HBROnPoint

F R O M T H E H A R V A R D B U S I N E S S R E V I E W

A R T I C L E

Putting Your Company’sWhole Brain to Workby Dorothy Leonard and Susaan Straus

New sections to

guide you through

the article:

• The Idea in Brief

• The Idea at Work

• Exploring Further. . .

P R O D U C T N U M B E R 4 0 8 8

What happens when you

put “right-brain” thinkers

together with “left-brain”

thinkers? Collisions.

But innovation depends

on collisions—of ideas,

perceptions, and ways

of judging.

T H E I D E A

Suc ce ssful innovation relies on people—and people have different cognitive approachesfor assimilating data and solving problems:

• So-called “left-brain” thinkers tend to approach a problem in a logical, analytical way. “Right-brain” thinkers rely more on nonlinear, intuitive approaches.

• Some people prefer to work together to solve a problem; others like to gather and process information by themselves.

• Abstract thinkers need to learn about something before they experience it; for experiential people, it’s just the opposite.

Cognitive differences are often subtle; peopledon’t naturally appreciate their significance.Managers who dislike conflict or who value onlytheir own approach often fall victim to the comfortable clone syndrome, surroundingthemselves with people who think alike andwho share similar interests and training. Evenmanagers who value intellectual diversity maynot realize how difficult it can be for peoplewith different styles to understand or respecteach other. But to achieve creative abrasion,you have to make the different approaches rubtogether in productive ways.

Putting Your Company’s Whole Brain to Work

To get creative abrasion, start by compiling acognitive profile of your team. Engage a trainedprofessional to administer one of several readilyavailable diagnostic tools, such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

1. Do your own profile first. Become familiar

with the ways in which your preferences

shape your leadership and patterns of

communication. If you’re not paying

attention, your own style can stifle the very

creativity you’re looking to foster among

team members.

2. Create “whole-brained” teams. Once you

understand your own thinking styles and

those of the other team members, identify

the styles that are missing so you’ll know

what to focus on when hiring opportunities

arise. This results in a team with a wider

variety of problem-solving approaches.

At Nissan Design, Jerry Hirschberg hires

designers in pairs—a free-form thinker

alongside someone with a more analytical

approach—to ensure intellectual diversity.

If you don’t have the luxury of hiring new

people, look elsewhere in the company for

the critical thinking styles your group lacks.

3. Employ strategies that exploit the team’sfull spectrum of approaches. At Xerox

PARC, anthropologists work alongside

HBR OnPoint © 2000 by Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

computer scientists to create cyberspace

meeting rooms that have a welcoming,

human touch in addition to being

technologically sophisticated.

4. Actively manage the creative process.Abrasion is not creative unless managers

make it so.

• Take time at the outset to acknowledge team members’ differences.

• Before problems surface, devise clear, simpleguidelines for working together. For exam-ple, one group decided to handle conflict bystating that anyone could disagree with any-one else about anything, but no one coulddisagree without saying the reason.

• Keep the project’s goal in front of the groupat all times.

• When scheduling a project, create time forboth divergent thinking (uncovering imag-inative alternatives) and convergent think-ing (focusing in on one option and thenimplementing it).

• Don’t treat team members the way youwant to be treated—tailor your communi-cations to the receiver.

• Depersonalize conflict when it does arise.Acknowledge that other approaches are not wrongheaded, just different.

T H E I D E A A T W O R K

I N B R I E F

Innovate or fall behind: the competitive imperative for virtuallyall businesses today is that simple. Achieving it is hard, however,because innovation takes place when different ideas, perceptions,and ways of processing and judging information collide. That, inturn, often requires collaboration among various players who seethe world in inherently different ways. As a result, the conflictthat should take place constructively among ideas all too oftenends up taking place unproductively among people who do not in-nately understand one another. Disputes become personal, and thecreative process breaks down.

Copyright © 1997 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved.

by Dorothy Leonard and Susaan Straus

Dorothy Leonard is the William J. Abernathy Professor of Business Ad-ministration at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts.Her research focuses on organizational innovation, technology strategy,and the commercialization of new ideas. Leonard is author of more than35 articles and books; her latest book, Wellsprings of Knowledge: Build-ing and Sustaining the Sources of Innovation, was published in 1995 bythe Harvard Business School Press. Susaan Straus is an independent con-sultant based in Newton, Massachusetts, specializing in personal and or-ganizational effectiveness. Her research has explored how cognitive pref-erence and management style influence the effectiveness of leaders,managers, and teams in times of change.

Conflict is essential to innovation.The key is to make the abrasion creative.

PUTT ING YOURCOM PANY ’SWHOLEBRAINTO WORK

Generally, managers have two responses to thisphenomenon. On the one hand, managers who dis-like conflict – or value only their own approach –actively avoid the clash of ideas. They hire and re-ward people of a particular stripe, usually peoplelike themselves. Their organizations fall victim towhat we call the comfortable clone syndrome:coworkers share similar interests and training;everyone thinks alike. Because all ideas passthrough similar cognitive screens, only familiarones survive. For example, a new-business develop-ment group formed entirely of employees with thesame disciplinary background and set of experi-ences will assess every idea with an unvarying setof assumptions and analytical tools. Such a groupwill struggle to innovate, often in vain.

