Your brain's two halves do different jobs. You still get to use both.
Someone in the workshop says it with a grin: "I'm the numbers guy — very left-brain. She's our creative, right-brain type." Everyone nods. It sounds like science.
The myth. People are either left-brained — logical, analytical — or right-brained — creative, intuitive.
Why it sticks. It started with real research. In the 1960s, studies of split-brain patients showed that the two hemispheres specialize; language, for instance, leans left. Management books then turned brain regions into personality types.
What the research shows. In 2013, a University of Utah team led by Jared Nielsen scanned more than 1,000 brains. They found the familiar specialization in certain regions. They found no people whose whole brain ran stronger on one side.¹ Logic and creativity draw on networks spread across both halves.
Try this instead. Describe strengths in terms of work people can see: she frames problems sharply, he reads a room fast, they build a tight argument.
Talent Takeaway: When a team profile hands out brain halves, treat it as a party game, not a diagnosis. Labels stick — and they quietly decide who gets the creative assignments.
¹ Nielsen, J. A., Zielinski, B. A., Ferguson, M. A., Lainhart, J. E., & Anderson, J. S. (2013). An evaluation of the left-brain vs. right-brain hypothesis with resting state functional connectivity magnetic resonance imaging. PLoS ONE, 8(8), e71275. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0071275