Meeting of the minds - right & left

We know the left brain processes information sequentially. As a result, it is where the majority of mathematical, language and reason-based thinking takes place. We also know the right brain processes multiple information sources simultaneously, so it is where music, color, shapes and context is processed.

During the Industrial Revolution, sequential skills were most important, Marco R. della Cava says in a recent USA Today article. The same was true at the beginning of the Information Age. But in this new age, the Cognitive Age, computers and information sharing have become more advanced and the skills of the right brain are becoming equally important – not more important, perhaps, but equally so.

The result is a rise in understanding the importance of making more connections between the Left and Right brains through the Corpus Colosum – the fibre that links the two brains into one.

“As companies continue to triage their way through this economic war, a growing chorus of cultural observers argue that recovery is contingent on the marriage of right-brain innovations with left-brain skill sets,” della Cava writes.

“Put bluntly: The economic engine needs more iPods (a talisman no one really knew to miss until it arrived) and fewer data-crunchers (tasks that can be shipped overseas or tackled with software such as TurboTax).”

This repeats the siren call of RapidChange friend Daniel Pink and his book, “Whole New Mind.” But the story doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about how to make those connections. While we know trauma will create new connections – and for many this economic recession is a trauma – we also know there are better ways to make new connections. Every decision we make changes the chemistry in our brain. So make a different decision today - go a different way home, turn left instead of right, talk to someone you've ignored in the past, laugh with someone. Each decision makes a difference.

Read the USA Today article.

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