“A Whole New Mind” delivers optimism
March 3rd, 2009 2:08 pm
by Shelly Strom + Daniel Pink
We already know cities such as Seattle and Portland boast a treasure trove of creatives. We’re still learning, however, about the ways in which creatives are, and will continue to be, economic drivers.
Daniel H. Pink, who served from 1995 to 1997 as chief speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore, sheds light on this subject in his best-selling book “A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future.”
“A Whole New Mind” synthesizes big picture trends to explain how a new epoch of our post-industrial society is rising and how right-brain types are the sort of entrepreneurs and workers who will succeed.
Pink suggests that we are evolving away from the Information Age, during which the left-brain dominant knowledge worker reined supreme and are moving into the Conceptual Age, a stage where creatives and other types of right-brain people take center stage.
The main characters in the Conceptual Age, Pink says, “are the creator and the empathizer, whose distinctive ability is mastery of R-Directed [right-brain] Thinking.”
We at 52 Ltd. enthusiastically recommend “A Whole New Mind,” which is a quick, uplifting read.
It brings clarity at a time during which the global situation seems increasingly complicated.
It tells us that we in the creative community are doing is the right thing-cultivation of creative types over the long-term will make us economically healthier.
Pink points to downward pressures on U.S. jobs, forces that he labels Abundance, Asia, and Automation.
Abundance, he says, has satisfied the material desires of many in the developed world. In turn, significance of beauty and emotion are heightened, as is desire for meaning.
Asia, Pink says, is fulfilling demand for white-collar left-brain knowledge workers, not to mention reduced labor costs. The dynamic is forcing knowledge workers in advanced parts of the world to “master abilities that can’t be shipped overseas,” he says.
Automation is impacting today’s desk workers the way it did for yesterday’s factory workers, thereby forcing workers to bring value in ways that computers never can, he says.
These forces, Pink said in an email to me, are likely to intensify during the current downturn.
“When consumers are strapped for cash and credit, they’re unlikely to open their wallets for modest, incremental advances in goods and services. They’ll do that only for huge, bold, conceptual leaps. As a result, for both individuals and organizations, right-brain thinking might be even more important, not less important, in a downturn,” Pink wrote via email.
In these economically challenging times, “A Whole New Mind” is a welcomed bit of encouragement, especially for those of us already honing these right-brain abilities.
“L-Directed [left-brain] Thinking remains necessary but no longer sufficient, we must become proficient in R-Directed Thinking and master aptitudes that are high concept and high touch,” Pink says in “A Whole New Mind.”
“We must perform work that overseas knowledge workers can’t do cheaper, that computers can’t do faster and that satisfies the aesthetic, emotional and spiritual demands of a prosperous time,” he says.
“A Whole New Mind,” published in the thick of a booming economy in 2005, gives us vision and points us in the direction of a yet untapped wellspring of potential, something for which many of us are looking right now.
Succeeding in this paradigm, Pink says, amounts to understanding and mastering six specific high-concept and high-touch aptitudes. He calls these aptitudes “six senses”-design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning.
“These six senses increasingly will guide our lives and shape our world. But to many of you, this vision might seem dreadful-a hostile takeover of normal life by a band of poseurs in black unitards who will leave behind the insufficiently arty and emotive. Fear not. The high-concept, high-touch abilities that now matter most are fundamentally human attributes. After all, back on the savannah, our cave-person ancestors weren’t taking SATs or plugging numbers into spreadsheets. But they were telling stories, demonstrating empathy, and designing innovations. These abilities have always comprised part of what it means to be human. But after a few generations in the Information Age, these muscles have atrophied. The challenge is to put them back into shape,” Pink asserts.
Roughly three-quarters of “A Whole New Mind” is devoted to explaining these six senses in order that the reader can begin to master them. At the end of each section on the senses, Pink presents what he calls a “portfolio” of specific exercises applicable to mastering each aptitude.
For the left-brain skeptic, these exercises likely yield valuable insight into Pink’s thesis. For the right-brain creative, these exercises are a worthwhile reminder of the various facets of creativity.
Regardless of your thinking, the portfolios offer what seem to be good suggestions for cultivating creative aptitudes. Not to mention that the 50,000-foot view Pink provides via “A Whole New Mind” is important and illuminating.