Left/Right brain Jugalbandi!!

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In  AdAge Al Ries writes about the conflict between marketing and other functions at the executive table. Marketers think right brain, non-marketers think left brain. Management deals in reality, marketing deals in perception. "Marketing is visual, intuitive and holistic," writes Ries. "Management is verbal, logical and analytic".

 I feel however that Marketing is becoming much more left brained given the data that it now has at it's command! However the irony is that to be effective, the marketer needs to be able to integrate right & left brain thinking. Even Analytics produces far more "actionable output" when the analytics team is structured cross functionally and with a mix of left & right brain analysts.

In an interesting article in the Harvard Business review, the authors have argued about how innovation can be effectively driven by integrating left & right brain thinking. Here is an excerpt from the article:

At the top of virtually every fashion brand is a distinctive kind of partnership. One partner, usually called the creative director, is an imaginative, right-brain individual who spins out new ideas every day and seems able to channel the future wants and needs of the company's target customers. The other partner, the brand manager or brand CEO, is invariably left-brain and adept at business, someone comfortable with decisions based on hard-nosed analysis. In keeping with this right-brain-left-brain shorthand, we refer to such companies as "both-brain." They successfully generate and commercialize creative new concepts year in and year out.When nonfashion executives pause and reflect, they often realize that similar partnerships were behind many innovations in their own companies or industries.

Have a look at this interesting article:

http://hbr.org/2009/06/innovation-in-turbulent-times/ar/1

Here are a few things to think about:

1. Would you bring a creative person as a part of your analytics team? Imagine the kind of lateral thinking that can help bring perspective to the "hard number" based analysts?

2. Would you allow an analyst to lead an "innovation" function within your organization and then build a team under him or her staffed with more creative type people to make the Left/right brain jugalbandi happen!!