Current Read: A Whole New Mind by Daniel Pink

Over the past couple of years (since I started grad school) I haven't read much simply for leisure. In fact, I have only read one novel since the beginning of 2009, and that was just a few months ago. Instead, I've been engrossed in books about business and self-improvement. This book is no different.

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel Pink takes a look at the changes occurring in today's society and the need to shift from a primarily left-brain way of thinking to a dual-thinking. The synopsis from Goodreads.com:

Lawyers. Accountants. Software engineers. That's what Mom and Dad encouraged us to become. They were wrong. Gone is the age of "left-brain" dominance. The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: designers, inventors, teachers, storytellers-creative and empathic "right-brain" thinkers whose abilities mark the fault line between who gets ahead and who doesn't. Drawing on research from around the advanced world, Daniel Pink outlines the six fundamentally human abilities that are essential for professional success and personal fulfillment-and reveals how to master them. From a laughter club in Bombay, to an inner-city high school devoted to design, to a lesson on how to detect an insincere smile, A Whole New Mind takes listeners to a daring new place, and offers a provocative and urgent new way of thinking about a future that has already arrived.

 

 

So far I am about a third of the way through this book. Pink's three forces driving us towards the right-brain revolution, "Abundance, Asia, and Automation, are interesting ideas. The concept of abundance was sort of an eye-opener for me; I never considered that having so much would play a role in our desire for meaning. However, thinking about it now, it does follow the pattern of Maslow's hierarchy of needs... While I'm not completely sold on the "Asia" aspect of it (Pink makes it seem as if we are in economic warfare with Asia, specifically India, and disregards globalization completely), the automation part was right on point to me. With machines and computers being able to do many things that humans can do (and more efficiently) we have to look at what uniquely human features we can bring to the table.

Pink also has "six senses" which he feels are important in developing the right-brain thinking: design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning. I've just gotten to this potion of the book, so I'll be covering those and my overall thoughts on the book once I do a full review.

What business books have you found helpful? Have you read this book or any others by Daniel Pink? If so, what were your thoughts? And if you're not into business, what type of books do you read most often?