On the other hand, managers who value employ-ees with a variety of thinking styles frequentlydon’t understand how to manage them. They act asif locking a group of diverse individuals in the sameroom will necessarily result in a creative solutionto a problem. They overlook the fact that peoplewith different styles often don’t understand or re-spect one another, and that such differences can

fuel personal disagreements. The“detail guy” dismisses the “vi-sion thing”; the “concept man”deplores endless analysis; and theindividualist considers the de-mands of a team an utter waste oftime. They simply can’t work to-gether without help.

The manager successful at fos-tering innovation figures out howto get different approaches tograte against one another in a pro-ductive process we call creativeabrasion. Such a manager under-stands that different people havedifferent thinking styles: analyti-cal or intuitive, conceptual or ex-periential, social or independent,logical or values driven. She delib-erately designs a full spectrum ofapproaches and perspectives intoher organization – whether thatorganization is a team, a workgroup, or an entire company – andshe understands that cognitivelydiverse people must respect thethinking styles of others. She setsground rules for working togetherto discipline the creative pro-cess. Above all, the manager whowants to encourage innovation in

her organization needs to examine what she does topromote or inhibit creative abrasion.

We have worked with a number of organizationsover the years and have observed many managerswho know how to make creative abrasion work forthem. In order to create new ideas and products,such managers actively manage the process ofbringing together a variety of people who think andact in potentially conflicting ways.

How We ThinkWhat we call cognitive differences are varying

approaches to perceiving and assimilating data,making decisions, solving problems, and relating toother people. These approaches are preferences (notto be confused with skills or abilities). For instance,you may prefer to approach problems intuitivelybut in fact may be better trained to approach themanalytically. Preferences are not rigid: most peoplecan draw on a mixture of approaches and do not livetheir lives within narrow cognitive boundaries. Weoften stretch outside the borders of our preferredoperating modes if the conditions are right and the

112 PAINTINGS BY BILL MAYER

Creative abrasion can be productive.

stakes are high enough. That said, we all tend tohave one or two preferred habits of thought that in-fluence our decision-making styles and our inter-actions with others – for good or for ill.

The most widely recognized cognitive distinc-tion is between left-brained and right-brained waysof thinking. This categorization is more powerfulmetaphorically than it is accurate physiologically;not all the functions commonly as-sociated with the left brain are locat-ed on the left side of the cortex andnot all so-called right-brained func-tions are located on the right. Still,the simple description does usefullycapture radically different ways ofthinking. An analytical, logical, andsequential approach to problemframing and solving (left-brained thinking) clearlydiffers from an intuitive, values-based, and nonlin-ear one (right-brained thinking).

Cognitive preferences also reveal themselves inwork styles and decision-making activities. Takecollaboration as opposed to independence. Somepeople prefer to work together on solving problems,whereas others prefer to gather, absorb, and processinformation by themselves. Each type does its bestwork under different conditions. Or consider think-ing as opposed to feeling. Some people evaluate evi-dence and make decisions through a structured, log-ical process, whereas others rely on their values andemotions to guide them to the appropriate action.

The list goes on. Abstract thinkers, for instance,assimilate information from a variety of sources,such as books, reports, videos, and conversations.They prefer learning about something rather thanexperiencing it directly. Experiential people, in con-trast, get information from interacting directlywith people and things. Some people demand quickdecisions no matter the issue, whereas others preferto generate a lot of options no matter the urgency.One type focuses on details, whereas the otherlooks for the big picture: the relationships and pat-terns that the data form.

Not surprisingly, people tend to choose profes-sions that reward their own combination of prefer-ences. Their work experience, in turn, reinforcesthe original preferences and deepens the associatedskills. Therefore, one sees very different problem-solving approaches among accountants, entrepre-neurs, social workers, and artists. Proof to an engi-neer, for example, resides in the numbers. But show a page of numerical data to a playwright, and,more persuaded by his intuition, he may well toss it aside. Of course, assessing people’s likely ap-proaches to problem solving only by their discipline

can be as misleading as using gender or ethnicity as a guide. Within any profession, there are alwayspeople whose thinking styles are at odds with thedominant approach.

The best way for managers to assess the thinkingstyles of the people they are responsible for is to usean established diagnostic instrument as an assess-ment tool. A well-tested tool is both more objective

and more thorough than the impressions of eventhe most sensitive and observant of managers.Dozens of diagnostic tools and descriptive analysesof human personality have been developed to iden-tify categories of cognitive approaches to problemsolving and communication. All the instrumentsagree on the following basic points: � Preferences are neither inherently good nor in-herently bad. They are assets or liabilities depend-ing on the situation. For example, politicians orCEOs who prefer to think out loud in public createexpectations that they sometimes cannot meet; butthe person who requires quiet reflection before act-ing can be a liability in a crisis.� Distinguishing preferences emerge early in ourlives, and strongly held ones tend to remain rela-tively stable through the years. Thus, for example,those of us who crave certainty are unlikely ever tohave an equal love of ambiguity and paradox.� We can learn to expand our repertoire of behav-iors, to act outside our preferred styles. But that isdifficult – like writing with the opposite hand.� Understanding others’ preferences helps peoplecommunicate and collaborate.

Managers who use instruments with the credi-bility of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®)or the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument(HBDI) find that their employees accept the out-comes of the tests and use them to improve their pro-cesses and behaviors. (See the insert “IdentifyingHow We Think: The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®

and the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument.”)

