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recently did a talk for top medical students at King's College,
London. Organised by a company called Symphonic through Cass Business
School it was part of an initiative to train the doctors and surgeons
of tomorrow in entrepreneurial and creative thinking techniques.
Why? I hear you ask. Surely they've got a 'job for life', they can
just turn up and do their stuff.
I told
them of a story that I learnt from Dr
Bernard Shevlin, a retired GP who trains the medical profession
at the highest level: If there was a situation where a doctor has
found a cancerous growth but has decided for now not to operate,
a typical approach with the patient may be to just tell them the
facts, ie. "We've found that the lump is cancerous, but we're
not going to do anything about it yet". The patient responds
to this hysterically, thinking the doctor is going to let them die.
Obviously this isn't the case but the patient has created a story
to add meaning and significance to the data. This is what we call
right brain directed thinking. There is no logic, only meaning.
The left-brain
is 'function', the right brain is 'form'. When anyone is taught
how to sell they are told something very important: sell the benefits,
not the features. Few people are interested in how ABS brakes work
on a car or even what ABS stands for. They don't care if they have
got ABS brakes or not. But when you tell them that ABS brakes stop
your brakes from locking and going into a skid, tell them that ABS
brakes will save their life in an emergency stop, that’s a
benefit. You sell the benefit and leave the technical description
of the features to the appendix at the back of the brochure. A benefit
is really 'so what does that mean?'. It's the right brain that we
appeal to when selling (and what we use when buying).
We use
our whole brain most of the time. If you really did use just your
left brain you would be autistic. If you use just your right brain
you would be in a mental hospital. What is really going on is that
one hemisphere directs thinking for a particular task. The left
brain dominates logical thinking, the concept of time, names for
things and processes in a linear way while the right brain dominates
language and meaning, operating in a holistic way – but the
two always work together – and must do for you to function.
So a better
way for the doctor to describe the situation would be to add in
the meaning as they tell the facts, as a story: "We've found
the cancer. It's like a yob in a shopping centre. We know where
he is and we've got him surrounded by security. As soon as he makes
a move - we'll get him. So you're totally safe".
So if
you're looking to convince people, whether it's a new car or a medical
diagnosis, draw on the right side of your brain and explain the
meaning and significance.
My brother
in law is a surgeon and he told me of a training session in which
doctors had to practise people skills on actors posing as a relative
of a fictional patient. The task was to tell the actor that their
wife was going to die and they would like consent to remove body
parts for transplants when she did. A tough call! One of the doctors
did it this way. "Sir, your wife is nearly dead. Well, she's
practically dead... and we want her eyes". Not the best way
to handle the situation, how would you handle it?
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