Book Review: A Whole New Mind
By , SAP AG, User Experience – 07/15/2005
In this book review, the writer takes a personal look at the book A Whole New Mind by Daniel H. Pink.
Book
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Daniel H. Pink General |
Author
Dan invites you to visit him at his website www.danpink.com. |
Daniel H. Pink, former White House speechwriter, is author of the bestseller "Free Agent Nation" and pioneer of the "Me, Inc." movement in USA. He is a contributing editor at Wired magazine. His articles on business and technology have also appeared in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and other publications.
Review
In the first part of the book, Daniel Pink examines our Western society – with dominant professions in the area of information technologies – and identifies three major forces:
- Abundance: Never before we had such a wide assortment of goods and products in high quality and low prices. To succeed in this crowded marketplace, a product must also be aesthetically pleasing.
- Asia: Tasks like computer programming, financial services, and technical engineering are increasingly outsourced to countries like India, Philippines, and China. This will influence jobs in USA and Europe: "tackling novel challenges instead of routine problem solving, and synthesizing the big picture rather than analyzing a single component."
- Automation: Routine functions such as making medical diagnosis by following a series of decision trees, and providing basic legal forms are increasingly being turned over to machines. These professions are changing "away from routine, analytical, and information-based work and toward empathy, narrative medicine, and holistic care," to more counseling and mediation.
So this is the situation, but what's happening next? The author takes a closer look at the schemes behind society's changes: "We've progressed from the Agriculture Age (farmers) to the Industrial Age (factory workers) to the Information Age (knowledge workers), and will move on to the Conceptual Age (creators, empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers)." To point out the difference the author uses as a metaphor the two sides of the brain and their integration to a whole new mind – the psychologists among you will know what is meant.
But how can we prepare ourselves for the Conceptual Age? The second part of the book is devoted to six aptitudes (or "senses") that the author has distilled as essential. Each chapter of these aptitudes offers a portfolio such as magazines and books for further reading, Websites, everyday tips, experiments, and exercises to develop your abilities.
- Design. The author observes a sort of democratization of design issues: For example 25 years ago fonts like Arial or Times New Roman weren't known outside the domain of typesetters and graphic designers, but today almost everyone who can use a computer understands them. Provoked by this common knowledge and mainstreaming, producers have to use design as a competitive factor. Car industries can't compete with the pricing structures and lower costs of the Far East. As the author quotes BMW's chief of design, Chris Bangle (and this is one of my favorite bon mots in this book ;-)
"We don't make 'automobiles'. We make moving works of art that express the driver's love of quality."
- Story. As the author explains, humans understand the world not as a set of logical propositions but as a pattern of experiences. Storytelling is the "ability to place facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact". This is why a movement called "organizational storytelling" is coming up, which aims to use the organization's stories that exist inside their walls in pursuit of organizational goals.
Tidbit from the portfolio: Visit a storytelling festival to "sample the incredible diversity of stories and storytellers in the world." For example: www.dstory.com.
- Symphony. In the sense of "symphony thinking as the ability of composers and conductors to corral a diverse group of notes, instruments, and performers and produce a unified and pleasing sound," symphony means the ability of putting together the pieces to a big picture. As the author points out, "seeing the big picture is fast becoming a killer app in business." This offers opportunities to "multi-people," as he calls them, having expertise in multiple spheres, speaking different languages, and crossing boundaries.
- Empathy. The author describes empathy as "the ability to stand in others' shoes, to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hearts" – those who can empathize with their clients will succeed.
Tidbit from the portfolio: Experience the set of 51 Method Cards that IDEO, one of the world's most respected design firms, has developed: www.ideo.com.
Want to learn also how to distinguish between a fake smile and a real one? Read the book...
- Play. According to a Harvard Business Review research, "the most effective executives deployed humor twice as often as middle-of-the-pack managers." To emphasize the significance of humor and play the author refers to cognitive studies as well as to a new executives training technique called "Serious Play," a technique that uses Lego building blocks.
- Meaning. As the last "sense," the author identifies people's search for meaning in their lives: "People have enough to live, but nothing to live for; they have the means but not the meaning." And he proposes two ways to start this search for meaning: "start taking spirituality seriously and start taking happiness seriously."
Résumé
This book is said to mark a turning point – maybe it does.
Compelling and enjoyable to read, it offers plenty of insights and inspiration. It doesn't teach a specific method that you could follow in your daily work process, but can be of great value in strengthening your abilities in project management, presentation, creative design, or product planning.