How We ActAll the assessment in the world means nothing

unless new understanding brings different actions.Instruments such as the MBTI® and the HBDI will

CREATIVE ABRASION

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW July-August 1997 113

We all have preferred habits ofthought that influence how we makedecisions and interact with others.

IDENTIFY ING HOW WE THINK: The Myers-Briggs Type

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) is the mostwidely used personality-assessment instrument in

the world. Designed by a mother-and-daughter team,Isabel Myers and her mother Katherine Cook Briggs,the MBTI® is based on the work of Carl Jung. Myersand Briggs developed the instrument during WorldWar II on the hypothesis that an understanding of per-sonality preferences might aid those civilians whowere entering the workforce for the first time to findthe right job for the war effort. The instrument con-forms to standard testing conventions and, at lastcount in 1994, had been taken by more than two and ahalf million people around the world. The MBTI® iswidely used in business, psychology, and education, aswell as in career counseling.

The MBTI® uses four different pairs of attributes tocreate a matrix of 16 personality types: � Introversion Versus Extraversion.1 The first pairmeasures the degree to which one is an introvert (I) oran extravert (E). These I/E descriptors focus on thesource of someone’s mental energy: extraverts drawenergy from other people; introverts draw energy fromthemselves. Each finds the other’s preferred operatingconditions enervating.� Sensing Versus “INtuiting.” The second pair identi-fies how one absorbs information. “Sensors” (S) gatherdata through their five senses, whereas “iNtuitives”(N) rely on less direct perceptions, such as patterns, re-lationships, and hunches. For example, when asked todescribe the same painting, a group of S’s might com-

114 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW July-August 1997

ISTJSerious, quiet, earn success

by concentration andthoroughness. Practical,orderly, matter-of-fact,logical, realistic, and

dependable. Takeresponsibility.

Thinking (T)

Sensing Types (S)

The MBTI®

Intuitive Types (N)

Extr

ave

rts

(E)

Intr

ove

rts

(I) Ju

dgin

g (

J)Per

ceiv

ing (

P)

Per

ceiv

ing (

P)

Judgin

g (

J)

Feeling (F) Feeling (F) Thinking (T)

ISFJQuiet, friendly, responsible,

and conscientious. Workdevotedly to meet theirobligations. Thorough,

painstaking, accurate. Loyal,considerate.

INFJSucceed by perseverance,

originality, and desire to dowhatever is needed or

wanted. Quietly forceful,conscientious, concerned forothers. Respected for their

firm principles.

INTJUsually have original mindsand great drive for their own

ideas and purposes.Skeptical, critical,

independent, determined,often stubborn.

ISTPCool onlookers – quiet,

reserved, and analytical.Usually interested in

impersonal principles, howand why mechanical thingswork. Flashes of original

humor.

ISFPRetiring, quietly friendly,

sensitive, kind, modest abouttheir abilities. Shun

disagreements. Loyalfollowers. Often relaxed

about getting things done.

INFPCare about learning, ideas,language, and independentprojects of their own. Tend to

undertake too much, thensomehow get it done.Friendly, but often too

absorbed.

INTPQuiet, reserved, impersonal.Enjoy theoretical or scientificsubjects. Usually interestedmainly in ideas, little liking

for parties or small talk.Sharply defined interests.

ESTPMatter-of-fact, do not worryor hurry, enjoy whatever

comes along. May be a bitblunt or insensitive. Best withreal things that can be taken

apart or put together.

ESFPOutgoing, easygoing,

accepting, friendly, makethings fun for others by theirenjoyment. Like sports and

making things. Findremembering facts easierthan mastering theories.

ENFPWarmly enthusiastic, high-

spirited, ingenious,imaginative. Able to do

almost anything that intereststhem. Quick with a solutionand to help with a problem.

ENTPQuick, ingenious, good atmany things. May argue

either side of a question forfun. Resourceful in solvingchallenging problems, but

may neglect routineassignments.

ESTJPractical, realistic, matter-of-fact, with a natural head forbusiness or mechanics. Not

interested in subjects they seeno use for. Like to organize

and run activities.

ESFJWarm-hearted, talkative,

popular, conscientious, borncooperators. Need harmony.

Work best withencouragement. Little interest

in abstract thinking ortechnical subjects.

ENFJResponsive and responsible.Generally feel real concern

for what others think or want.Sociable, popular. Sensitive

to praise and criticism.

ENTJHearty, frank, decisive,leaders. Usually good atanything that requires

reasoning and intelligent talk.May sometimes be more

positive than their experiencein an area warrants.

Modified and reproduced by special permission of the Publisher, Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA 94303 from Report Form from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicatorby Isabel Briggs Myers. Copyright 1991 by Peter B. Myers and Katharine D. Myers. All rights reserved. Further reproduction is prohibited without the publisher’s written consent.

ment on the brush strokes or the scar on the subject’sleft cheek, whereas a group of N’s might imagine fromthe troubled look in the subject’s eyes that he lived indifficult times or suffered from depression.� Thinking Versus Feeling. The third pair measureshow one makes decisions once information is gath-ered. Feeling types (F) use their emotional intelligenceto make decisions based on values – their internalsense of right and wrong. Thinking types (T) tend tomake decisions based on logic and “objective” cri-teria – their assessment of truth and falsehood.� Judging Versus Perceiving. The fourth pair reflectshow slowly or rapidly one comes to a decision. Judgingtypes (J) have a high need for closure. They reach con-clusions quickly based on available data and move on.Perceiving types (P) prefer to keep their options open.They wait until they have gathered what they consid-er to be enough information to decide. J’s crave cer-tainty, and P’s love ambiguity.

