On Saturday, I led a Right-Brain Business Plan Workshop in San Francisco. During the workshop, I mentioned Daniel Pink’s book A Whole New Mind. Pink asserts that the left-brain analytical skills which made people successful in the past are no longer enough to succeed. In this day and age, we also need to cultivate more right-brain aptitudes - more creativity, more meaning-making and empathy.

The Right-Brain Business Planning approach follows similar thinking. If you start with your vision and values, the details can follow. If you start with the left-brain details that you know you “should have,” you may limit your thinking or, worse yet, you may get analysis paralysis. By taking a more right-brain approach, you free your mind to see creative options, to explore and find patterns and purpose.

What’s great about bringing people together for an afternoon of right-brain business planning, is it helps to get them out of their heads. They connect with other creative entrepreneurs, they find common threads, they support each other. It becomes a more collaborative process even if they’re still making their own individual plans.

If you’re working on your own Right-Brain Business Plan, why not gather a few of your friends and make an afternoon out of it. Your right-brain will thank you!