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

This sounds like a presentation in front of a live audience, with some Q&A or maybe even a staged interview after. Pink is an engaging, entertaining, and even enlightening speaker. His basic message, well supported, is that all activity capable of being routinized will eventually be outsourced to the burgeoning Asian populace. Therefore, creative right brain stuff is a better career choice: sculptors triumph over assemblers. I like to think it less extreme than that: the blend is best. Best to design the cellphone than assemble it. After all, how many sculptors can even a new mind economy support?

In A Whole New Mind, Pink argues that in an age of computers and outsourcing, as well as relative abundance at lost cost, what we think of as "right brain" behavior will be what gets us ahead in the business world. Specifically, Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning, will be ways in which you can gain ground in a world that no longer has to be purely logical and utilitarian, since we have more time and more money to concentrate on aesthetics. He uses left brain/right brain as a metaphor, while emphasizing that a holistic approach is important.

I first heard of this book when I was reading a professional journal talking about what librarianship was going to be like in the future. The author suggested reading this book to get show more an idea of the qualities that we would need to have to be relevant in an increasingly electronic age. I read thinking about ways in which this is true: we make connections between books, movies, mood, a particular reader (Symphony), and we definitely need Empathy to figure out what kind of information someone is looking for, or finding the right book for someone whose taste is completely different from my own. I definitely have some food for thought about my profession.

At the same time, I discovered a lot about myself while I was reading. I found that I am very logical, analytic, and detail-oriented in my approach. Unlike many people (apparently), I have an easier time remembering random facts than stories. I found that I have a tendency towards a "male" brain - that is, tending towards logic, and not as good at reading facial expressions (I kind of knew that already, but some of the exercises in the book just confirmed that for me). Also, I like the Three Stooges just fine, which apparently is also more of a male tendency. On the other hand, I connected a lot more with his chapters on Play and Meaning, and these were the two chapters that I was most intrigued by his list of activities designed to help you stretch that sense in your own mind. Unfortunately, the stories and arguments Pink uses become repetitive after awhile, especially if you're reading several chapters in one sitting. Still, his ideas provide excellent food for thought, and I've added a few more books to read as a result. show less

This is one of those squishy, fuzzy books that pushes a supposed earth-shattering idea but doesn't quite back it up. More's the pity, for I really liked - and embraced - the concepts of Pink's later book, Drive. Pink does tell a good story, and it's a feel-good one at that, but he's wrong - Right-brainers will not rule the future...unless we're talking a few hundreds of years in the future, and then who knows?. The revolution can't get any traction here, and in Asia, the culture raises obstacles the Western mind doesn't factor in.

It does seem that I'm a lot more "right-brained" than I thought/think. Who'd a thunk it?

There's hope for touchy-feely folk like me, according to Pink and his analysis of work in the 21st century. No more apologizing for my right-brained leanings or feeling confused by the learned left-brain survival tactics that have kept me "respectable" as an academic. Now, all I need to do is figure out how the left and right come together for me in a better professional iteration and my whole new mind.

I'm guessing right-brainers won't "rule the future", "whole"-brainers (left and right sides used) will. This book reminds me of "How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci" by Gelb. The "symphony" concept resonates with me - not analysis but synthesis - and reminds me of some aspects of systems thinking. The "meaning" concept I agree with, but it doesn't seem to fit as well with the rest of the concepts. For this transition to be successful (toward more right-brain thinking), it will require an increased respect for this kind of thinking - but historically left-brain skills have been better recognized and rewarded

Favorite book I've read all year! The first paragraph in the introduction nails it:

"The 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 was a and gentle introduction to a lot of what positive psychology, brain science, and the movement to value people as people rather than parts have been saying for about 15 years now: We can't just rely on rationality or intelligence, nor can we just rely on intuition and empathy. We need to integrate all of our skills into what Pink calls a whole new mind.

Although this book takes the left brain / right brain analogy further than is really warranted, it does emphasize that the key to success -- in life and happiness as well as professionally -- is the trade-off between the parts of our lives that we have kept strictly divided for the past couple hundred years, analytic and holistic thinking.

That said, many of the concepts show more discussed in this book -- the importance of design, story, symphony (seeing the big picture), empathy, play, and meaning -- have become somewhat commonplace, especially over the last decade. I feel like more recent books on the mind do a better job of presenting these. In that sense, this book is somewhat like Emotional Intelligence: classic, but because of that, not necessarily the best choice out of the books available today. show less