TO THE RIGHT FLANK, MARCH!This is a featured page

TO THE RIGHT FLANK, MARCH! HUP, TWO, THREE, FOUR .....
-- By Jim Miller

FIRST, A REVIEW OF:
Intuitive Management --Integrating Left and Right Brain Management Skills
by Weston H. Agor, Ph.D.
Prentice-Hall, 1984

What we are talking about here is a change in the consciousness of all world cultures and organizations therein—including our own. What we are arguing for is an awareness of how we each have personal and cultural traits and perspectives which integrated together have the potential for high productivity and more satisfying life for us all. We are arguing for a restructuring of our current management education and training programs across the country (and around the world) so that right brain as well as left brain skills are taught with equal emphasis and integrated into an overall management curriculum appropriate for the organizations and world society of the future. We have tried to show step-by-step in this book how this can be achieved in a practical way.” p. 91

Nuggets:

Derek C. Bok, President of Harvard University tied to reform law schools across the country by changing the left-brain culture from “think like a lawyer” , which emphasized combat, to a right-brain culture which emphasized reconciliations and accommodation. p. 91.

Frank Rose: ....a postindustrial society requires more than just a lot of engineers. It requires engineers with a vision and the foresight to see where they are going and verbal capacity to tell us about it. ... Our institutions.... are not developing the integrative functions required for the thoughtful application of complex systems.” p. 91.
The 1983 report of the Committee on the Future of California State University states that one way our future management leaders (in what ever field) can be more effectively trained is to recognize and integrate both left and right brain learning styles in our education programs. Noting that learning styles by individual vary, and that new teaching methods appropriate for each style need to be developed, the Report concludes: ....Intuition and perhaps extrasensory and perception may have been validated as a means of reaching and training both the conscious and unconscious mind.” p. 91

Bill Hultgren of Control Data made a pact with his employees to follow through on all reasonable suggestions. “We knew we needed to change the whole company climate.” p. 92.


Lea Haller of Haller Cosmetics employs the “laws of the universe”. Decide what you want, create it in your mind, then go out and make it happen. It will.” p. 93.

SECOND:
APPLY THE ABOVE TO MOST UNIVERSITIES (and most corporations, for that matter):

1. Ninety-five percent of the newly recruited teaching staff should be right-brain dominant until 60% of the teaching staff are right-brain dominant.

2. One hundred percent of the academic administrative and management staff should be right-brain dominant.

3. In the meantime, bypass the entrenched, left-brain dominated departments by creating right-brained dominated “centers” and “institutes” which will, in time, be folded into the appropriate, right-brain dominated departments.

4. Create, import, and buy licenses for online courses which are created by right-brain dominant creative authors and are targeted to right-brained students, especially in the sciences and math. Make these courses freely available to the university community as both “helper courses” and as free-standing, independent learning courses. Make sure that sciences courses are taught with an abundance of true “visuals” which pictorially demonstrate the relationships.

5. Replicate the very good example of the TAC center of the Math Department in all of the other departments.

6. Extend the use of independent study to all fields and all class levels. Set up the mechanism for matching students, projects and mentors (who may be Profs, TA’s, seniors or a private person who has an excellent command of the subject). Make sure this system works – that it not just lip service.

7. Eliminate the multiple choice test and substitute the essay test. For each test, the student can select three out of five essay requirements. Essays are submitted online. The grader can search each essay for key words and grade (in part) on word association with the key words.

THIRD:

THE ARGUMENTS:

The case for left-brain dominate faculty:
Left-brained dominated faculty members are valued for:
  1. Consistency of teaching methods and course content.
  2. Regularity in performing teaching and research tasks.
  3. Predictable results from research.
  4. Small, well documented, incremental advances in personal knowledge bases.
  5. Long term employment.
  6. Content to work within the established order.
  7. Support routinizing all levels of work and play.
  8. As loyal as possible as long as the paycheck arrives on time.
  9. Capable of producing courseware and research, based on the works of others. Good at cataloguing the works of others.
  10. Has the capacity to review, critically, the works of others.
  11. Does not take “unnecessary” or “unwise” chances.
  12. Once a task is started, usually completes it on time.
  13. Prefers “cold logic” to “warm fuzzies”.

