• USA Today, Monday, March 23, 2009 11 AM

Left-brained managers, logical and analytical, are ill equipped for marketing, which tends more toward the right-brain qualities of intuition and holistic thinking. This creates the conflict that is the focal point of Al and Laura Ries' new book, War in the Boardroom.

While the marketing department may have a better grasp of what will sell and how to sell it, the father and daughter team points out that management always makes the final decisions. That may lead to companies basing marketing strategies on management thinking that, you've probably concluded on your own, sometimes leads to disasters like Miller Clear and Volkswagen's Phaeton instead of triumphs like Levi's Dockers and Toyota's Lexus.

But just scoffing at the left brainiacs won't get you very far. Marketing folks should learn to speak in left-brain terminology, the Rieses say. And their book, Seth Brown concludes, is a good place to start. "Examples are well-explained and down-to-earth," he writes. Managers should read it, too. "Even the most logical and analytical types should be able to see the reasoning behind 'marketing sense'" -- that ineffable quality we need not bother trying to explain.

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