To read descriptions of the personality types identi-fied in the MBTI®, see the matrix on the lower left.

1. MBTI® preferred spelling.

Ned Herrmann created and developed the Herr-mann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI)

while he was a manager at General Electric. Startinghis research with large groups within GE, he expandedit over 20 years through tens of thousands of surveysand has validated the data with prominent psycho-metric research institutions, including the EducationalTesting Service.

The HBDI measures a person’s preference both forright-brained or left-brained thinking and for concep-tual or experiential thinking. These preferences oftencorrespond to specific professions. Engineers, for ex-ample, consistently describe themselves as analytical,mathematical, and logical, placing them on the leftend of the continuum. Artists, in contrast, describethemselves as emotional, spatial, and aesthetic, plac-ing them on the right end of the continuum.

The charts below show how the different prefer-ences combine into four distinct quadrants and howone can use the chart to analyze teams with differentcognitive preferences:

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW July-August 1997 115

Indicator� and the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument

AUpper LeftProblem SolverMathematicalTechnicalAnalyzerLogical

133 100 67 33

BLower LeftPlannerControlledConservativeOrganizationalAdministrative

DUpper Right

ConceptualizerSynthesizerImaginative

HolisticArtistic

CLower Right

TalkerMusicalSpiritual

EmotionalInterpersonal

AUpper LeftProblem SolverMathematicalTechnicalAnalyzerLogical

133 100

BLower LeftPlannerControlledConservativeOrganizationalAdministrative

DUpper Right

ConceptualizerSynthesizerImaginative

HolisticArtistic

CLower Right

TalkerMusicalSpiritual

EmotionalInterpersonal

67 33

Composite One: The Homogeneous Team The chart above shows that everyone in the group approaches problems and challenges with the sameemphasis on correctness. As engineers, the membersof the team know how to do things correctly. Al-though the quality of their work is excellent, themembers are difficult to work with. They have theirown ways of doing things, and they reject variationsfrom set standards. As a corporate function, the teamhas long enjoyed a captive audience in the company.Recently, members found themselves in trouble whenthe company restructured and other functions in theorganization were allowed to outsource engineering.

Composite Two: The Heterogeneous TeamThe Management Services Group includes managersfrom information technology, the mail room, and thecafeteria. Although members share such goals as anorientation toward quality, they encounter a widerange of business problems. The manager’s dominantthinking style is in the lower right quadrant: a naturalfacilitator, she develops people, listens empathetical-ly, and fosters a spirit of respect among her reports.Her leadership unified what had been a fragmented,inefficient collection of functions. Members regardone another as resources, enjoy the group’s diversity,and take great pride in their work.

Copyright 1986-1997 Ned Herrmann

help you understand yourself and will help othersunderstand themselves. The managerial challengeis to use the insights that these instruments offer tocreate new processes and encourage new behaviorsthat will help innovation efforts succeed.

Understand yourself. Start with yourself. Whenyou identify your own style, you gain insight intothe ways your preferences unconsciously shapeyour style of leadership and patterns of communi-cation. You may be surprised to discover that yourstyle can stifle the very creativity you seek fromyour employees. Consider the experiences of twomanagers of highly creative organizations. Eachwas at odds with his direct reports – but for very dif-ferent reasons.

Jim Shaw, executive vice president of MTV Net-works, is a left-brained guy in a right-brained orga-nization. Said Shaw:

I have always characterized the creative, right-brained,visionary-type people here as dreamers. What I’ve real-ized is that when a dreamer expressed a vision, my gut re-action was to say, ‘Well, if you want to do that, whatyou’ve got to do is A, then B, then you have to work outC, and because you’ve got no people and you’ve got nosatellite up-link, you’ll have to do D and E.’ I’ve learnedthat saying that to a creative type is like throwing up onthe dream. When I say that stuff too soon, the dreamerpersonalizes it as an attack. I’ve learned not to put all ofthe things that need to be done on the table initially. I

can’t just blurt it all out – it makes me look like a nay-sayer. What I’ve learned to do is to leak the informationgradually, then the dreamer knows that I am meetinghim halfway.

Jerry Hirshberg, president of Nissan Design In-ternational, ran into precisely the opposite prob-lem. Hirshberg discovered that some of his employ-ees craved the very kind of structure that hepersonally abhorred. Before this epiphany, he inun-dated them with information and expected creativ-ity in return. In short, he tried to manage his em-ployees the way he would have wanted to bemanaged. Hirshberg found, however, that a few in-dividuals reacted to every suggestion with a “yes,but…” Initially, he interpreted such hesitancy as ananti-innovation bias. But he eventually realizedthat some of his employees preferred to have moretime both to digest problems and to construct logi-cal approaches to his intuitively derived ideas. Giv-en a bit of extra time, they would return to theproject with solid, helpful, and insightful plans forimplementation. Ironically, it was their commit-ment to the success of the initiative that caused theemployees to hesitate: they wanted the best possi-ble result. Hirshberg recognized that their contribu-tions were as critical as his own or those of any ofthe other “right-brainers” in the company.

