ABSTRACT
In reading about the different members of the management team and their attributes we tend to identify ourselves more closely with one role or another, or at least some of the functions of a particular management team member. In contrast, we may feel little connection with some other management team member(s) or their functions. Our preference about which role(s) or functions we like to adopt depends on the functions we have found to be most useful to us in our past experiences and therefore differs from person to person. If we live in a culture that constantly values logical linear verbal reasoning above creative imagination it will be the left frontal functions that we are encouraged to develop. This sets up a dynamic in which these functions become the easiest for us to use because they are more developed and the more we use them the further they develop. Added to that, the environment in which we operate may call for more task focus than creative focus. For example, if you are a business leader answering to shareholders with a short-term profit-taking strategy, long-term creative projects will be less of a priority. The way our culture works today encourages short-term task-focussed activities using lines of verbal reasoning. One could say that the functions we develop most strongly exert a gravitational pull on our thinking so that we then habitually try to address the problems that we encounter with the same limited set of thinking processes.
