Book Report : A Whole New Mind

One of my favorite reads this fall is Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind. Besides being an excel­lent read on design and devel­op­ing your cre­ative side, it is a quick read well worth your time. I read it through once, then skimmed it again look­ing for ideas to incor­po­rate into my weekly rou­tine– things like keep­ing a design note­book, read­ing my wife’s Real Sim­ple mag­a­zine, and check­ing out var­i­ous right-brain games on the Internet.

Daniel Pink’s ele­va­tor speech…

The future belongs to the per­son with a very dif­fer­ent kind of mind– one that empha­sizes cre­ation over rep­e­ti­tion, rec­og­niz­ing and draw­ing mean­ing from pat­terns rather than merely fol­low­ing them. While the log­i­cal, left-brain abil­i­ties will con­tinue to be nec­es­sary for suc­cess in one’s career, they are no longer suf­fi­cient. When choos­ing a career path, one must con­sider the fol­low­ing questions:

1. Can some­one over­seas do it cheaper?
2. Can a com­puter do it faster?
3. Am I offer­ing some­thing that sat­is­fies thenon mate­r­ial, tran­scen­dent desires of an abun­dant age?

Abun­dance, Asia and Automation…

These three fac­tors are chang­ing the world in which Amer­i­cans live. For exam­ple, take abun­dance. Self-storage is a bil­lion dol­lar busi­ness and promises to only grow into the future. Think there were self-storage facil­i­ties in the Great Depression?

Asia is chang­ing the face of the work­force because of the inex­pen­sive, well-trained labor wait­ing to draw repet­i­tive and pro­gram­matic jobs in India and China. Rou­tine func­tions and pro­gram­ming have been turned over to com­put­ers and robots. Indeed, much of the work per­formed by doc­tors are fol­low­ing deci­sions trees when diag­nos­ing patients, some­thing slowly be turned over to the likes of the web­sites Web MD and some 23,000 other med-related sites.

Pink’s Six Senses…
The book does a great job dis­cussing each of Pink’s sug­gested senses– design, story, sym­phony, empa­thy, play, mean­ing– then list­ing ideas in his port­fo­lio sec­tion where you can develop each of these skills in your own life.

(1) Design. Pink brings up an impor­tant point in this sec­tion… we all start out in child­hood as design­ers. We are not afraid to make mis­takes and fol­low wher­ever our imag­i­na­tion takes us. It is through the often­times mind-numbing expe­ri­ence that is high school and col­lege that we lose this ini­tial courage to design. Says Pink– “Design is a high-concept apti­tude that is dif­fi­cult to out­source or auto­mate. Some of my favorite sug­ges­tions to grow your design apti­tude– visit a design museum (Pink lists 10) and check­ing out open houses for design ideas and elements.

(2) Story. There’s a rea­son why you can remem­ber the sto­ries your grandpa would tell around the fire­place 20 years prior but have trou­ble remem­ber­ing your combo to the lock at the gym. Our minds are wired to make as many con­nec­tions as pos­si­ble, and sto­ries fit much bet­ter with this model that rote mem­o­riza­tion. But while remem­ber­ing sto­ries may be every person’s forte, telling them is a bit trick­ier. So how do you develop this skill? Pink sug­gests writ­ing a mini-saga of your life, whip­ping out a tape recorder and inter­view­ing a rel­a­tive or friends, and turn­ing your cell­phone into the story teller by snap­ping a pic­ture story of your day (I plan on devel­op­ing this one into a post in the near future). Story is impor­tant with social net­work­ing (have you heard how Face­book got started ?!?!)

(3) Sym­phony. This could be one of the most under­rated skills on this list. Pink calls sym­phony an “essen­tial apti­tude” for a grow­ing pop­u­la­tion of work­ers. While entre­pre­neurs and inven­tors have tra­di­tion­ally done a good job at incor­po­rat­ing this into new ven­tures, those who want to stay ahead must see sym­phony for what it is– devel­op­ing rela­tion­ships. Some advice– keep a metaphor log (and read this book) and prac­tice good brain­storm­ing habits. That is:

• Go for quantity.
• Encour­age wild ideas.
• Be visual.
• Defer judg­ment.
• Take one con­ver­sa­tion at a time.

(4) Empa­thy. Many of us can boost our pow­ers of empa­thy. Doctor’s are tak­ing class to help put them­selves in the posi­tion of the patient, lawyers are try­ing to warm up to their clients (hard to believe, huh?) and yes, women still take the cake when it comes to empa­thy. So how can men get a leg up on their com­pe­ti­tion. Vol­un­teer at a local char­ity and eaves­drop at the local cof­fee shop.

(5) Play. Hap­pi­ness is an excel­lent stim­u­lus for the brain. Amer­i­cans have seen a shift in the work­place from a rigid place where busi­ness does not get mixed with plea­sure, to one where, work and play are inter­twined to cre­ate a more invig­o­rat­ing envi­ron­ment where work­ers are happy and yes, more effec­tive in their jobs. Look at Google as a shin­ing exam­ple. Employ­ees enjoy mid-afternoon sand vol­ley­ball, ping pong, and video games, and still man­age to con­tinue to take over the world. Look for a laugh­ter club near you to stim­u­late your brain with the fun stuff.

(6) Mean­ing. Aren’t we all look­ing for mean­ing? Vik­tor Frankl went look­ing for mean­ing while impris­oned in a Nazi con­cen­tra­tion camp and devel­oped his the­ory of logother­apy– an influ­en­tial move­ment in psy­chother­apy. Mar­shalling the ele­ments of hap­pi­ness and spir­i­tu­al­ity may even­tu­ally help find that mean­ing, but these books could help you get there faster: Man’s Search for Mean­ing by Vik­tor Frankl, What Should I Do with My Life? by Po Bron­son, and The Art of Hap­pi­ness by His Holi­ness the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cut­ler, M.D.

Design. Story. Sym­phony. Empa­thy. Play. Mean­ing. Devel­op­ing a higher facil­ity in all of these will not guar­an­tee suc­cess, but they will cer­tainly move you closer to becom­ing bet­ter pre­pared for the next decade two years. Our world will only con­tinue to change faster. Will you be ready?

Author: Daniel Pink

Pub­lished: 2005, updates in 2006

My Rat­ing: 3.5 out of 4