The case against left-brained faculty:
  1. They are oblivious to the existence of the brain dominance issues.
  2. If they know about right- and left-brained dominances, they ignore the concept and the consequences.
  3. The teaching materials and methods are exclusively dedicated to the left-brained student such that the right-brained students (except the genius class) always test lower than left-brained students.
  4. Teach only by using words and non-pictorial symbols.
  5. Reward students by testing for rote memory skills, rather than relational thinking skills.
  6. The lower scores of the right-brained students is an advantage to the left-brained faculty in that the lower half of the bell curve is more heavily populated than otherwise, making for a soother curve.
  7. The needs of the right-brained students can easily be ignored and dismissed in favor of the “brighter” left-brained students who are destined to become math or science scholars of a higher order.
  8. The “lower performing” right-brained students have no effective alternative or course of appeal to high authority since higher authority is typically also left-brain dominate – in fact they made the rules.
  9. Change, per se, is to be avoided like the plague. “If it is not broken, don’t fix it” is the motto. This translates into, “As long as I get my paycheck on time, why change anything.”
  10. The criteria for change is whether the actor thought of the idea or made the invention. “If it was a good idea, I would have thought of it. Since I did not think of it, the idea must not be good.”
  11. Change, if allowed, is very small, incremental, and comes at enormous psychic and financial cost.
  12. The left-brained dominant faculty make life hell for the right-brained faculty and students by neglect or active interference.
  13. Left-brained folks are risk-adverse; change involves risk. Risk is accepted only when the risk is at the one or two percent level.
  14. Fear of criticism by peers or superiors weighs heavily in the decision process as to left-brained actions.
  15. Does not engage in “talking” but gives speeches. Hates to be interrupted during his or her “delivery” of a “speech”.
  16. Requires each step be taken in logical order. Cannot skip a step to get to the end result faster. All “blanks” have to be filled in as one goes through the sequential process.
  17. Generally not multi-tasking; at least not on a concurrent basis.
  18. Prefers “cold logic” to “warm fuzzies”.
The case for right-brained faculty:

  1. Teach subjects using visual arts, examples and demonstrations.
  2. Reward students by testing for relational thinking skills and very little rote memory skills.
  3. Innovative, risk-taking, “can do” attitude.
  4. Supports testing by essay as per above suggestions.
  5. Teaches students relational thinking. Even left-brain dominant students can benefit.
  6. Enjoys “talking” with students and associates in a free flowing, back and forth and in and out format. Easily gives the floor to others; does not hesitate to take the floor for quick interspersion of comments. Does not typically “speechify” his or her audience. Asks for verbal interaction.
  7. Capable of large quantum increases in knowledge base.
  8. Acts on “instinct”. Can leap over unsolved elements to get to end result, and then go back and fill-in blank spots.
  9. Is quite capable of non-sequential thinking and action.
  10. Multi-tasking on a concurrent basis.
  11. Prefers “warm fuzzies” to “cold logic”.
The case against right-brained faculty:

  1. Is sometimes late to class, lab and completion of assignments.
  2. Interrupts the “speeches” being given by left-brained students and associates.
  3. Easily distracted into other avenues of thought and action.
  4. Does not always complete a task once started.
  5. Employment boredom or strife with left-brained dominant superiors leads to multiple job changes.
  6. Prefers “warm fuzzies” to “cold logic”.
FOURTH:


THE PENDING QUESTION:

Do our universities need 60% “Captain Kirks” and 40% “Lt. Spocks”? It is interesting that in the second Star Trek series John Luc Picard comes across as the logical, demanding, left-brained captain, while “Number One” is the easy going, likable, right-brained second in command.

FIFTH: THE RESOLUTION:

-- The Care and Feeding of Actors:

We are all actors on the stage of life. The care and feeding of actors command:

  1. That left-brain dominant actors recognize the existence of right-brain dominant actors.
  2. That right-brain dominant actors must slip into their left-brain mode when dealing with left-brain dominant associates. Do no expect that left-brain dominant actors will come over to the right-brained side.
  3. Right-brained actors must respect and even admire the qualities and abilities of their left-brained associates and see to their care and feeding.
  4. Right-brainers must become the driving force of creative change in our educational institutions. The rate of change of the forces of our society needs to be on an exponential, upward curve. Universities have to match or exceed that rate of change to survive and do well. Typically, most universities are many years behind the curve.
  5. When universities are populated at the 60% right-brain dominant level, change will become "spontaneous". The university president's job will change from being the creative driving force, to one where prioritizing the changes becomes his or her critical path.
  6. That right-brained actors be given the freedom to experiment and make mistakes and be applauded for their mishaps as well as their successes.
  7. That left-brained actors be encouraged to take risks with the sure knowledge that they will not be criticized for a failed attempt, but rewarded for having taken the risk.
Respectfully submitted,

Jim Miller
jimmiller5417@yahoo.com
Tuesday, July 13, 2004


jimmiller5417
jimmiller5417
Latest page update: made by jimmiller5417 , Oct 6 2008, 12:42 AM EDT (about this update About This Update jimmiller5417 Edited by jimmiller5417

1703 words added

view changes

- complete history)
Keyword tags: None
More Info: links to this page
There are no threads for this page.  Be the first to start a new thread.