I have been wanting to “right” this post for a while now. Well, today the time just seems “write.” Time to start the dialog, with myself anyway. Hopefully, others will dance the dance with me.

OK, I’m just going to come right out and say this. The 1st item on the agenda of any 12-step program worth its salt is to self-acknowledge and confess, to give name to something. So, here it is: I AM A RIGHT-BRAINER. OK, it’s out. I admit that I have felt powerless over a left-brain driven, promoted and protected society —that my life has reached a turning point. No longer will I hide in the shadows of left-brainers (LBers), nor wholesalelingly take their oppressive and controlling “crap.” Sorry, sometimes you just have to use the best word. Plus, I need to stimulate a bit of controversy to bring on the commenting (or so I have witnessed with other bloggers). Oh yeah, we right-brainers (RBers) love analogies and metaphors; but, they drive LBers to madness. So, I use them a lot. Somehow it helps to level the playing field a bit. You know for sure that you’ve brushed upon a heavy LBer when they respond, “but a person is not a rose, so I don’t get your point; and it doesn’t make any sense,” while scrunching up their face and squinting the eyes a bit. It’s the telltale look of dismissal and disdain for your creativity and breach of sticking to the logical “facts.” A rose IS a rose after all, isn’t it? BINGO! You’ve hooked one.

Now you must decide to either throw them back into the murky waters or reel them in. For friendships, I tend to cut the line (for extreme LBers, even if I lose an expensive lure in the process) and steer my boat full-throttle ahead. On the other hand, we need diversity of thought, style and approach for most business, organizational and community situations, so coexisting and supporting others is holistically beneficial. We really do need each other, don’t we? RBers are responsible for cultivating groupness, so I guess we have to find a way to include, nurture and honor all people, like it or not. Besides, iterating back and forth between the two sides yields practical solutions to real problems or opportunities. (EDIT: If the truth be told, I DO have a lot of friends leaning left, just not far left).

My secret fantasy shared with you today is that Dan Pink is 120% right (there I go again trying to short-circuit my left-brain readership); that Right-brainers will rule the future. Just take a look at the picture above. Would you rather be stuck isolated in a cubicle gathering facts, analyzing and writing logical reports? Or would you rather be romping with others through the flowers and flying a kite across green lushness, creating new things and exploring the unknown with no walls to confine you or your vision? According to Pink, outsourcing is making LBers less in demand, as logical and analytical features can be easily replicated by both humans (in other economically developing countries) and computers (rules, routines, instruction, typical LB strengths). And that the real need during a Conceptual Age is for creative powers that can make connections in ways that meet new needs and reach emerging markets. However, is the choice really yours or mine to make? Or are you predestined to a disposed brain pull, with occasional visits to the other side? Maybe you move freely and balanced between the two? Maybe not. Are you happy or frustrated? Perhaps, just as a transgendered feels physically trapped in the wrong body, can we be unfittingly captive on one side of the brain, while longing to be on the other?

So where am I going with this blog post? I don’t really know. I am opening and inviting dialog, meandering, searching, exploring, hovering above and looking down and up and from side to side, and creating a new understanding of all of this for myself. I don’t need all the answers right now. Abundance and the fruits of ambiguity await.

So where are you? Left, right, perfectly balanced in the middle, or decidedly leaning one way or the other? What’s better? Where are we (you) going? Why? Need to take self-inventory? Below in normal-weight font are LB attributes; and in bold/italic font are the RB ones. Be honest with yourself. Look back upon your actual past actions and NOT your self perception (they are often hugely disconnected). Better yet, let someone else do the initial placement for you. Ready to talk? Let’s go then!

TAKE INVENTORY

Left brain, Right brain

Information Age (Drucker), Conceptual Age (Pink/Friedman)

control, explore
linear, holistic
scarcity models, abundance models
safe, risk-taking
practical, impetuous
forms strategies, presents possibilities
reality based, fantasy based
self-oriented, community oriented
uses logic, uses feeling
detail oriented, big picture oriented
facts rule, imagination rules
words and language, symbols & images
present and past, present & future
math and science, philosophy and religion
can comprehend, can “get it” meaning
knowing, believes
acknowledges, appreciates
order-pattern perception, spatial perception
knows objects name, knows objects function

better at closing sale, better at opening sale

logical, analytical, quantitative, rational, verbal / innovative conceptual, holistic, intuitive, non-verbal, imaginative, creative

pursuer, preserver

knows peoples names, remembers peoples faces

competitor, organizer, fine print expert, writing, lists, analyzer, doer, phonics, language, talk-talk-talk, splitter: distinction important / emotional expression, context, welcoming of change, synthesizing, creator, flexibility, consistent, versatile, kinesthetic, curiosity, visionary, searcher, synergy, playfulness, metaphoric thinking, group-oriented, music, artistry, problem solving, sensing, color sensitivity, believer, people-focused, visualization capability

learn phonetic analytical method, learn sight method

right-brainers like: role play, metaphors, analogies, visuals, movement, background music

This video is being posted as a “warm-up” to the following post, “What does the network mean to you?”

George Siemens explaining that the network is the learning.

Related resources:

George Siemens

http://www.elearnspace.org

Associate Director, Research and Development
Learning Technologies Centre

George Siemens, is an Associate Director with the Learning Technologies Centre at University of Manitoba and author of Knowing Knowledge, an exploration of how the context and characteristics of knowledge have changed, and what it means to organizations today. George is also Founder and President of Complexive Systems Inc., a learning lab focused on assisting organizations develop integrated learning structures to meet the needs of global strategy execution.

Questions? Please contact George Siemens at george_siemens@umanitoba.ca.

A true story…

How precious you are. I have been watching you in my garden since I first saw you, neck outstretched with beak opened to the Mexican sun. Now it seems you are ready to fly… teetering on the edge of your nest looking toward the sky. How did you come so far, in so little time it seems?

You really alarmed me little colibrí when your mother did not return to her nest to warm you during the chill of night. I didn’t know what to do. I knew it was too late for her to return, much too dark to fly in the blackness of night. And, I had already stepped in once when your nest and you and your sibling fell to the ground. But now what to do? What do you drink and eat? Do I need to cover you at night? The season is unusually cold. Will you survive without your mom? It has now been several days, and she no longer returns at night to protect you. Did she abandon you, little hummingbird, because I had touched you and your nest? Was my well-intentioned intervention wrong? Did I do harm? I didn’t want to. I only wanted you to fly, to live.

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