Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Whole Brain Model

The Whole Brain management training model.
Ned Herrmann developed the Whole Brain Model while working as a training manager for General Electric. Dr. Roger Sperry's Nobel Prize winning Split Brain research is the inspiration for Hermann's model.

The Whole Brain Business Book

The Whole Brain Business Book summarizes Hermann's work and thinking. He describes and illustrates (on p.15) four quadrants of thinking styles as:

Quadrant A=Analyzer
Quadrant B=Organizer
Quadrant C=Personalizer
Quandrant D=Visualizer

To help identify/quantify individual degree of preference for each quadrant, Hermann developed a Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) in 1977.

Whole Brain Thinking

Herrmann describes an inter-connection between the four quadrants and a preference or dominance of one or more of the thinking quadrants in all of us. Just as our arms, hands or eyes become dominant through use, Herrmann felt our brains take on quadrant dominance through use or disuse. With a clear understanding of what preferences we have, Herrmann felt we could better develop our "whole brains." His HBDI inventory was developed as a tool to better understand our thinking preferences.

New research since the time of Herrmann's experiences indicates the picture of dominance is not as clear cut or simple as once believed.

Levels or Styles

In their book chapter of Learning Styles found in the Encyclopedia of Creativity by Mark A. Runco and Steven R Pritzker, the authors, Linda O'Hara and Robert J. Sternberg, describe Learning Styles as bridges between cognition and personality. They also point out the confusion that has resulted from multiple and interchangeable use of terms meant to define the behaviors and actions associated with thinking and learning.Terms such as:

Learning Styles
Cognitive Styles
Thinking Styles
Personality Types

O'Hara and Sternberg suggest:
An investigation of level asks...
How creative are you?

An investigation of style asks...
How are you creative?

Animal School Movie

Animal School Movie

Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument

The HBDI consists of 120 questions designed to better understand the "natural style" preferred to process information also decribed as "thinking style," As in other learning style inventories, an awareness of style will help enlighten personal style preferences and develop an appreciation for other styles. The HBDI covers communication, teams, problem solving, decision making, career development, management development, creativity, teaching and learning, and strategic planning.

The HBDI has been used to set up engineering teams, Forest Service Scientist

Online Inventories

Creativity and flexiblity

Herrmann ties creativity to all four quadrants.

A study published in the peer reviewed Creativity Research Journal in 2005 by J. Meneely and M. Portillo agreed that creativity is not localized into a particular thinking style, such as a right-brain dominance resulting in more creativity. They did however find correlation between creativity in design students based on how flexible they were using all four thinking styles equally as measured by the HBDI. When students were less entrenched in a specific style of thinking they measured higher creativity using Domino’s Creativity Scale (ACL-Cr). Therefore, they found training thinking styles associated by Herrmann as right hemisphere did not necessarily improve creativity, but training in thinking styles that measured less strongly in the instrument would produce greater creativity.

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herrmann_Brain_Dominance_Instrument

Mobile Technologies and Whole Brain Thinking

The Whole Brain Model has been used by management development and training professionals to refocus and overcome perceived dominance in communication, improve understanding in teamwork and strengthen collaboration. Is it that Whole Brain Thinking can transfer to Mobile technologies to ...

-strengthen thinking
-round out thought preferences, and
-provide higher levels of engagement

by working outside of dominant preferences?

Examples- Tiwtter

I.Structuring individual activities
Twitter
-Cell phone entries
-140 characters
-Fast paced, Mobile updating of events, activities, ideas, news

Whole Brain Thinking and Twitter
Logical-layout the facts
Communication-describe feelings
Visionary-describe the future
Organizer-how do we get there

Examples - Organization Ideas

Evernote
Tagging
Cell phone enteries

Quadrant A Document step-by-step problem solving
Quadrant B Implement activities
Quadrant C Show or document fun
Quadrant D Brainstorm

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Examples - Explore Outside Your Comfort Zone

Analytical --- Interpersonal
Identify meaning in facts
VoiceThread

Imaginative – Sequential
Post a series of actions in pictures or video or website or songs
Flickr

Draw a Metaphor
Gliffy

Other examples?