Change Selection
01
Please choose a question
How do we help senior leaders focus on their real work as opposed to responding to high pressure
How do you get anything done when it is not in the interest of some people to be engaged?
How do you manage the disconnect between intentions at the top and what is actually delivered on the ground?
How do you move people’s focus from process to outcomes?
How do you use Sustainability & Transformation Plans and/or Devolution to really change the way we do things?
What moves a senior group from analysis to action on a tricky issue?
THE DIVIDED BRAIN (THE MASTER AND HIS EMISSARY)
Iain McGilchrist
The divided brain is a way of understanding how the human brain does what it
does. McGilchrist believes that what matters is not what the brain does but how
it does it.
The brain has two hemispheres, the left and the right, connected by a band of
tissue called the corpus callosum, which allows the two sides of the brain to
communicate with each other.
The left side of the brain is dominant but has a narrow focus and is rational and
logical. The right side sees a wider picture (the Gestalt whole), and is the voice of
reality grounded in experience. Both sides can and do sometimes function
separately from each other. How we see and experience the world depends on
how we focus our attention.
McGilchrist explains that we develop a preference for using a particular side of
the brain for certain tasks, though both sides are in fact capable of performing it.
But the left side of the brain is dominant and good at inhibiting the voice of the
right side. If we are to see and experience a wider reality then we need to
deliberately engage with the right side of our brains.
Further Resources
Iain McGilchrist describes the real differences between the left and right halves of the human brain. Courtesy of RSA Animate.