Why we State the Why and the Divided Mind
Sometimes I read something that creates a powerful shift in perspective, like putting on glasses to clear blurry vision. This used to happen a lot more when I was younger and more of the world was new to me, but it’s always something I welcome and try to seek out. So if you want to make me happy — tell me something I don’t know. Sometimes that starts with “you thought X, turns out that’s wrong” which can create real discomfort, but one benefit of having strongly held values instead of strongly held opinions is that it’s easier to be open to new perspectives.
First a lesson from science, second an observation on why “state the why” is so critical to driving positive change.
Several years ago, I watched, Stroke of Insight, one of the most popular TED Talks, which is by a neuroscientist who experienced a left-hemisphere stroke. She expands on the experience and how the right hemisphere is the “parallel computer” that connects us to the world, while the left is the “serial computer” of logic. At the time, I found it an interesting story but not particularly impactful on how I viewed other classes of problems, despite her incredible personal and emotional storytelling.
Then, several weeks ago I Listened to a Sam Harris podcast on the Divided Mind with Iain McGilchrist, the author of The Master and His Emissary, about the right and left brain hemispheres, respectively. The title is an apt metaphor, referring to an ancient tale when an Emissary (assistant) took over from the Master, but didn’t know the limits of his knowledge and all ended in ruin. The explanation in this interview (and expanded in the 600-page book) included the seed of WHY we have two specialized hemispheres in the first place. This created an explosion of meaning to me across many other areas. Stating the Why is aligned with values: Reason From First Principles; and Communicate Openly & Concisely.
Unlike the popular TED talk, which did not “State the Why,” Iain McGilchrist gave a clear evolutionary explanation for why we (and all mammals) have two brain hemispheres that are not redundant, but actually are highly specialized.
To evolve genes to the next generation, an animal must achieve two things: 1) get food and 2) not become food (before reproducing).
These two activities aren’t necessarily aligned. The first requires focused spotlight consciousness to catch prey (like serial logic, thinking about one symbol at a time…), and the latter requires a 360-degree awareness of the surrounding environment to avoid predators that could come from any direction.
Once motivated by the underlying Why (from evolution in this case), the framework suddenly gave me a new lens that ripples across many domains. One example: why do financial bonuses work sometimes and sometimes not?
There is a famous experiment called Duncker’s candle problem that proved that you could make people perform a task more poorly if you offered them a cash bonus (read the wikipedia article for more details). This is paradoxical, especially to economics majors who oversimplify that the world runs on “incentives.” (Of course incentives matter, but try to explain love this way.) The candle task requires some out-of-the-box creative thinking, as opposed to just more concentrated effort, like stacking bricks faster or making more tele-sales calls. It turns out that the bonus strengthens a fixation mindset, which hampers their creative thinking skills. The experiment gives this effect a fancy name but does not explain why it occurs.
The divided hemisphere specialization (in my non-neuroscientist opinion) is an effective explanatory mental model. If a task aligns well with narrow focus (like “catch prey”) then it’s likely a bonus incentive will increase motivation. If the problem requires a more lateral systems thinking approach (right hemisphere), then a short-term bonus can prove counterproductive because it blinds peripheral vision (metaphorically or literally).
Of course, most tasks in life are a mix of both to some degree. Complex enterprise sales, for example, are more right-brain demanding than rapid fire tele-sales, and scientific breakthroughs are often a result of 1,000 failed experiments. But viewing through this new lens can be illuminating.
Brain scans and split brain research have shown us that your language center is in the left hemisphere — this is where your voice, whether literally or in your head, is generated. Your feeling of intuition is more in the right hemisphere, but it cannot vocalize words. This is why PQ-reps and mindfulness are so effective; they bring the two hemispheres in balance. By quieting the language center and observing feelings and intuition, you can leverage all of the strengths you evolved and make better decisions and actions. As someone raised with a “science is the true reality” mindset, this took me a long time to realize. This concept does not deny the obvious power of science, but it also doesn’t veer too far into naively reductionist thinking.
Another example of the universal influence power of “State the Why” is an observation on personal motivation for exercise. One downside of COVID has been the loss of group exercise classes, in which people help each other grow. Group fitness can be literally life changing, as with The Phoenix, a nonprofit I support and helped form a chapter in SF.
A few years ago, I bought a home-gym kit called X3bar that a friend of mine John created, but I never really used it. It seemed gimmicky to me, like tons of other fitness equipment that over-promise, so I just didn’t have the motivation. Then over New Year’s I read his newly published book (Weightlifting is a Waste of Time) he’d just published about all the scientific underpinnings of his invention. John is a character to say the least, but he’s a genuine scientist and I found the Why in his book firmly grounded in science and really compelling. It was motivating enough to get me to use his X3 consistently since then.
If you want to lead and persuade, Stating the Why is critical, because it replaces a weak top-down imposition with a powerful bottoms-up shared truth. Humans evolved genes to grow specialized brain hemispheres so that we could develop as individuals to be best equipped to navigate our complex world.
The 20th century was dominated by companies that grew out of Frederick Taylor’s reductionist Scientific Management, which essentially framed humans as squishy machines. At Turntide, in the 21st century, we have actual intelligent machines / AI, so doubling down on our humanity is how we will achieve our full potential. Try adding some more PQ-reps to connect with and feel your right brain’s intuition, and I think you’ll find you can be a more effective and creative problem solver, while motivating those around you.
