According to Dr. Geil Browning, "The Social/Conceptual Profile is found in 12 percent of the population at large. People with this profile prefer to learn from many viewpoints and intuitively explore subjects without background information...They describe themselves as imaginative, intuitive about ideas and people, visionary, socially aware, and empathic. They like to learn by experimenting and interacting with others. People with this profile say their work usually involves sharing, connecting with others, making new products, developing theoretical concepts, doing projects that involve finding relationships...They are good at seeing what is coming before others do."

Ten years after graduating college, Ashley works as a supervisor for XYZ Corp. She loves the flexibility of her job. She does not have a typical work day and she does not live by a schedule. On some days, Ashley arrives at work later than everyone else, which at times, causes her manager some concern. On other days, she arrives at work an hour earlier than her co-workers. In her mind, it does not matter whether she arrives early or late, she is still going to work more than the usual eight hours.

If Ashley arrives at work a little later than the others in the office, her co-workers know it. She makes a point of speaking to everyone she sees, usually to the chagrin of her left-brained co-workers who are already busy and quietly at work.

Relationships are of paramount importance to Ashley. She loves being around people because this is where this highly expressive person gets her energy. She has lots of friends inside and outside the office. She spends most of her time at work in the company of others, either on the phone with customers or in face-to-face meetings. She hates eating alone, so she can always be found eating lunch with one or more of her friends.

Ashley likes meetings when there is lots of interaction between the participants. She tends to get bored easily when not socially engaged and her eyelids become very heavy as if someone was standing over her saying, "You're getting sleepy, you're getting sleepy..."

Ideas come easily to Ashley, usually in multiples one right after another. She once told a friend that ideas were like "popcorn kernels popping in her head." A friend of hers was quick to recognize Ashley's preference for conceptual thinking. When the friend needs help brainstorming new ideas, she calls Ashley.

Some of Ashley's co-workers find that she is not very focused. For example, early one Friday afternoon, she received a frantic phone call from a customer who told Ashley that she desperately needed a quota report before Ashley left work for the weekend. Ashley knew that it took at least three hours to pull a quota report, so she immediately began work on getting the information. Twice, Ashley received a call on her cell phone. One call was from her mother and the other call was from her sister. They both wanted to know if she wanted to go shopping with them in the morning. Instead of telling the two of them that she did not have time to talk, Ashley spent the next hour discussing the quota report that the customer needed and the new shoes she wanted to buy when they went shopping.

Ashley loves her position at XYZ. She realized early in her career that she enjoyed working with people. She values the gift of her preference for social thinking. However, working for XYZ as a supervisor was far different from her first job right out of college when she worked in high finance. At that first job, most of her co-workers were left-brained. She loved to talk and to a degree so did they, but not as much as she did. Most of them liked to work through lunch, so she spent much of her time there eating alone. When her co-workers did speak it was usually in financial jargon and about work. Technically, the job was a bit challenging but it paid the rent and allowed her to live a certain lifestyle. Although she could do the work, analytical thinking required for a career in high finance was not a thinking preference for her. She often found herself lonely and frustrated. Those two years turned out to be the worst two years of her career. Ashley learned from her past career mistakes and vowed that she would never again accept a job which did not utilize her strengths for social and conceptual thinking.

The right-brained employee is needed in the workplace. They are socially aware and sympathetic. The right-brained employee often times is the employee that other members of the department turn to when they are in need of a listening ear. The expressive right-brained employee is great with customers and when it comes to providing the big picture thinking and vision necessary when working on a particular project, there is none better than the conceptual thinker. At times the left-brained employee and the right-brained employee do not necessarily see eye-to-eye, and this is quite understandable because they think differently. This is not a bad thing. They both have different strengths. The key to appreciating the difference between the two hemispheres of the brain lies in understanding - understanding that we are all different and have different strengths and bring different gifts to the table of life. If everyone's gifts and strengths are included and utilized properly, what a wonderful whole brain it will be.