Whole Brain Thinking
Our brain is really four brains.
Understanding how they evolved and how they work together is as important as getting an operators manual to teach you how to use something complicated you haven’t fully utilized.
The first brain developed similar to that in all species commonly referred to as the reptilian brain. It allows few options. The reptile sees everything as food, prey, predator, or sexual mate. It makes instant decisions when it receives an exterior stimulus.
Man’s second brain is the Limbic. It developed on top of the Reptilian and includes the Amygdala, Thalamus and the Hippocampus. I am going to keep it simplified but if you want more detail look at Wikipedia as a start.
The Limbic or emotional brain gave man more options. Now a stimulus could be evaluated and given more classifications. It also gave man the critical gift of empathy which led to nurturing of the young instead of eating or killing them. It also became the center for memory emotions.
The third brain that separates man from most mammals and species is the neo cortex and the pre frontal lobes of the neo cortex. This brain created more options. Man now had a sphere for critical, logical, organizational, and linguistic skills. He also had a separate sphere for creative, spatial, intuitive, and motor skills.
The pre frontal cortex became the new general. Unlike the reptilian brain which creates few options, the synchronized pre frontal lobes can integrate the rational, the creative, the emotional, and fearful into careful analysis. Given time, the lobes can analyze the stimulus, the emotional reactions,and the rational to create a plan of response or non response.
Non response is sometimes called Emotional Intelligence. Or it might be a reaction learned from dealing with fear. We can learn how to deal with stimulus in positive ways.
However, because of the evolution of the brain, fear and emotions have powerful influence and can over ride or seize control of the brain neutralizing the input of the neo cortex. We also learn that genes and early environment can have a great influence on personality and how the mind/brain develop to handle situations.
We also develop preferences for right and left brain dominance. Some people develop left brain dominance and feel most comfortable in that sphere. Some people are right brain dominant and prefer emotional, creative, and intuitive responses and maybe thought of as irrational by left brain types.
There is also the mixed dominant and the highly lateral brain types. The mixed lateral may be mildly dominant in right and left spheres for different activities and the highly lateral might be extremely dominant in certain right brain activities and then extremely dominant in some left brain activities.
The significance is that some disciplines like creativity or innovation require the participation of both left and right brain spheres. In innovation, the left brain might define the problem. Then the right brain will develop all the creative alternatives. The left brain will resume by evaluating all the possible alternatives for a best solution.
Then both spheres might join together to consolidate how to implement the problem, the possible solutions, and the best solution. Knowing how to move back and forth is helpful. To utilize the right sphere fully, you might need to know how to suspend left brain activity.
In the course of a normal business day, we are probably actively engaged in left brain activity. If we are too stressed, we get the dopamine by product of adrenaline which can be useful or crippling. To the extreme, adrenaline causes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Attention Deficit Disorder.
Some ways to suspend left brain activity involve putting it into a monotonous state. Unfortunately we often take the route of alcohol, drugs, and TV. The more constructive ways would be meditating, running, walking, dancing, biking, hiking, hobbies, gardening, pleasure reading, car washing, or any play that doesn’t involve competing or scoring.
So a creative innovative process might start with defining and writing a problem and doing the necessary research or fact finding that could hold a solution. Then finding a way to suspend the left brain and letting the right brain ruminate on the problem and facts to see some relationships or new structure to the existing order.
This process is often why we get answers in the middle of the night or while doing something innocous like cleaning up our desk or washing our car.
Then we want to move into the left brain activity again to evaluate our ideas. In groups we have to understand how these dynamics work to get the best results. We also have to learn to accommodate people who are naturally right or left brain dominant as we try to get them to participate in these exercises.
Learning how your brain works could be explored in two excellent books I have studied over a period of time. The first is one by Patt Lind-Kyle called Heal Your Mind Rewire Your Brain. The second is a book by Jacqueline Wonder called Whole Brain Thinking. I would also recommend a book by Edward de Bono, maybe the founder of modern innovative thinking called Lateral Thinking.
Developing Emotional Intelligence is a process to prevent the emotions from hijacking our thinking process. Remember the emotional Limbic brain receives stimulus first and can cause us to say or do things that could be detrimental to our relationships, careers, or group participations. I suggest a start with Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.
Learning how to utilize our brain to achieve our goals is an important life skill. It is important for relationships, careers, and group processes. Now more than ever, we need to excel at the mental game to compete in the new era.