Thus the author believes this to be the reason why people feel delighted when they (their left brains) get to know what their right brains knew throughout impliedly.
Differences between formal planning and informal managing – compared to that between the two hemispheres of the human brain,
Both planning and management science are sequential, systematic and articulated. They do their work through a series of logical, ordered steps, each involving analysis. However the successful application of these techniques requires intuition which means that the manager is deviating from the logical, left brain, analysis.
At top management level, where policies are made in an organization, the holistic picture needs to be considered. Thus to effectively manage an organization (after planning using logical analysis) managers rely on judgments given by the right hemisphere of the brain.
The author uses examples of how MIS’s and models developed for companies have been accepted with much enthusiasm but used so poorly, by the managers, proving that management is not an analytical, left brain process but an intuitive, right brain process.
Management – a right hemisphere activity,
The author states that the single fact that recurred in his research is that key managerial tasks, being complex and mysterious, use vague information and least articulated mental processes. He also says that these processes have characteristics of right brain processes – relational and holistic than ordered and sequential and intuitive than intelligent. He presents the following general findings to support his argument:
- Managers at all levels and functions prefer verbal communication over written communication. Ability to read body language and ability to engage in real time exchange of information results in this preference. Both these activities involve relational, simultaneous methods of acquiring information.
- The content of manager’s information is mostly soft, speculative, impressions/ feelings about people, hearsay and gossip. Analytical inputs such as reports, document and hard data are considered to be of little importance. The managers synthesize instead of analyzing and the results help him understand implicitly the organization and its environment. Managers build mental models and use these models to simulate future outcomes. Managers also use judgments in most instances for important decision making.
- A manager, although the best informed member of the organization, has difficulty disseminating information to other employees. Although earlier attributed to information being verbal and dissemination being a time consuming process the new thinking is that the manager may actually be having problems disseminating some relevant information as it is removed form his verbal consciousness.
- A manager works in a complex system with little order. He engages in a variety of actions, short in duration and lacks routine in their work, Thus operating in a relational, simultaneous and experiential manner.
- Activities of three important roles of a manager – leader, liaison and disturbance handler –remain outside known facts of management, although significant research has been done, proving that they are dependent on intuition and experience.
- Two critical steps in strategic decision making – diagnosis and design of custom made solutions- are not mentioned much in literature of planning or management, although all managers engage in these not fully aware as to where and when they happen.
- Dynamic factors such as interruptions and time pressures affect the decision making process but go without mention in literature on management. These important factors, involving simultaneous relational modes of thinking, are left for the managers to deal on their own.
- Managers, when having to make choices among available options, use analysis, judgment or bargaining to arrive at the best option. However judgment is the most popular of the three methods with systematic analysis accounting for only as little as 20% of all decisions made.
- Strategy, a mediating force between the dynamic environment and stable operating systems, formulation is an irregular, discontinuous process with fits and starts. Strategic planning does not cope well with these fits and starts and the burden to cope with situations, using intuition and experience, remains with the manager.
- Companies that opt for creative, integrated strategies (gestalt strategies) usually rely on one individual to conceptualize them. This is the most demanding holistic, relational, gestalt process which is necessary to deal with a complex environment.
Mintzberg thus concludes that: “The important policy level processes required to manage an organization rely to a considerable extent on faculties identified with the brain’s right hemisphere.”
He also recognizes that functions of the left brain such as explicit calculations are important for effective management and that all intuitive thinking must be translated to linear order of the left brain if they are to be articulated and put to effective use. He goes on to say that in an organisation right brain activity is more important at higher levels whilst left brain activity is more dominant at lower levels, where policies made at the top are implemented.
Mintzberg has the following advice for,
- Planners and management scientists:
When an organization is in a stable environment it is sufficient to plan using systematic strategic planning. However in an instable environment it is best to use creative planning.
Ensure that top management gets good analytical input inorder to make effective decisions at policy level.
