does that mean in the big picture?” Or “How are you going to get there?”
How you think and talk about problems is increasingly becoming significant, particularly in the work world. This is, in part, because how you “prefer to think” is now believed to determine how you’ll handle assigned tasks, what you’ll learn and how you’ll learn it, and with whom you’ll work well.
Companies such as Polaroid, IBM, Bank of Boston, and Shell Oil have looked into how their employees approach, describe, and process information in order to solve problems in the office.
What’s your “preferred thinking style”? How can knowing it help you? In the 80s and 90s organizational development began looking at “whole-brain thinking.” This approach suggested that each of us has a thinking style which results from our brain dominance – that is, the cerebral hemisphere which takes the lead in our cognition.
Research has shown the left hemisphere (or “left brain”) primarily processes verbal, logical, quantitative, and analytical thinking whereas the right hemisphere (“right brain”) primarily addresses visual, spatial, creative, and holistic thinking. Some experts argue, based on these studies, that brain dominance affects personality.
In other words, they believe that if you’re predominantly left-brained, your processes are manifested as statements oriented toward logical reasoning, sequences, facts, and conceptual structures. Thus, left-brains would be more likely to become engineers, accountants, lawyers, or supervisors.
If you’re right-brained, your statements would be expected to reflect orientation toward people, feelings, experiences, patterns and relations. Right-brains would then be expected to become artists, salespeople, social workers, and entrepreneurs. However, it’s important to note that no one with an intact and healthy brain is thought to use one hemisphere exclusively for thinking.
The reason different patterns of brain dominance are considered important by researchers, such as Ned Herrmann of Applied Creative Services, Lake Lure, NC, is that they tend to lead to different skills, different career choices, different modes of thought, and different styles of communication.
But what is this really showing you? Do thinking preferences represent skills, intelligence, or level of competence? No! They are the pathways by which you are predisposed, perhaps genetically and socially, to solve problems.