Both Shaw and Hirshberg came to realize thattheir own cognitive preferencesunconsciously shaped their lead-ership styles and communicationpatterns. In fact, their automaticreactions initially stifled the verycreativity they sought from theiremployees. And note that it wasjust as important for the predomi-nantly right-brained manager torecognize the contributions ofthe logicians as it was for the left-brained manager to acknowl-edge the organic approach of thevisionaries. Except in theoret-ical models, creativity is not theexclusive province of one side orthe other.

If you want an innovative orga-nization, you need to hire, workwith, and promote people whomake you uncomfortable. Youneed to understand your ownpreferences so that you can com-plement your weaknesses and ex-ploit your strengths. The biggestbarrier to recognizing the contri-butions of people who are unlike

CREATIVE ABRASION

116 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW July-August 1997

Loosen control to unleash creativity.

you is your own ego. Suppose you are stalled on adifficult problem. To whom do you go for help?Usually to someone who is on the same wavelengthor to someone whose opinion you respect. Thesepeople may give you soothing strokes, but they areunlikely to help spark a new idea. Suppose youwere to take the problem instead to someone withwhom you often find yourself atodds, someone who rarely validatesyour ideas or perspectives. It maytake courage and tact to get con-structive feedback, and the processmay not be exactly pleasant. But thatfeedback will likely improve thequality of your solution. And whenyour adversary recovers from hisamazement at your request, he may even get alongwith you better because the disagreement wasclearly intellectual, not personal.

Forget the golden rule. Don’t treat people the wayyou want to be treated. Tailor communications tothe receiver instead of the sender. In a cognitivelydiverse environment, a message sent is not neces-sarily a message received. Some people respondwell to facts, figures, and statistics. Others preferanecdotes. Still others digest graphic presentationsmost easily. Information must be delivered in thepreferred “language” of the recipient if it is to bereceived at all.

For example, say you want to persuade an organi-zation to adopt an open office layout. Argumentsappealing to the analytical mind would rely on sta-tistics from well-documented research conductedby objective experts that prove that open architec-ture enhances the effectiveness of communication.Arguments geared toward the action-oriented typewould answer specific questions about implemen-tation: How long will the office conversion take?

Exactly what kind of furniture is needed? What arethe implications for acoustics? Arguments aimed atpeople-oriented individuals would focus on suchquestions as, How does an open office affect rela-tionships? How would this setup affect morale? andAre people happy in this sort of setup? Argumentscrafted for people with a future-oriented perspec-tive would include graphics as well as artists’ ren-

derings of the proposed environment. In short, re-gardless of how you personally would prefer to de-liver the message, you will be more persuasive andbetter understood if you formulate messages to ap-peal to the particular thinking style of your listener.

Create “whole-brained” teams. Either over timeor by initial design, company or group cultures can

become dominated by one particular cognitivestyle. IBM, in the days when it was known as “BigBlue,” presented a uniform face to the world; Digi-tal Equipment prided itself on its engineering cul-ture. Such homogeneity makes for efficient func-tioning – and limited approaches to problems oropportunities. Companies with strong cultures canindeed be very creative, but within predictableboundaries: say, clever marketing or imaginativeengineering. When the market demands that suchcompanies innovate in different ways, they have tolearn new responses. Doing so requires adopting avariety of approaches to solving a problem – usingnot just the right brain or the left brain but thewhole brain.

Consider the all-too-common error made byJohn, a rising star in a large, diversified instrumentcompany: he forfeited an important career opportu-nity because he failed to see the need for a whole-brained team. Appointed manager of a new-productdevelopment group, John had a charter to bring inradically innovative ideas for products and services

for launch in three to six years. “Sur-prise me,” the CEO said.

Given a free hand in hiring, Johnlured in three of the brightestM.B.A.’s he could find. They imme-diately went to work conducting in-dustry analyses and sorting throughexisting product possibilities, apply-ing their recently acquired skills in

financial analysis. To complete the team, Johnturned to the pile of résumés on his desk sent tohim by human resources. All the applicants had es-pecially strong quantitative skills, and a couplewere engineers. John was pleased. Surely a group ofsuch intelligent, well-trained, rigorous thinkerswould be able to come up with some radical inno-vations for the company. Ignoring advice to hire

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW July-August 1997 117

In a cognitively diverseenvironment, a message sent is notnecessarily a message received.

To innovate successfully, youmust hire, work with, and promotepeople who are unlike you.

some right-brained people to stimulate differentideas, he continued to populate his group with left-brained wizards. After 18 months, the team had re-jected all the proposed new projects in the pipelineon the basis of well-argued and impressively docu-mented financial and technical risk analysis. Butthe team’s members had not come up with a singlenew idea. The CEO was neither surprised norpleased, and the group was disbanded just short ofits second anniversary.

