A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future

PRAISE FOR

A Whole New Mind

“This book is a miracle. On the one hand, it provides a completely original and profound analysis of the most pressing personal and economic issue of the days ahead—how the gargantuan changes wrought by technology and globalization are going to impact the way we live and work and imagine our world. Then, Dan Pink provides an equally original and profound and practical guidebook for survival—and joy—in this topsy-turvy environment. I was moved and disturbed and exhilarated all at once. A few years ago, Peter Drucker wondered whether the modern economy would ever find its Copernicus. With this remarkable book, we just may have discovered our Copernicus for the brave new age that’s accelerating into being.”

—
Tom Peters

“[Pink’s] ideas and approaches are wise, compassionate, and supportive of a variety of personal and professional endeavors. It’s a pleasant and surprisingly entertaining little trip as he explores the workings of the brain, celebrates the proliferation and democratization of Target’s designer products, and learns to draw and play games, all as a means of illustrating ways we can think and live in a better, more meaningful and productive manner. What surprised me about this book is how Pink realized that to empower individuals, it’s necessary to really understand and act upon the powerful socioeconomic forces that shape the world economy. Unlike many of the recent xenophobic screeds that rail against the evils of outsourcing, Pink has figured out several paths that individuals and society can pursue that play to our strengths. So if Pink is correct, we’re almost there. All it may take is for individuals and institutions to recognize this reality by using the tools we already possess. And that may well require
A Whole New Mind.”

—The Miami Herald.

“Since Pink’s . . .
Free Agent Nation
has become a cornerstone of employee-management relations, expect just as much buzz around his latest theory.”

—Publishers Weekly

“A breezy, good-humored read . . . For those wishing to give their own creative muscles a workout, the book is full of exercises and resources.”

—Harvard Business Review

“Former White House speechwriter Daniel H. Pink, an informed and insightful commentator on social, economic, and cultural trends, has questioned the conventional wisdom from which most Americans draw their thinking on the way the world works. The author of this well-researched and delightfully well-written treatise delivers that assertion after transporting the reader through a consciousness-awakening examination of how the information age, characterized predominantly by L-Directed (left brain) Thinking is being superseded by an age of high concept and touch, which brings R-Directed (right brain) Thinking more into play. The L-Directed Thinking is particularly in evidence in the guidance he provides to readers in what to read, where to go, and what to do to learn how to more fully engage their right hemispheres.”

—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Will give you a new way to look at your work, your talent, your future.”

—Worthwhile

“Read this book. Even more important, give this book to your children.”

—Alan Webber, founding editor of
Fast Company

“‘Abundance, Asia, and automation.’ Try saying that phrase five times quickly, because if you don’t take these words into serious consideration, there is a good chance that sooner or later your career will suffer because of one of those forces. Pink, bestselling author of
Free Agent Nation
and also former chief speechwriter for former vice president Al Gore, has crafted a profound read packed with an abundance of references to books, seminars, websites, and such to guide your adjustment to expanding your right brain if you plan to survive and prosper in the Western world.”

—Booklist

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While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers and Internet addresses at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after publication. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Copyright © 2005, 2006 by Daniel H. Pink

Cover and stepback design by Benjamin Gibson

Cover and stepback art by CSA Images

Book design by Amanda Dewey

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

RIVERHEAD is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

The RIVERHEAD logo is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

First Riverhead hardcover edition: March 2005

First Riverhead trade paperback edition: March 2006

Riverhead trade paperback ISBN: 1-59448-171-7

The Library of Congress has catalogued the Riverhead hardcover edition as follows:

Pink, Daniel H.

A whole new mind: moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age / Daniel H. Pink.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 1-57322-308-5

1. Creative thinking. 2. Success—Psychological aspects. I. Title.

BF408.P49 2005 2004056948

158—dc22

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

In memory of

MOLLIE LAVIN

CONTENTS

Introduction

PART ONE

The Conceptual Age

One: Right Brain Rising

Two: Abundance, Asia, and Automation

Three: High Concept, High Touch

PART TWO

The Six Senses

Introducing the Six Senses

Four: Design

Five: Story

Six: Symphony

Seven: Empathy

Eight: Play

Nine: Meaning

Afterword

Notes

Acknowledgments

“I have known strong minds, with imposing, undoubting, Cobbett-like manners; but I have never met a great mind of this sort. The truth is, a great mind must be androgynous.”

—SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

INTRODUCTION

T
he last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind—computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very 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.

This book describes a seismic—though as yet undetected—shift now under way in much of the advanced world. We are moving from an economy and a society built on the logical, linear, computerlike capabilities of the Information Age to an economy and a society built on the inventive, empathic, big-picture capabilities of what’s rising in its place, the Conceptual Age.
A Whole New Mind
is for anyone who wants to survive and thrive in this emerging world—people uneasy in their careers or dissatisfied with their lives, entrepreneurs and business leaders eager to stay ahead of the next wave, parents who want to equip their children for the future, and the legions of emotionally astute and creatively adroit people whose distinctive abilities the Information Age has often overlooked and undervalued.

In this book, you will learn the six essential aptitudes—what I call “the six senses”—on which professional success and personal satisfaction increasingly will depend. Design. Story. Symphony. Empathy. Play. Meaning. These are fundamentally human abilities that everyone can master—and helping you do that is my goal.

A
CHANGE
of such magnitude is complex. But the argument at the heart of this book is simple. For nearly a century, Western society in general, and American society in particular, has been dominated by a form of thinking and an approach to life that is narrowly reductive and deeply analytical. Ours has been the age of the “knowledge worker,” the well-educated manipulator of information and deployer of expertise. But that is changing. Thanks to an array of forces—material abundance that is deepening our nonmaterial yearnings, globalization that is shipping white-collar work overseas, and powerful technologies that are eliminating certain kinds of work altogether—we are entering a new age. It is an age animated by a different form of thinking and a new approach to life—one that prizes aptitudes that I call “high concept” and “high touch.”
¹
High concept involves the capacity to detect patterns and opportunities, to create artistic and emotional beauty, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into something new. High touch involves the ability to empathize with others, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one’s self and to elicit it in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning.

As it happens, there’s something that encapsulates the change I’m describing—and it’s right inside your head. Our brains are divided into two hemispheres. The left hemisphere is sequential, logical, and analytical. The right hemisphere is nonlinear, intuitive, and holistic. These distinctions have often been caricatured. And, of course, we enlist both halves of our brains for even the simplest tasks. But the well-established differences between the two hemispheres of the brain yield a powerful metaphor for interpreting our present and guiding our future. Today, the defining skills of the previous era—the “left brain” capabilities that powered the Information Age—are necessary but no longer sufficient. And the capabilities we once disdained or thought frivolous—the “right-brain” qualities of inventiveness, empathy, joyfulness, and meaning—increasingly will determine who flourishes and who flounders. For individuals, families, and organizations, professional success and personal fulfillment now require a whole new mind.

A
FEW WORDS
about the organization of this book. Perhaps not surprisingly,
A Whole New Mind
is itself high concept and high touch. Part One—the Conceptual Age—lays out the broad animating idea. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the key differences between our left and right hemispheres and explains why the structure of our brains offers such a powerful metaphor for the contours of our times. In Chapter 2, I make a resolutely hardheaded case, designed to appeal to the most left-brained among you, for why three huge social and economic forces—Abundance, Asia, and Automation—are nudging us into the Conceptual Age. Chapter 3 explains high concept and high touch and illustrates why people who master these abilities will set the tempo of modern life.