
But I did drop them for this book – Whole Brain Thinking by Jill Bolte Taylor. She is a neuroscientist who suffered a massive stroke. You may have seen her Ted Talk or read her earlier book My Stroke of Insight.
In this new book Dr. Taylor refines the idea of left/brain right brain differences, pointing out that each side of the brain has a “thinking” and “feeling” center. Her model of these four “characters” and how we can negotiate among them to make better decisions and improve our relationships is sticking with me in ways in didn’t anticipate.
Since this is my “business” newsletter and not my personal one*, I’ll focus on some of the workplace applications of these ideas. There is a lot written about how to manage inside and across organizations by taking into account things like generational differences, personality traits, preferred learning modalities, and probably dozens of other differentiators.
This book gives you a slightly different take. Yes, there is a section on how group dynamics are impacted by the “character” each person embodies most of the time. But the important leadership lesson isn’t learning how to manage each character you encounter. It is to consider that there are four ways of experiencing the world and interpreting experience inside each one of us, and becoming adept at consciously choosing how to be in any given situation gives you control over the only thing you really can control – yourself.
(The Distillery is the place I park my occasional recommendations and summaries things to read, to watch, to listen to, or maybe even to buy)
*You can find and sign up for my personal newsletter at www.therestofmytime.com