- Teachers:
Balance between analytical and intuitive skills development, in such a way that the best of the human brain can be achieved. Make greater use of new skills development techniques such as role playing and use of behavioral laboratories. Put students in situations where they can practice interpersonal, informational and decisional management skills.
- Managers:
Distinguish between what is best handled analytically and what must remain to be decided using intuition whilst making an attempt to understand what is so far not known about management.
Appreciation of Main Points
It is said that people who are trained to use one part of the brain more exclusively are relatively unable to use the other part of the brain in an equally efficient manner. Some jobs, such as accounting and computing, heavily rely on left brain functions whilst artistic work requires a strong right brain. This specialization of the brain explains why some people are so clever at certain tasks and so poor in others.
When we associate the right brain with creativity and the left brain with order, how do we release the creativity of people with dominant left brains? Many techniques for creativity involve giving the left brain something complicated to do, which occupies the left brain and releases the right brain's capacity for insight, intuition and inspiration. Interestingly, complicated left brain tasks can be found in many practices - from mystical ones like astrology and tarot, to respectable ones like law and the civil service. These left brain tasks merely contain and validate the true purpose and wisdom of these practices, which comes from the right brain.
According to Prof. Gunapala Nanayakkara “Successful management requires balanced attention to production or task dimension and the people or human relations dimension in a workplace.” It is clear to us that task dimension requires more left brain activity whilst the human dimension depends on the strength of the right brain. Therefore I believe that it is essential for one to have integration of the left and right brains to achieve higher levels of results, to manage conflict situations and to be an outstanding manager in today’s highly competitive environments.
We frequently observe managers in the workplace being delighted when they realize facts they must have known anyway. For one to be a successful manager with leadership qualities it is vital that he specializes in his left brain understanding / getting to know what his right brain knows.
Many literatures on the specializations of the human brain go on to explain the difference between the characteristics of the left and right brains. Appendix 1 gives an elaborative list of such distinctions.
Main functions of the human brain can be summarised as follows:
- Analyzing: analytical thinking is closely related to logical step-by-step reasoning. Logic has two main parts: deduction and induction.
- Synthesizing and Imagining: putting or placing things together to make a whole. You can do it physically or mentally.
- Valuing: judging people, establishing success criteria, evaluating and appraising performance. In all valuing there is an objective element and a subjective one. What you actually value depends very largely upon your environment and culture
As we apply brain dominance theory we see that the planner’s role primarily would be left brain and the manager’s role right brain. Verbal, logical, analytical work would be essentially left brain whilst more intuitive, emotional, or creative work would be right brain. People who are excellent planners but poor managers/ leaders may be extremely well organized and run a tight ship with superior systems and procedures and detailed job descriptions. But unless they are internally motivated, little gets done because there is no feeling, no heart; everything is too mechanical, formal, tight and protective. A looser organization may work much better even though it may appear to an outsider observer to be disorganized and confused. Truly significant accomplishments may result simply because people share a common vision, purpose, or sense of mission.
The industrialized West based their firms on Taylors model where the bosses did the thinking and the workers did the execution. However Konosuke Matsushita, founder of Japans Matsushita Electric Ltd., said that, to beat the industrialized West and ensure continued existence, they have to go beyond the said mindset and start to use the creative thinking power of each employee.
To be a successful manager in todays complex environment, I strongly believe that, one should have integrative skills of using what the right brain knows with one’s left brain to make effective decisions. This is also endorsed by a study conducted by Westin Agor in the early 1980’s.
Appendix 1
TABLE3. Distinctions between Left Brain and Right Brain
Reference
1. Mintzberg, Henry, Planning on the Left Side and Managing on the Right, Harvard Business Review, 1976
2. Nanayakkara, Dr. Gunapala,, Executive Styles: Left-Brain vs Right Brain Dimensions, Sri Lanka Journal of Management, January-March 1999.
3.
4. Brain Wave Entertainment Technology
5. http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/mind_how-it-works.html
