Myth: Left-Brain and Right-Brain Communicators

What's actually true: People are not left- or right-brained; tailor your message to the person and the situation, not to a brain type.

MythNielsen, Zielinski, Ferguson, Lainhart & Anderson, 2013 · PLoS ONE, no left or right brain dominance across people

A brain-scan study of over a thousand people found no evidence that some people use one side of the brain more.

What the research found

Some functions are on one side, like much of language. But each person uses both sides, and no one is a left-brain type. Everyone responds to both logic and story.

What to do instead

  1. Give every audience both a number and a story.
  2. Ask what the listener needs: data, examples, or both.
  3. Ignore profiling tools based on brain sides.
  4. Watch what questions they ask and adjust.

What to say

Let me give you the figure, and then the story behind it.

Would it help more to see the data or a client example?

Avoid

Labelling a finance head as left-brain and skipping the story.

Example

Lalit assumed a CFO at a dairy firm only wanted numbers. The CFO asked for a case example before deciding.

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