Having read the headline you may be expecting a party political broadside fired at the Labour Party! Sorry to disappoint you – we’re talking brains, not political affiliation.
The left side of the brain is responsible for objective analysis and rational thought, is focused on facts, figures, and the bottom line. It likes to be seen as leader of the pack, the most important part of the brain and the only ‘proper’ way of seeing the World. Left-brain thinkers are achievers, aspire to greatness and enjoy the trimmings of success; the prestige car, flying at the ‘pointy-end’ of the plane, large house and lots of money. Personal success is highly important. They are generally impatient and once they have made up their mind about the ‘right way’ nothing will stop them.
Left-brain thinkers are vastly over-represented in senior management positions, in all forms of parliament and in particular on the front bench of every parliament in the World. We are also clearly focused on creating more left brainers, because virtually every education system in the World has a clear priority to teach left brain subjects in a left-brain style of teaching; maths, science, engineering and IT come to mind.
But it’s not all negative; we definitely need left-brain thinkers. Without them, tasks rarely get finished, we don’t focus on the outcomes and everywhere is untidy! Left-brain thinkers are great at dotting the eyes and crossing the tees, balancing the books and making mechanical things work properly.
So why all the negative comment about the left-brain thinkers?
The real problem is that because we have such a HUGE imbalance of left brain thinkers as heads of government, industry, commerce and education, all the odds are stacked against finding new and better ways of working and doing business. Left-brain thinkers keep on doing the same old thing and following the same old processes. They have a firm view of what’s right and what’s wrong.
They would say that it is totally wrong to have a 2-year-old child in the Senate, even for a few moments! (Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young had her two-year-old daughter sent out of the house at vote time by the Senate President John Hogg)
So what would be the difference if we had more right brained people in the lead? Well, children in the workplace would not be a problem for a start. Many of the more progressive (left brainers – please Google progressive…) organisations have crèches for children of pre-school age open all the time people are at work.
Organisations like Apple and Google have amazing workplaces, with highly paid staff enjoying free snacks any time they feel peckish, taking their pets to work, having snooker tables and games to play at any time they need to switch off, and easy chairs dotted around the place for relaxing, dreaming and thinking. (Pause for left brainers to go tut tut tut…)
But please, stop ‘tutting’ just for a minute and look at something from your side of the brain, the balance sheet and profit and loss account! Organisations that are employing such ‘ridiculous’ work practices are actually performing better than conventional organisations in most cases!
So let’s put the record straight… Left brainers? We need you! We desperately need you for your objective and organised and analytical and critical thinking skills. But we also need you to fully recognise that you can’t do it all on your own! In fact if you try to, we’ll get further into the mire and more and more workplaces will close, and more and more children will be educated to be just like you – and that’s not going to help in the future!
So what can the right brain offer you? We have better social skills, we are more empathetic, we are better at negotiating and we have well-paid and enthusiastic people working in an enjoyable environment. It might be messy and casual, but it sure is fun too!
We can find hundreds and hundreds of ideas around any of the issues faced by any business, government and education establishment in existence today – but of course we never get invited in by the lefties. And on our own we wouldn’t be able to implement much – so we would need the lefties help to do that. We acknowledge you are better in that area than we are.
If we put our collective minds to it we could put an end to poverty, recover the climate change fiasco and find a way to stop 30,000 children dying in Africa from preventable diseases every day. We could reduce crime, domestic violence, depression and mental illness. Youth suicide could drop dramatically, and we could find a way of reducing the drug trade.
However (do I hear another tut…?) there is a price to pay, and it’s going to be the left-brain people who pay the most. You’re going to have to take a pay cut. You’ll have to reduce your insatiable demand for things that don’t matter, like fine cars, expense accounts, pointy-end flying, and multi-million dollar payouts when you stuff up the organisation and make hundreds lose their jobs.
And here’s a wild idea to get you thinking! Next time you fly somewhere on business, swap the business class seat for a trip in economy. That will give you some real opportunities. For a start you can meet some different people and find out how they think, and secondly, you could donate the price difference to a charity of your choice and make a real difference to people’s lives. You might even SAVE a life!
So there are plenty of potential solutions around to all the World’s problems, including of course the issue of the economic downturn in Australia. But we can only do it together. On our own, right brainers can’t get things done. On your own, left brainers can’t see creative solutions. You got us into the mess; it will take both of us to get us out.
Together we can discover the ideas, make them workable, and make it happen. So how about a partnership?
Have fun, whichever brain you live in...!
Ken