In contrast, Bob, a successful entrepreneur em-barking on his latest venture, resisted the strong

temptation to tolerate only like-minded people. Heknew from his prior ventures that his highly analyt-ical style alienated some of his most creative peo-ple. Despite his unusual degree of self-awareness,Bob came within a hair’s breadth of firing a strongand experienced manager: Wally, his director of hu-man resources. According to Bob, after severalmonths on board, Wally appeared to be “a quart anda half low.” Why? Because he was inattentive inbudget meetings and focused on what Bob per-ceived as trivia – day care, flextime, and benefits.Before taking action, however, Bob decided to lookat the management team through the lens of think-ing styles. He soon realized that Wally was exactlythe kind of person he needed to help him grow his

small company. Wally contributed a key elementthat was otherwise missing in the managementteam: a sensitivity to human needs that helped thecompany foresee and forestall problems with em-ployees. So Bob learned to meet Wally halfway. De-scribing his success in learning to work with Wally,he told us, “You would have been proud of me. Istarted our meetings with five minutes of dogs,kids, and station wagons.” Although the concernWally demonstrated for the workers in the compa-ny did not eliminate union issues completely, it didminimize antagonism toward management and

made disputes easier to resolve.The list of whole-brained

teams that continue to innovatesuccessfully is long. At XeroxPARC, social scientists workalongside computer scientists.For instance, computer scientistPavel Curtis, who is creating avirtual world in which peoplewill meet and mingle, is workingwith an anthropologist who un-derstands how communitiesform. As a result, Curtis’s cyber-space meeting places have morehuman touches and are morewelcoming than they would havebeen had they been designed onlyby scientists. Another example isthe PARC PAIR (PARC Artist InResidence) program, which linkscomputer scientists with artistsso that each may influence theother’s perceptions and represen-tations of the world. At IntervalResearch, a California think tankdedicated to multimedia tech-nologies, Director David Liddleinvites leaders from various disci-

plines to visit for short “sabbaticals.” The purposeis to stimulate a cross-fertilization of ideas and ap-proaches to solving problems. The resulting ex-changes have helped Interval Research create andspin off several highly innovative start-ups. AndJerry Hirshberg applies the whole-brain principle tohiring practices at Nissan Design by bringing de-signers into his organization in virtual pairs. Thatis, when he hires a designer who glories in the free-dom of pure color and rhythm, he will next hire avery rational, Bauhaus-trained designer who favorsanalysis and focuses on function.

Complete homogeneity in an organization’s cog-nitive approach can be very efficient. But as man-agers at Xerox PARC, Interval Research, and Nissan

118 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW July-August 1997

Bob came to appreciate Wally’spoint of view.

Design have learned, no matter how brilliant thegroup of individuals, their contributions to innova-tive problem solving are enhanced by coming upagainst totally different perspectives.

Look for the ugly duckling. Suppose you don’thave the luxury of hiring new people yet find yourorganization mired in a swamp of stale thinkingpatterns. Consider the experience of the CEO of theU.S. subsidiary of a tightly controlled and conserva-tive European chemical company. Even though thecompany’s business strategy had never worked wellin the United States, headquarters pushed the CEOto do more of the same. He knew he needed to fig-ure out a fresh approach because the U.S. companywas struggling to compete in a rapidly changingmarketplace. But his direct reports were as uni-formly left-brained as his superiors in Europe andwere disinclined to work with him to figure outnew solutions.

Rather than give up, the CEO tested thinkingpreferences further down in the organization. Hefound the cognitive disparity that he needed inmanagers one layer below his direct reports – asmall but dynamic set of individuals whose coun-tercultural thinking patterns had constrained theiradvancement. In this company, people with right-brained preferences were seen as helpful but werenot considered top management material. Theywere never promoted above a certain level.

The CEO changed that. He elevated three man-agers with right-brained proclivities to the roles ofsenior vice president and division head – lofty posi-tions occupied until then exclusively by left-brained individuals. The new executives werestrong supporters of the CEO’s intentions to inno-vate and worked with him to developnew approaches to the business.They understood that their commu-nication strategy with headquarterswould be critical to their success.They deliberately packaged theirnew ideas in a way that appealed tothe cognitive framework of their Eu-ropean owner. Instead of lecturingabout the need to change and try new ideas as theyhad in the past, the Americans presented their ideasas ways of solving problems. They supported theirpositions with well-researched quantitative dataand with calculated anticipated cost savings andROI – and described how similar approaches hadsucceeded elsewhere. They detailed the specificsteps they would follow to succeed. Within twoyears, the U.S. subsidiary embarked on a major or-ganizational redesign effort that included such radi-cal notions as permitting outside competition for

internal services. The quality of internal servicessoared – as did the number of innovations generatedby the company in the United States.

Manage the creative process. Abrasion is not cre-ative unless managers make it so. Members ofwhole-brained teams don’t naturally understandone another, and they can easily come to dislikeone another. Successful managers of richly diversegroups spend time from the outset getting membersto acknowledge their differences – often through ajoint exploration of the results of a diagnosticanalysis – and devise guidelines for working togeth-er before attempting to act on the problem at hand.Managers who find it awkward or difficult to leadtheir groups in identifying cognitive styles or in es-tablishing guidelines can usually enlist the aid ofsomeone who is trained in facilitation.

People often feel a bit foolish creating rules abouthow they will work together. Surely, the thinkinggoes, we are all adults and have years of experiencein dealing with group dynamics. That, of course, isthe problem. Everyone has practiced dysfunctionalbehavior for years. We learn to value politenessover truth at our mothers’ knees. (Who hasn’t mas-tered the art of the white lie by age 16?) We oftendiscount an argument if it has an element of emo-tion or passion. We opt out if we feel ignored – peo-ple with unappreciated thinking styles learn to sitagainst the wall during meetings (the organiza-tional back-of-the-bus). And we usually don’t evennotice those behaviors because they are so routine.

