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At what time, if ever, do you usually feel energetic and productive: in the day, at night, or sometimes one and sometimes the other? Moreover, if you wear a watch that you chose yourself, is it digital or the older type with hands?
While those questions may seem trivial, they could well be indicative of the jobs readers are best fitted for. Studies of over half a million people have shown that the times we feel energetic and the watches we prefer tend to reflect our fundamental ways of working.
The studies originated with physiological research on the brain culminating in the discovery for which the American Dr. Roger Sperry was awarded the Nobel Prize eight years ago. He and his colleagues found that the left-hand and right-hand halves of the topmost part of the brain - which is far more developed in humans than almost all other creatures - essentially have different functions.
In rough terms, the right half typically deals with complex things as wholes. Confronted with a complex of evidence, it builds the details into a rounded picture much as the eye takes in a landscape. The right side is thought to underpin artistic and other "synthesising" work such as engineering design and the like.
The left halfs role is to break down the complex into various component parts and sort them into rational order. The left-hand side usually governs analytical, step-by-step activities as exemplified by mathematics and writing grammatical prose.
Although that much may seem pretty clear cut, the implications for individuals careers are the opposite.
One snag is that it is not easy for people to find out how their brains operate. Hitherto, the only method known to the Jobs column was to get yourself wired up to an electroencephalograph, or EEG, which displays the patterns of electrical activity going on between the ears.
Another complication is that, if you do find out, the result can be startling. For example, having written prose for a living for 30 years and being good at logical problems, I always assumed I was a left-brain operator. But, as I reported on July 5, the EEG I was wired to showed that most of the activity was on the right.
What is more, even if you know your pattern, there remains the problem of what it might mean in practice. After discovering mine, I asked several psychologists and such about its likely meaning. Their responses were typified by the reply of professor Hans Eysenck.
He said that, unless our brains were badly damaged, the two halves were closely connected and seemingly good at taking over the others original functions. So which side was electrically the more active probably had little effect in everyday life.
Then out of the blue the other day, I heard about Ned Herrmann, who profoundly disagrees. A former chief of management education for the US General Electric group and now heading his own consultancy, he thinks that differences in the ways our brains operate strongly influence not only what work we are fitted for, but how we best learn. And he has developed a questionnaire to identify peoples operating patterns.
Over the past dozen years it has been completed by well over half a million men and women, and has so far stood up to the statistical checks used to validate personality tests and so on. But the results have persuaded him that what influences our operations is not just whether we make me use of the left or the right side of the top layer of our brain controlling cerebral activities like imagining and thinking. We are also influenced by the relative use we make of the left or the right of the more primeval lower brain, which controls different types of gut feelings.
Mr. Herrmanns scheme can be pictured by imagining yourself looking at your brain from behind, seeing it as a circular compass card. The top left, or north-west quadrant deals with step-by-step analytical thinking. The lower south-west section is responsible for a sense of proper order and tradition.
The top right, north-east quadrant handles visionary and otherwise innovative thinking. The south-east section below is responsible for emotions about other people, musical sensitivity and spiritual feelings.
He says their different effects on our working habits are best illustrated by the typical behaviour of people dominated by just one of these quadrants, even though his results show such people are rare. The great majority are governed by a combination of two, three or even all four.
North-west dominated folk work by applying logic to what they perceive as facts. Faced with a challenge, they calculate their chances of success and if they are too low, refuse to move. Otherwise, they figure out the most efficient method of tackling the task, tending to discount the importance of human feelings, boredom, fatigue, hankerings for beauty and so on. Indeed, they tend to avoid emotion altogether.
The south-west governed are also unemotional, logical and, in their view, factual. But whereas a north-west persons test of whether something is feasible is whether a formula can be devised for doing it, their test is simply whether it has been safely done before. Their prime urge is to keep what is going on under their control.
Natives of both those quadrants to the left of the north-south division tend to prefer digital watches and feel energetic in the day.
Of the two sets to the right of the division, the north-east dominated take their own original approach to everything. One drawback is that their proposals for action are often so visionary that their fellow humans cannot understand what they are on about. A second is that they tend to be too involved in what they themselves are doing to register other peoples feelings. They feel energetic at night, and prefer watches with hands.
So do south-easterners, although their times of high energy are variable. They have no patience with logic or theory; experience is all that counts. They are acutely sensitive to other peoples feelings and instantly aware of change in atmosphere and mood. But while practical in that way, they are the reverse when dealing with facts, goals, money and time.
As an ad-hoc test of Ned Herrmanns brainchild, I and three FT colleagues have completed his questionnaire. Every one of us feels that the resulting profile is a fairly accurate reflection of the way we individually work.
In three cases, the results are much alike. They indicate that the trio are whole-brained in the sense that they use all four quadrants in balance, just as a good journalist should.
The other, who happens to be the Jobs column, is strong on the logical and fellow-feeling quadrants, and more so in the visionary north-east, albeit weak in the orderly south-west. But while unlike my colleagues, I am only three-quarter-brained, thats better than being a half-wit at least.
Michael Dixon Financial Times - Jobs Section
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