BRAIN | INNOVATION | MENTAL HEALTH

Whole-Brain Thinking Process Helps You To Stimulate Innovation

Whole-brain thinking is a process to help you towards holistic and innovative solutions.

Whole-brain thinking is part of neuroscience. It has become a very important part of management education. It helps to develop solution-oriented and transformative thinking processes to stimulate innovation. This has become a prerequisite for a manager in a corporate organization.

• This is useful for multiple applications towards working and learning in the competitive arena of learning.
• Many employees are able to use the technique to leverage and gain a competitive edge in the professional market.
• Whole-brain thinking can optimize learning processes..
• Whole-brain thinking helps to create a dynamic approach to management and enables you to tackle any type of work challenges that come your way.

What is the whole brain thinking approach? what is it and where does it originate?

Where does the Whole Brain Thinking Approach originate?

The brain is a complex system of two parts. The left and the right side. The left side is considered to be the part of logical thinking, mathematics, and linear thinking. The right side consists of visualization, imagination, and holistic thinking.

Although the brain is complex and has various parts yet It takes the whole system to function correctly.

Ned Herrmann in 1976 researched the brain. He discovered that the brain has consisted of “four distinct and specialized structures”.The Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument® (HBDI®) is the world’s leading Thinking Styles assessment tool.This helps to find out which part of your brain is more dominant.

The HBDI distinctly relates to the preferred approach of an individual to emotional, analytical, structural, and strategic thinking.

These structures can be divided into Blue, green, red, and yellow colors:

The blue color can be categorized as A -Blue/A) Such people who have more of blue have analytical, quantitative, and logical brains.

The B part may be given the color green Green/B) that shows a practical, detailed, and organized mind of a person.

The red is represented as C which shows Red/C) the relational, emotional and kinesthetic brain of the person.

and Yellow/D) the experimental, holistic, and intuitive mind of a person.

The whole-brain thinking approach shows that we human beings should have all the qualities of the brain as our brain is whole but every individual is different and each person’s brain has its own favored way of thinking and learning.

How Can You Apply This Approach to the Workplace?

When we understand the inner workings of our brain, we can identify our strengths and weaknesses. Whole-brain thinking can be applied to so many situations, for anyone, and in any situation.

#1Power to understand employees' strengths and weaknesses: It gives the manager an understanding of people in the organization and their cognitive diversity to be able to communicate with them in a meaningful way. For example, once the manager is able to identify the employee's more dominant brain he can hand over those types of tasks thus bringing in higher productivity in an organization.

#2. Aligning our goals, objectives, and outcomes: By understanding and thinking with the whole brain, we can make decisions based on the outcomes that are involved and the results and adapt the process to align with the set goals. This will definitely help in bringing in better productivity. We can tackle our day by working on those tasks in our weak quadrants

#3.Understanding and motivating ourselves and others: We will be able to understand and motivate ourselves, and others in the organization to fit our own and others' preferences thus avoiding clashes and create a congenial environment.

#4. improving our performance: Once we identify our strengths and weaknesses we can stand out by improving the way we work and constantly trying to reassess our preferences.

#5. Flexible and creative way of working: By implementing whole-brain thinking processes, in an organization and understanding the employees we can adapt and take a different approach and look for solutions that include the preferences of every individual.

Every manager or owner in an organization should understand that people are the lifeblood of a business. A business cannot function without them. Therefore it has become important to understand them well and apply the whole brain decision-making process for sustainable change in an organization and improvement in productivity levels.

What to do to have an effective process of whole-brain thinking?

One very important thing is to keep the brain active by overcoming the aspects of dementia.

#1 Avoidance of Dementia: Dementia is a very big limitation to the process of whole-brain thinking. To avoid dementia and have an effective brain and boost our brain cells I would recommend the article of Dr. Mehmet Yildiz who has discussed many ways to keep the brain active and avoid dementia.

He has stated the dangers of losing mental capacities. According to him:

“ We can prevent brain damage from neurological, environmental, and possibly genetic factors by using our mind in simplified terms. I believe that the more resilient mind we develop, the lower the risk of brain decline as we age.”

#2. Reading for boosting the brain: It is an excellent way of keeping your brain boosted. The article by Alberto García 🚀🚀🚀 states that reading boosts your brain and keeps it activated. Reading improves your brain connectivity. He explains in his words:

“Your brain activity increases the next day when you read the night before. This “shadow activity” is analogous to muscle memory and was shown in the left temporal cortex, an area associated with language”.

#3. Neurobics or brain gym for boosting brain memory: Another important measure and is that I advocate neurobics or brain gym to keep your mind active. Dr. Katz was pioneering in his lab at the Dept of Neurobiology in the Duke University Medical Center in Durham, NC.

Neurobics cross-train the brain to be more responsive and flexible in order to retain memories and new information. You should try to learn new tasks, and find creative solutions by thinking through the problem and by taking action. This is a combination of physical and mental exercises using all five senses

The Takeaways

Whole-brain decision-making theory has brought in a new dimension of thinking in the workplace:

#1. Study your employees and assess their capabilities.

#2. Do not do the tasks by applying one way of doing things. Apply creative techniques in the organization.

#3. Helping people at the workplace to understand that there are four quadrants in the brain and find out the suitability of your brain to do tasks.

#4. Keep your brain faculties strong by trying to avoid dementia, reading, and doing neurobics or brain gym.

Conclusion

I would like to end by saying keep your brain alive, keep your brain active and avoid traffic jams in the brain. Learn new things and find what your brain is good at. Enjoy the whole brain thinking process through an active brain.

Make your business successful with a continuing brain activity. Activate your brain my reading, exercising and using Dr.Katz brain gyming.

©Dr. Preeti Singh, 2021.