This is the second post in series of posts based on a book by Stephen Kosslyn and G. Wayne Miller titled “Top Brain, Bottom Brain.” The subtitle is “Harnessing the Power of the Four Cognitive Modes.”
On June 6, 2001 Michael Bloomberg announced the he would run for Mayor of New York city. He had no political pedigree. He had built Bloomberg LP, a media and financial giant, and was a billionaire. He had a comfortable life, prestige, and was well situated. Why would he run for mayor with all the attendant problems that go with public office? It appears that he was disposed in this context to think in Mover Mode. Given his business success, this certainly was nothing new for him. Remember that the mover mode is the mode of thinking and behaving in which people formulate and implement plans (using the top brain) and note the consequences of doing so (using the bottom brain), and adjust their plans accordingly. The authors write, “From his modest childhood in a suburb off Boston, Bloomberg consistently demonstrated such behavior: achieving Eagle Scout status as a young teen; excelling as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University; performing well as a student at Harvard Business School; and standing out during his early years in business, as a trader at Solomon Brothers.”
The authors continue, “We can conjecture that Bloomberg learned not just from his successes but also from his setbacks. Caught in the brutal cross fire of a leadership war inside Solomon Brothers, he was demoted after thirteen years to the tech support department—a humiliating fall from grace. But Bloomberg did not withdraw into self-pity (people in Mover Mode typically are not easily discouraged). Instead, he dedicated himself to a new challenge, the then frontier of financial computing. It was that experience that led him in 1981, to found Bloomberg LP—the company that revolutionized the delivery of financial information.
His next challenge was to consider running for the Presidency of the United States.
The Wright brothers, Wilbur and Orville, provide additional examples of people operating in the mover mode. Almost everyone knows that they developed and flew the first powered controlled heavier than air flight. What is less known is that these two brothers from Dayton, Ohio, achieved their breakthrough without benefit of a high school education or formal training of any kind.
Their father stimulated their fascination with flight when he gave them a toy helicopter, based on a design by a French aeronautical pioneer. It was constructed of cork, bamboo, and paper and was powered by a twisted rubber band. They played with it until it broke, but were unfazed when it did. They began building their own helicopters, improving each successive model with the knowledge gleaned from the previous ones. Although they were still in grammar school, the boys already exhibited behaviors characteristic of Mover Mode thinking. They embraced challenges and were not deterred by failure. Failures were not ends but valuable lessons in the progression to success.
After stints as self-taught printers, newspapermen, and repairers and builders of bicycles, they took on the challenge of powered flight. They believed, along with the German inventor Otto Lilienthal that the monumental hurdle was control, and not power. So their early work focused on gliders, specifically how to steer and bank them.
So the Wright brothers initially flew unmanned gliders. They continued their work with gliders. When 1902 drew to a close, the were ready to add a motor. The authors write, “You can see a pattern here: The brothers consistently devised and implemented plans (top brain), adjusting those plans on perceived outcomes (bottom brain)—these are typical Mover Mode behaviors.
Orville wrote, “The first flight lasted only about 12 seconds, but it was nevertheless the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself by it own power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward with a reduction of speed, and had finally landed at a point as high as that from which it had started” This was the humble beginning of aviation. We can all see how far we have gone.
If you have not tested yourself to see if you are classified in the Mover Mode, go to the immediately preceding post “Top Brain, Bottom Brain.”
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