Whole brain thinking

This article was originally published in businesszone.co.uk

Much is made of the importance of the traditional 'left brain' skills of analysis and logic for running a profitable business. But, entrepreneurs should also adopt 'right-brain' abilities like inventiveness and empathy if they want to achieve success.

A lot of importance has recently been placed on the ability to be imaginative at work. Recent books by Malcolm Gladwell, Daniel Goleman and Dan Pink argue that traditional 'left-brain' skills – analysis and logic – are no longer all that's required in business, and that 'right-brain' skills like inventiveness and empathy are key to success. This is known as the whole brain approach. Creativity, inventiveness and empathy are important elements of business that should not be overlooked. In this competitive environment, it is this balance of traditional, left brain, skills alongside more creative thinking that can help you stand out from your competitors, develop the next breakthrough product or discover a new process that can cut costs and increase profits.

Obviously the amount of creativity and imagination each member of your team needs on a day-to-day basis depends on the nature of your business and how the team works together, people after all each have different skills they can bring to the mix but many businesses now ask that left-brain analytical skills be balanced with more intuitive, creative 'right-brain' skills. Because there is far more competition in the modern business world creativity is no longer an "ad on"; in a world where cars are sold as a lifestyle and walking down shopping aisles needs to be 'an experience', the ability to think creatively and to understand and empathise with your customers, clients and colleagues is a must and so to survive in this environment, companies need right-brain inventiveness.

"In a world where cars are sold as a lifestyle and walking down shopping aisles needs to be 'an experience', the ability to think creatively and to understand and empathise with your customers, clients and colleagues is a must."

Jan Hills, founder, HR with Guts

What if your business is stuck in the Information Age?
I sometimes find that businesses see inventiveness, empathy and creativity as a "nice to have", but do not invest in it to any large extent because it is not considered very productive or easy to measure. But if your business is struggling to understand your customers and how they feel about your products, or you want to keep ahead of the competition, then something needs to be done to tap into right-brain thinking.

Personally, I think that HR is better placed than most professions to drive businesses to become more 'whole brain' and if you are looking to make some changes in your company, here are some tips and advice taken from the world of HR on where to start.

Educate your employees: People, who have climbed the corporate ladder using their excellent analytical skills, might not see the benefits of a more intuitive right brain approach to business. You need to be able to demonstrate the importance of these changes to your employees so they can see the value to using these skills.

Avoid friction: Changing the company's criteria for success can cause dissention, particularly when it comes to those that result in changes in rewards and promotion. Typically, right brain input does not easily lend itself to traditional success markers such as sales targets and productivity goals. If more whole brain people are being promoted, this can cause further unrest. You can help to avoid this by making sure everyone understands the new criteria that promotion is judged against. Your HR or your senior management need to communicate clearly the skills and targets that need to be met for promotion alongside what business benefits whole brain thinking can bring.

Don't simply just employ new people, realise the whole brain potential of current staff: For people to feel comfortable and more ready to accept taking on a more whole brain approach to their role, businesses will often also need to provide support, training, coaching or mentoring to help people feel confident that they can meet these new criteria. Also important is to identify how to reward people who are more able to use both right and left brain skills as their creative input might not be as calculable.

Learn how inventiveness, creativity and intuition are trainable: Increasingly, there are courses that can help people become more creative and to use their intuition. Training to develop these skills is essential to help people understand how to harness their creativity and intuition in the most effective way. From my research, I have found that many managers are already using their intuition. For example, during our training programmes with line managers, the discussions on interview techniques revealed that many, if not most, of the line managers relied heavily on intuition when recruiting. Rather than trying to fight this, as has traditionally happened, we created a session within the training to help them use their intuition more effectively.

Accept that adopting a whole brain approach can involve risk when traditionally only left brain logic has been valued: You need to make sure the business has a culture where these risks are acceptable, and people have the confidence to take them. In order to create a culture where employees feel confident to take those risks, people need to feel that if they take a risk and something does go wrong, they will be encouraged to learn from it, rather than being penalised or even fired.

Don't forget that recruitment is a quick way to affect the balance of a company: Obviously HR people in your organisation can play a large part in bringing in the right people, not just by spotting the right talent themselves, but by training business managers to be able to do the same. In order to identify whole brain thinking people, businesses need to have clear criteria for the recruitment process in place. I am seeing more and more that companies are moving away from recruiting a candidate solely on the fact they have good analytical and left brain skills and are now hiring people with more creative degrees and experience. This means that skills and experience may not match the old role as neatly on paper and before recruiting begins you need up date the criteria and the indicators you are seeking.

Making the change towards a more creative and inventive business must happen as a whole. Change towards a more whole brain outlook must also occur across the board, so you need to make sure that you look at all the processes including training, recruitment, promotion criteria, reward etc. It won't happen overnight, but if you make a conscious effort to support a more balanced mode of working in the business, and if you work hard to manage the changes this will bring, then you will see rewards to your business and how creativity can become a key element in helping your company to stand head and shoulders above the competition.