Business Genius: A More Inspired Approach to Business Growth

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Right brain, left brain

‘The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time’
F. Scott Fitzgerald

• The human brain is an extraordinary result of natural evolution, and of course its structure is far more complicated than a simple left-right division. Indeed neuroscience has developed rapidly in the last few decades, and we are continually learning how to interpret our thoughts and actions, and improve them.
• Left and right brain thinking is still a useful metaphor in considering how we think. ‘Right brain’ is the more ‘imaginative’ side – subjective, intuitive, holistic and divergent – whilst ‘left brain’ is the more ‘intelligent’ side – objective, interactive, analytical and convergent.
• We approach the future of our business and markets with our eyes wide shut. We need to open our minds to the bigger picture – the world around us, what other companies do, what will drive and sustain our growth, and our role in it. This is a right brain opportunity.
• Business has become too focused and mechanical (left brain), not giving enough time and space to think more broadly and holistically (right brain). Of course we need both – left and right brain, intelligence and imagination – but it is the connections between the two that make the difference.
• If we want to succeed in business today – to make sense of our changing and confused, fast and fragile world; to be effective entrepreneurs and business leaders in it; and to create and sustain profitable growth – we need to think with our whole brain, not just part of it.

Driving and accelerating business growth

‘You either step forward into growth or you will step back into safety’
Abraham Maslow

Growth is easy, isn’t it?

Discount your prices and your revenue goes up. Recognizing that you also need to make a profit, you cut your costs and the margins quickly improve. Wanting to drive even more dramatic growth, you acquire another company and you can double your size in no time. But it doesn’t last.

Sustaining growth is not easy. Sustaining profitable growth is hard. Creating significant and sustainable growth is the imperative for every small business, and indeed the challenge for every large business today.

Achieving great results creates the expectation that you can do it again and again. You need to sustain it. Investors want to see evidence of the future profit streams that will give them a decent long-term return on their investments. Customers recognize that growing companies are doing something right and want to be part of it. Employees know that growth creates a bigger pie in which they can take a thicker slice.

Yet few companies manage to sustain profitable growth. They appear to reach a stumbling block when they reach the perceived limits of their current world, their existing markets and models, capabilities and ambitions, energy or inspiration.

With their heads down and spreadsheets buzzing, they seek to squeeze more out of their existing markets – an extra point of market share, another derivative product development or a more efficient process, that might secure a slightly greater margin. These things matter, but they don’t create growth that is significant and sustainable.

The obsession with doing more of the same, through optimization or small improvements, is a significant obstacle growth. Fractions of market share or profit margins will help, but won’t make the real difference. The danger is that we plough the same furrow, exploiting what we know best, delivering the same products, doing what we have always done slightly better.

We lose sight of the changing world outside.

We end up playing the old game, whilst oblivious to a new game – a new market, a new customer desire, a new business model. And because we prefer to make the most of what we have, we become hindered by our existing business, locked in our past and current success. The real danger is that incrementalism leads to irrelevance.

So how does a business, large or small, create and sustain profitable growth?

The answer is already in our heads. As human beings we have an enormous capacity to think, to sense and respond, to innovate and change. We each have 100 trillion brain cells, and probably use about 1% of them at any time. At an incredibly simple level we can categorize our brains into left and right sides – reflecting our ability to think intelligently and imaginatively, analytically and intuitively, sequentially and holistically.

Yet it is the connections between these that really matters. In Einstein’s case, his brain remained the object of fascination and research for many years, scientists concluding that it was in some ways different – not simply bigger, but better connected. The grey matter in our heads is connected by white matter. So it is perhaps this white stuff, the connective tissue, that holds more clues to our own genius, and the best opportunities for personal and business growth.

The successful growth business is firstly an imaginative business. It then intelligently focuses on the best opportunities. Whilst most of today’s businesses are dominated by left-brain thinking, it is the right-brain thoughts that unlocks newness and enables them to start new things, and make the leaps forward.

Growth businesses succeed by thinking more broadly – seeing a bigger picture, a more holistic view of the market challenges and opportunities. They see a broader context, and by doing so they see more opportunities to exploit, more ways to be different, more sources of future profit.

And the more you have to choose from, the richer your options, the more likely you are to fi nd the best, and the more sustainable you can be in exploiting them.

This might seem overly ambitious, particularly for a small business struggling to survive. Yet, even a few people with dedicated time can apply enormous brainpower to thinking more broadly, deeply and clearly – new thinking that could deliver extraordinary results.

Large businesses need a mix of people with left- and right-brain preferences, or ideally both. Small businesses must choose their colleagues with even more care. The visionary, creative, intuitive entrepreneur – from Richard Branson to Bill Gates – has always sought a more focused, analytical manager to be their side-kick.

More intuitive, more divergent, more holistic thinking enables us to see things differently, and thereby to think and do different things – to challenge conventions, to explore new possibilities, to hypothesize alternatives. More logical, more convergent, more focused thinking then enables you to choose the best markets, products, customers and approaches to focus your resources to be successful in this wider world.

Today’s high growth business is an inspired business, fusing imaginative stretch and intelligent focus in order to deliver extraordinary results.

Imaginative with your right brain. Intelligent with your left brain. Inspired whole brain thinking.