What makes you a better business owner: logic or creativity? Americans tend to favor left brain, or logical, thinking.
Part of this comes down to education: It’s easier to teach math than rhythm. But it’s bigger than that.
And taking a left-brain approach could actually harm you as an entrepreneur. Let’s dig into why that is.
A quick recap: Left brain vs. right brain
If you aren’t familiar with modern neuroscience, the different hemispheres of our brain are associated with different types of thinking.
The left side is associated with logic. Facts, memorization, organization, math, numbers, words, reading, decisions… you get the drift.
The right side, on the other hand, is associated with creativity. The concepts are more abstract. Right brain is art, music, spatial awareness, perception (zooming out to the big picture), intuition, emotion, empathy, the ability to “read a room.”
In the U.S. we tend to associate successful businesses with everything left brain. Success is tied to:
- Profit (run the numbers, look at the ledgers)
- Growth (create efficiency and scale)
- Facts (earnings reports, balance sheets)
But those things completely ignore the “it factor” we see so often in success stories.
After all, entrepreneurship is the American dream. And most of those entrepreneurs had a serious dash of “it factor” at play. Just consider quintessential American entrepreneur Henry Ford.
Henry Ford: A case for left brain or right brain?
Henry Ford spearheaded the industrial revolution. He built an empire, and changed the world, by quite literally removing creativity from production.
The assembly line removed the need for out-of-the-box thinking or problem solving, which created efficiency. Its success depended on the removal of right-brain thinking.
Considering his business model was quintessentially left brain, he could be deemed a left-brain success story. Right?
Wrong.
Henry Ford couldn’t have built the assembly line without right-brain thinking. He created the assembly line. He imagined a new way of doing things. He believed it would work and took a risk to build it.
So which side of the brain do we credit for this massive success story? Or do we, perhaps, need to credit both?
Building on purpose with your whole brain
Most successful business owners will tell you that you need creativity to stay relevant and build something successful. Most creatives, however, will tell you they struggle with business. So where’s the disconnect?
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Which side of the brain makes for a better business owner?
