Harvard Business Review Article - 'Putting Your Company's Whole Brain to Work'

Harvard Business Review Article - 'Putting Your Company's Whole Brain to Work' by Dorothy Leonard and Susaan Straus. The article makes a very strong point for the use of the HBDI (Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument) and whole brain concepts to foster creativity and innovation, build and manage productive teams, and communicate more effectively. The authors have had extensive background in the applications of the HBDI in the corporate and educational arena, giving them a practical and objective perspective. The article makes a number of key points: Organizations must innovate or fall behind. This is difficult, since different ideas, perceptions and ways of processing foster innovation. This creative abrasion can be a productive process when understood and managed properly. Managers have various responses to this phenomenon. Some avoid conflict altogether, others simply hire and reward those like themselves. Managers who value different thinking styles frequently don't understand how to manage them. Thinking styles are the different ways we perceive and understand data, make decisions, solve problems and relate to people. These preferences (not to be confused with skills or abilities) reveal themselves in our work and decision making. The best way for a manager to assess thinking styles is to use an established diagnostic instrument as an assessment tool. A validated tool is both more objective and more thorough than the impressions of even the most perceptive manager. Managers who use instruments with the credibility of the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI™) or the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI™) find that their employees accept the results and use them to improve their processes and behaviors. Many organizations have found the use of Whole Brain Teams very effective. The entire culture, divisions, and teams of an organization can become dominated by a particular thinking style. While homogeneity can be efficient and comfortable, it seriously limits opportunities and approaches to problems. In the current market, we must innovate and solve problems in different ways. This requires not just the left brain or the right brain- but the whole brain. Managers at Xerox, PARC, Interval Research and Nissan Design have learned, no matter how brilliant the group of individuals, their contributions to innovate problem solving are enhanced by coming up against totally different perspectives. Today's complex products demand integrating the expertise of individuals who do not understand one another, and the pace of change demands that they quickly learn to work together. If abrasion is not managed into creativity, it will hinder the productivity of individuals and organizations alike. Appropriately harnessed, the energy released by combining different thinking styles will propel creativity and innovation.