In his split-brain research studies, Nobel Prize–winning neuropsychologist Roger Sperry discovered that specific cognitive tasks predominantly take place in different lateral cerebral hemispheres of the human brain:

• When we focus with our conscious mind on a specific task, when we engage in logical thinking and reasoning, when we do calculations or deal with numbers, when we practice critical thinking to check out facts, when we analyze a situation to converge to the one right solution that constitutes a practical and real alternative; then all these cognitive activities tend to take place in the left hemisphere of the neo-cortex. This is the youngest and most powerful part of the human brain from an evolutionary perspective.

• On the other hand, when we indulge our imaginations or fantasies, when we create or decipher metaphors and analogies, when we dream or day-dream, when we play and create or enjoy humor and fun, when we look at how to deal with an ambiguous, fuzzy, or paradoxical situation, when we make intuitive judgments, when we generalize and engage in conceptual, abstract thinking, and when we diverge to find many possible ideas and solutions to a challenge, then all these cognitive activities tend to be located more in the right hemisphere of the neo-cortex.

We can sum up these findings as follows: Cognitive operations that are associated with analytical thinking tend to be more left brain-directed, while those that are categorized as creative thinking are predominantly right-brain directed.

Nowadays, most psychologists agree that all human beings are creative and that we tend to exhibit high levels of creativity as children, but then start to lose our innate creativeness upon entering school and undergoing a more formal education and socialization process. Why do most people lose their creativeness in school and university? Have a look at most curricula, and you find almost exclusively courses and subjects that foster and require left-brain directed thinking, and only a few if any courses that encourage right brain-directed cognitive activities.

While this left brain-focused education was perfect to churn out enough blue- and white-collar workers for the industrial age and information age, most leading educators and business thinkers nowadays question whether this is suitable to equip us with the knowledge and skill set that we need to succeed in the age of creation intensification. “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them,” noted Albert Einstein in this context correctly. What we need to succeed in modern-day life and business is a harmonious balance between analytical thinking and creative thinking, which allows us to first analyze a complex problem and related background scenario and then develop creative solutions to effectively resolve the matter.

In his book A Whole New Mind, Daniel Pink emphasizes the importance of uniting the two parts of the neo-cortex, the left and right hemispheres of the human brain, into an integrated whole. “However tempting it is to talk of right and left hemispheres in isolation, they are actually two half-brains, designed to work together as a smooth, single, integrated whole in one entire, complete brain. The left hemisphere knows how to handle logic and the right hemisphere knows about the world. Put the two together and one gets a powerful thinking machine. Use either on its own and the result can be bizarre or absurd.” In other words: When we have a brain where both the left and right hemispheres are actively developed and harmoniously work in sync, the result is an integrated powerful thinking organism. We become integrated, balanced whole-brain thinkers.

Unfortunately, that’s too rare a commodity. As a consequence of our one-sided education system with its strong focus on left-brain directed curricula, most businesspeople are excellent analytical thinkers and poor creative thinkers. If so, being a one-dimensional thinker makes you incomplete and myopic. Their cognition is so lopsided that — metaphorically speaking — they walk the world with their heads weighing and hanging heavily to the left. How about you? Are you one of them?

In the Chinese culture, the philosophical concept of Yin and Yang reminds us of the harmonious balance of most natural phenomena, like male and female, summer and winter, day and night, and so on. The Yin-Yang principle holds true for thinking, too. We need to balance analytical, left brain-directed thinking with creative, right brain-directed thinking; logic with imagination; information, data and facts with intuition and insights; and knowledge with wisdom and experience.

What can you do if you’re out of balance as a result of our education system? If you’re an excellent analytical thinker, how can you re-cultivate your creative potential to turn your brain into a powerful, integrated thinking organism? Come back to this column in two weeks, when I will share with you eight tips on how you can boost the right side of your brain.

© Dr. Detlef Reis 2010. This article was published in parallel in the Bangkok Post under the same title on 30 September 2010.