Daniel Pink's A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers will Rule the Future provides some brilliant insights that corporations should heed. I sent him an email last night to tell him how much I enjoyed his book. Hope to hear from him soon!
Here's a summary of what he proposes...
“The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a different kind of mind – creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers. These people – artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers – will now reap society’s richest rewards and share its greatest joys”
Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind, p.1
It’s not often I come across a business book that resonates and reassures me that I’m heading in the right direction but that is EXACTLY what Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule The Future has done for me.
An enjoyable and enlightening read, Pink notes how society has evolved from the Agricultural Age (Farmers) to the Industrial Age (Factories) to our current Information Age (Knowledge Workers). He takes a look at Western businesses that have a dependency on information technologies and cleverly identifies three major phenomenon in our economy that have forced adaptive changes: Abundance (affluence), Asia (technology), and Automation (globalization).
Abundance
Pink makes the observation that our left brains have made us rich. Never before have we had the assortment of gadgets to choose from that are both high quality AND priced affordably.
Pink’s solution: Success in this noisy marketplace means creating products that are not only functional but also aesthetically pleasing.
Asia
India, Philippines and China are accepting outsourced services (computer programming, technical engineering, financial services) paying laborers a fraction of the cost that Western or European employers pay.
Pink’s solution: Pink suggests that to succeed, the use of Right-brain-directed abilities will have to prevail: “forging relationships rather than executing transactions, tackling novel challenges instead of solving routine problems, and synthesizing the big picture rather than analyzing a single component.” (p. 40).
Automation
Software programs have been created to assist with medical diagnosis by following a series of decision trees and basic legal forms can now be downloaded online.
Pink’s solution: These professions will need to balance out their practices with more “empathy, narrative medicine, counseling and court room storytelling” that depend on Right-Brain directed thinking. (p. 46).
Pink believes that because of Abundance, Asia & Automation we’re moving from the Knowledge Age into what he calls the Conceptual Age (creators, empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers). He offers that we can prepare ourselves for this Conceptual Age by enhancing our abilities around six aptitudes: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning.
APTITUDE 1: Design
Pink demonstrates the mainstreaming of design and how it’s no longer reserved for the elite. He reminds us that even our familiarity with computer fonts is an indication of how our awareness of design is commonplace. Pink asks readers to guess the names of three common computer fonts: Arial, Times New Roman, and Courier New. (Take the test yourself on p. 75
APTITUDE 2: Story
Pink cites numerous examples of how the use of story is becoming THE way companies are effectively sharing their intellectual capital – from training manuals at The World Bank to getting Xerox technicians up to speed by having them sit in company lounges sharing repair narratives! Also, his example of using narrative to sell homes instead of facts about price, features & square footage demonstrate some clever Conceptual Age marketing.
APTITUDE 3: Symphony
As Pink explains, symphony is “the ability to put together the pieces; synthesize rather than analyze; see relationships between seemingly unrelated fields...” (p.130). Metaphor fits under the umbrella of symphony and Pink reminds us of Georges de Mestral’s aptitude for metaphor when he reasoned that burrs stuck to his dog’s fur and came up with Velcro! Brilliant!
APTITUDE 4: Empathy
Pink makes the conclusion that the Conceptual Age requires androgynous minds. Pink states, “Sometimes we need detachment; many other times we need attunement. And the people who will thrive will be those who can toggle between the two.” (p. 174). So, start to bring YOUR androgynous mind to work – it will serve you and your organization well!
APTITUDE 5: Play
The aptitude of Play is a fun chapter to read. I learned about the existence of ‘laughter clubs’ in this chapter and I don’t mean Yuk-Yuk’s. Pink shares Southwest Airlines mission statement (they are one of the few airlines that continues to turn out profits in an extremely competitive industry) “People rarely succeed at anything unless they are having fun doing it.” Happy workers, healthy profits.
APTITUDE 6: Meaning
This was a section I also really enjoyed. Pink refers to research by Martin Seligman that finds that people who perform paid work that has personal meaning to them and is centered on their signature strengths experience greater authentic happiness. In her June 2008 Stanford speech Oprah Winfrey stated, “What you want is money and meaning. You want your work to be meaningful because meaning is what brings real richness to your life.”
A further note about Oprah’s honorary speech to Stanford’s graduating class of ’08 – she gave the gifts of literature to her audience that day; Tolle’s A New Earth and Pink’s A Whole New Mind. Making an Oprah list of books to give to Stanford graduates has GOT to have meaning! I love what Oprah does with her money and her endorsement of what Pink has to say about right-brain aptitudes is the greatest commendation an author could ever receive in our time.
Congratulations to you Daniel Pink. Well done.
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