But the cost of allowing such behaviors to over-take a group is too high. Bob Meyers, senior vicepresident of interactive media at NBC, uses a sportsanalogy to make the point: “On a football team, for

example, you have to use all kinds of people. Likethe little, skinny guy who can only kick the ball. Hemay not even look as if he belongs on the team.This guy can’t stand up to the refrigerator types thatplay in other positions. But as long as he does hisjob, he doesn’t need to be big. He can just do whathe does best. The catch is that the team needs torecognize what the little skinny guy can do – orthey lose the benefit of his talent.”

Managing the process of creative abrasion meansmaking sure that everyone is at the front of the bus

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Successful managers spend timegetting members of diverse groupsto acknowledge their differences.

and talking. Some simple but powerful techniquescan be helpful. First, clarify why you are workingtogether by keeping the common goal in front ofthe group at all times. “If the goal is a real-worldone with shared accountability and timetables at-tached,” one manager observed, “then everyone

understands the relevance of honoring one anoth-er’s differences.”

Second, make your operating guidelines explicit.Effective guidelines are always simple, clear, andconcise. For example, one group set up the follow-ing principles about handling disagreements: “Any-one can disagree about anything with anyone, butno one can disagree without stating the reason” and“When someone states an objection, everyone elseshould listen to it, try to understand it, treat it aslegitimate, and counter with their reasons if theydon’t agree with it.” Some principles are as simpleas “discuss taboo subjects,” “verify assumptions,”and “arrive on time with your homework done.”

Third, set up an agenda ahead of time that explic-itly provides enough time for both divergent dis-cussion to uncover imaginative alternatives andconvergent discussion to select an option and planits implementation. Innovation requires both typesof discussion, but people who excel at differenttypes can, as one manager observed, “drive eachother nuts.” Another manager said, “If you askpeople comfortable with ambiguity whether theyprefer A or B, they will ask, ‘How about C?’” Mean-while, the people who crave closure will be squirm-ing in their seats at the seemingly pointless dis-cussion. Moreover, if one approach dominates, theunbalanced group process can risk producing an un-acceptable or unfeasible new product, service, orchange. Clearly allocating time to the two differenttypes of discussion will contain the frustrations ofboth the decisive types, who are constantly lookingat their watches wanting the decision to be madenow, and the ambiguous types, who want to be surethat all possible avenues for creativity have beenexplored. Otherwise, the decisive members gener-ally will pound the others into silence by invokingtime pressures and scheduling. They will grab thefirst viable option rather than the best one. Or if theless decisive dominate, the group may never reach a

conclusion. Innovation requires both divergent andconvergent thinking, both brainstorming and ac-tion plans.

Depersonalize conflict. Diverse cognitive prefer-ences can cause tremendous tensions in any group,yet innovation requires the cross-fertilization of

ideas. And because many new prod-ucts are systems rather than stand-alone pieces, many business projectscannot proceed without the coopera-tion of people who receive differentmessages from the same words andmake different observations aboutthe same incidents. The single mostvaluable contribution that under-

standing different thinking and communicationstyles brings to the process of innovation is takingthe sting out of intellectual disagreements thatturn personal.

Consider the experience of the product managerof a radically new product for a medical suppliescompany. Facing a strict deadline of just 14 monthsto design and deliver a new surgical instrument, the manager’s team needed to pull together fast.Design felt misled by marketing, however, andmanufacturing couldn’t understand design’s delayin choosing between two mechanical hinges. Thedisagreements turned personal, starting with “youalways…” and ending with “irresponsible igno-rance.” Two months into the project, the managerbegan to wonder whether he should disband theteam and start over again. But he knew that hisboss, the vice president of marketing, would notagree to extend the deadline. “I was desperate,” herecalled. “I decided to make one last attempt at get-ting them to work together.”

The manager decided to experiment with an off-site gathering of his staff, including sessions diag-nosing cognitive preferences. When they returnedto work, the team members used the new languagethey had learned to label their differences in opin-ion and style. “At first, using the terms was kind ofa joke,” the manager recalled. “They’d say thingslike, ‘Well, of course I want the schedule right now.I’m a J!’ Yet you could tell that people were reallyseeing one another in a different light, and theyweren’t getting angry.” The team made its deadline;perhaps even more important, several membersvoluntarily joined forces to work on the next itera-tion of the product. This willingness to work to-gether generated more value for the company thanjust “warm fuzzies.” Critical technical knowledgewas preserved in one small, colocated group –knowledge that would have been scattered hadproject members dispersed to different product

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120 HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW July-August 1997

Managing the process of creativeabrasion means making sure thateveryone in the group is talking.

lines. Moreover, keeping part of the team togetherresulted in a rapid development time for the deriva-tive product.

People who do not understand cognitive prefer-ences tend to personalize conflict or avoid it – orboth. The realization that another person’s ap-proach is not wrongheaded and stubborn, but mere-ly predictably different, diffuses anger. For exam-ple, at Viacom, a planning session involving twomanagers had ground to a halt. One manager sim-ply wouldn’t buy into the idea that the other waspresenting. Suddenly, the presenter slapped hishead and said, “Oooohhh! I get it! You’re left-brained! Give me half an hour to switch gears, andI’ll be right back. Let me try this one more time.”The left-brained manager laughingly agreed – heunderstood the paradigm – and the meeting re-sumed with the presenter armed with quantitativedata and a much more cohesive and logical presen-tation. Establishing that kind of effective two-waycommunication led to a common understanding ofthe issues at hand and, ultimately, a solution.

