Are You Playing With a Full Deck?
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Do you know how your brain is wired to process information, make decisions, solve problems and perform specific kinds of work most effectively? Are your trusted advisor’s brains wired the same or different than yours? While there is no good or bad way to think, you are not playing with a full deck unless you and your trusted advisors have a balance of cognitive thinking brain strengths in each of three categories.
Some people favor “left brain” thinking and activities that are sequential, logical, orderly and predictable; other people prefer using their “right brain” for global, imaginative, creative and open-ended thinking; people in the third group are “Integrated”, preferring to think and work using a near equal balance of their left and right hemispheres.
How do you know you’re playing with a full deck? Just complete the 3 simple steps below:
Step I – Select the category that best describes you.
Category I – Left Brain (Sequential)
Close friends and associates may describe you as orderly, logical, practical and realistic. You think about and process information, data and facts in an organized, step-by-step manner. You prefer work with specific goals, schedules, processes and procedures, rather than open-ended situations with broad goals. You thrive in environments rich in logic, orderliness and timeliness. You prefer to complete one task at a time before starting another. You may get agitated if you have to juggle too many tasks at one time. You may make and follow lists. You prefer to solve problems and make decisions based on logic, facts and figures.
Category II – Right Brain (Global)
Close friends and associates may describe you as innovative, conceptual and visionary. You pay attention to broad goals, context, possibilities, and the “big picture”. You likely prefer for other people to manage process-driven, daily work involving high levels of repetition, accuracy and detail. You enjoy multi-tasking and moving from one thing to another. You get pleasure from systemic thinking, ideation, figuring out how things connect, and creating new ways to solve problems. You thrive in environments rich in concepts, innovation and new thinking. You seldom make and follow lists.
Category III Balanced (Integrated)
Close friends and associates may describe you as having the natural ability to understand diverse points of view. You process situations and information using an equal balance of Sequential (“left brain”) and Global (“right brain”) thinking. You understand and appreciate the Global world of open-ended possibilities, creativity and new thinking, and the Sequential world of tactical implementation, logic and practicality. You are good at negotiating and facilitating interpersonal situations. You get bored and lose interest in situations when there is an imbalance of Global and Sequential thinking and activities; variety and choice are important to you.
Step II – Identify your trusted advisors and select the category best describing them. Trusted advisors may be your spouse, employees, best friend, business associates, banker, accountant, attorney, consultants and other service providers.
Step III – Do your trusted advisors share your cognitive thinking strengths or do they have different strengths? You want one or more people in each of the three categories in order to have a “full deck.” Then ask yourself these two questions to determine whether you’re playing your full deck properly.
- Are my trusted advisor’s cognitive thinking strengths aligned with what has to be accomplished? For strategic business planning you want to capture ideas, possibilities, options, future visioning and scenario planning from your strongest Global thinkers. The Sequential thinkers will contribute logic, order, performance metrics, schedules, practicality and budgets to the planning process. The Integrated thinkers will bridge gaps and negotiate between the Sequential and Global thinkers when there is conflict, confusion or misunderstanding.
- What are my daily time wasters? Can I delegate these to one or more of my trusted advisors, who may be more motivated and better aligned to complete the activities? It’s easy to determine what category of thinking strengths applies to a specific task. Accounting is clearly a Sequential activity; creative problem solving is well suited for Global thinkers; managing in chaotic and rapidly changing environments is well suited for Integrated thinkers.
In conclusion, the greater the diversity of cognitive thinking, the greater the potential. A balance of thinking styles minimizes faulty assumptions and mistakes. You are likely to make better decisions, solve difficult problems quickly, and accomplish more, when you align work activities with your and your trusted advisor’s cognitive thinking strengths.
Author Message:
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Playing with a full-deck merely means surrounding yourself with people who have different cognitive and sensory strengths than you; it also means people that have the knowledge and experience you need to be successful. A good place to start in your journey of self development is to identify your own brain strengths. Your personalized Brain PathWays report gives you practical neuroscience tools, based on your brain strengths to “be the best you can be” and, of course “playing with a full deck.” The on-line process takes less than 15 minutes, the results last a life time. Click to purchase your Brain PathWays online self-assessment and download your report today.
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