Understanding that someone views a problemdifferently does not mean you will agree. But an im-portant element in understanding thinking styles isrecognizing that no one style is inherently betterthan another. Each style brings a uniquely valuableperspective to the process of innovation, just aseach style has some negatives associated with it.Stereotypes of the cold-hearted logician, the absent-minded, creative scientist, and the bleeding-heartliberal have some basis in reality. If people even par-tially internalize the inherent value of different per-spectives, they will take disagreements less person-ally and will be better able to argue and reach acompromise or a consensus with less animosity.They will be open to the possibility that an alienview of the world might actually enhance theirown. They will be better equipped to listen for the“a-ha” that occurs at the intersection of differentplanes of thought.

Caveat EmptorPersonality analysis of the type we describe is no

more than a helpful tool, and it has many limita-tions. The diagnostic instruments measure onlyone aspect of personality: preferences in thinkingstyles and communication. They do not measureability or intelligence, and they do not predict per-formance. Neither the MBTI® nor the HBDI mea-sure other qualities that are critical to successful

innovation such as courage, curiosity, integrity,empathy, or drive.

Preferences tend to be relatively stable, but lifeexperiences can affect them. For example, repeatedapplication of the MBTI® over a period of years hasrevealed a tendency for people to drift from a think-ing style toward a feeling style when they have chil-dren. For the most part, however, studies done withboth the MBTI® and the HBDI suggest that peopleretain their dominant preferences throughout a va-riety of work and social circumstances.

One critical warning label should be attached toany of these diagnostic instruments: only trainedindividuals should administer them. Not only canresults be incorrectly interpreted (for instance,what are intended to be neutral descriptions of pref-erences might be labeled “right” or “wrong” behav-ior), but they can also be misused to invade people’sprivacy or to stereotype them. Of course, it is a hu-man tendency to simplify in order to comprehendcomplexities; we stereotype people all the time onthe basis of their language, dress, and behavior. Be-cause these diagnostics have the weight of consid-erable psychological research behind them, how-ever, they can be dangerous when misused. Withoutstructured, reliable diagnoses, judgments are likelyto be superficial and flawed. And without a sub-stantial investment of time and resources, man-agers can’t expect abrasion to be creative.

One of the paradoxes of modern management isthat, in the midst of technical and social change sopervasive and rapid that it seems out of pace withthe rhythms of nature, human personality has notaltered throughout recorded history. People have al-ways had distinct preferences in their approaches toproblem solving. Why then is it only now becomingso necessary for managers to understand those dif-ferences? Because today’s complex products de-mand integrating the expertise of individuals whodo not innately understand one another. Today’space of change demands that these individualsquickly develop the ability to work together. Ifabrasion is not managed into creativity, it will con-strict the constructive impulses of individuals andorganizations alike. Rightly harnessed, the energyreleased by the intersection of different thoughtprocesses will propel innovation.

If you are interested in reading further about managing conflictin the workplace, see “Fair Process: Managing in the KnowledgeEconomy” (reprint 97405) and “How Management Teams CanHave a Good Fight,” (reprint 97402).

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW July-August 1997 121

r, call 800-988-0886.To place an ordeProduct no. 4088

ARTICLES

“How to Kill Creativity” by Teresa M. Amabile(Harvard Business Review, September–October 1998, Product no. 3499)Amabile sees intrinsic motivation as thelinchpin of the creative process. Many compa-nies unwittingly kill creative ideas before theyare fully formed, she writes, by crushing theiremployees’ intrinsic motivation to create anddevelop them. Creativity has three compo-nents: expertise, the ability to think flexiblyand imaginatively, and motivation. Makingchanges that increase the level of intrinsicmotivation will show results quicker than trying to increase expertise or creative-thinking skills.

“The Discipline of Innovation” by Peter F.Drucker (Harvard Business Review, Novem-ber–December 1998, Product no. 3480)Some innovations spring from a flash ofgenius. But as Drucker points out, most result from a conscious, purposeful search for opportunities. This process requires diligence, persistence, and commitment.Successful innovators use the left and rightsides of their brains. They analyze an oppor-tunity to determine what innovation will sat-isfy it. They study potential users, their needs,and expectations.

“What’s Stifling the Creativity at CoolBurst?”by Suzy Wetlaufer (Harvard Business Review,September–October 1997, Product no. 3502)In this fictitious case study, five experts discuss how, or whether, a new CEO canencourage employees to start thinking differ-ently in a polite, staid culture that assigns avery low status to creativity. A division man-ager in a large consumer products companyand four academics from leading businessschools, one of whom is also a psychoanalyst,focus on the problems associated with tryingto change an entrenched culture.

BOOK

When Sparks Fly: Igniting Creativity in Groupsby Dorothy Leonard and Walter Swap (Harvard Business School Press, 1999,Product no. 8656)Contrary to the commonly held notion thatinnovative ideas come only from “creativegeniuses,” the most innovative, complexservices, products, and processes spring fromwell-led, well-managed group interactions.Drawing on their research with companies asdiverse as Fisher Price and Hewlett-Packard,the authors demonstrate how these compa-nies use group situations to maximize theircreative potential.

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