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A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future | 
| Author: Daniel H. Pink
Publisher: Riverhead Trade
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy New: $10.20
You Save: $4.80 (32%)
Rating:  215 reviews
Sales Rank: 145
Media: Paperback
Edition: Rep Upd
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.7
ISBN: 1594481717
Dewey Decimal Number: 153.35
EAN: 9781594481710
Publication Date: March 7, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
The paperback edition of Daniel H. Pink's groundbreaking book, A Whole New Mind. Described by reviewers as "an audacious and powerful work," "a profound read," "right on the money," and "a miracle," the book reveals the six abilities individuals must master in an outsourced and automated world. Several publications named A Whole New Mind one of the best business books of 2005. It is now being translated into 12 languages -- and will appear across Europe and Asia in 2006. For this updated and expanded edition, Pink has added dozens of new tools, tips, and exercises to help individuals and organizations sharpen their right-brain capacities. Find out why Thomas L. Friedman, author of the mega-bestseller The World is Flat, calls A Whole New Mind his "favorite business book."
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| Customer Reviews: Read 210 more reviews...
 Excellent diagnosis, but insufficient & incomplete solutions April 7, 2005
476 out of 551 found this review helpful
The title of the book is very appropriate. For the age that we are in, we need a whole new mind. However, the book promised a mansion, but ended up giving us an apartment. It begins like a Porsche, but ended like a VW Beetle. The author correctly diagnosed the disease of Abundance, Asia, and Automation, but prescribed the wrong medicine of six right-brain-directed (R-Directed) aptitudes.
To the author's credit, he is the first that succinctly diagnosed the major problems the Western countries are facing: Abundance, Asia, and Automation. Most people, including intellectuals and high government officials are in the coma state of not sensing the lethal effects of offshore outsourcing of high-tech jobs and R&D to the fundamental wellbeing of U.S. and other Western countries, nor the consequence of automating white collar jobs by the ever more powerful computer hardware and software. This is the first book that I know of that sounded the alarm to the great masses of the coming sea change. For this, the author ought to be congratulated.
The author has a vision that we are moving from Information Age to Conceptual Age. He said that if we have a whole new mind, we can have an economy and society that are built on the inventive, empathic and big-picture capabilities. He stresses that the main characters now are the creator and the empathizer. He argues that we need to move from high tech to high concept and high touch. These are all great ideas. However, the strategies that the author prescribed through the six R-Directed aptitudes, which consist most of the book, while adequate to battle Abundance and Automation, is hardly sufficient to overcome Asia. There are several major shortcomings to the book:
First and foremost, these six R-Directed aptitudes are not the sole possessions of the Western countries. Asian countries have them, too, and can probably master them just as well. The author seemed to forget to constantly validate his assumptions against the three questions he must answer. One of them was: Can someone overseas do it cheaper? This author has a dangerous underestimation of foreigners: "Sure. They can do low-level programming and accountancy but we still come up with the innovation and creativity." He did not notice that R&D are moving overseas to the foreign countries. For this, see http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_12/b3925611.htm for more detail.
Secondly, how does the author know that these six R-Directed aptitudes are the most essential of all possible right-brain aptitudes? He never showed research evidences for these aptitudes are indeed the most important.
Thirdly, the six R-Directed aptitudes are highly subjective, social-dependent and culture-dependent. For example, design is highly culture-dependent. What is deemed elegant and tasteful design in a culture may be offensive to another. A beautiful design to you may be an average one to me. Take another aptitude, story, as another example: the contents of stories are highly culture-dependent. A story that makes sense in one culture may not make sense to another.
Fourthly, the result of developing these aptitudes, if developed to the full extent, is the further fragmentation of our world, for we have divide ourselves into smaller and smaller subjective realms. A side consequence is the fragmentation of the market for goods and services.
Above all, the solution proposed by the author is not going to be able to solve the problem of "Can someone overseas do it cheaper?"
In summary, the author deserves 3 stars for correctly diagnosed the problems, but gave the very incomplete solutions. However, I would encourage the author to continue to search for the solutions for Abundance, Asia, and Automation.
Upbeat, but overly simplistic view of globalization May 11, 2005
180 out of 226 found this review helpful
Pink is absolutely right: creativity and innovation
will be a boon for post-industrial, post-information
age workers now that countries like China and India
can produce cheaper knowledge workers.
However, the economics of supply and demand will simply
do the same to this new conceptual age worker that
it did to programmers and MBAs.
Once the economy is flooded with talented designers and
creative personnel, the market will correct and wages
will fall. And many creative and brilliant "whole brain"
workers will become yet again another glut of talent.
In the end, the market favors no whole class of worker but
rather the most unique and talented of a class. And this
has always been the case.
 Business As Usual? November 14, 2005
72 out of 90 found this review helpful
A Whole New Mind $16.47 US, is a 2005 release from Daniel H. Pink that covers creative thinking and other aspects of success. Ostensibly geared toward career pros, this non-fiction title analyzes transitions in society as America migrates from an Information Age to a Conceptual Age economy. The text in Dan's book is not academic -- instead it is more biographical, intuitive, observational, and playful. His book is a real triple threat of content, style, and visual presentation.
Word to the wise -- you are in for a slightly different book here -- right of the bat, the author walks us through the procedure of having his brain scanned as part of a project conducted at the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington D.C. This unorthodox introduction (with four photo illustrations) is welcomed by the reader, as it gives the chapter an introspective quality. Pink shares this experience to illustrate normal brain function -- to note a few misconceptions about the way the brain divides work -- and then posits that while most people integrate both left and right brain activity, R-Directed Thinking will increasingly be relied upon in the future, by people that want to succeed in business or life.
Here is the crux of what Pink is trying to relay. America is currently organized around a cadre of accountants, doctors, engineers, executives and lawyers. These "knowledge workers" excel at the ability to acquire and marry facts to data, and these abilities are typically accrued through a series of standardized tests such as the PSAT, SAT, GMAT, LSAT and MCAT. (As an aside, Bush's test-happy Department of Education only serves to increase the number of L-Directed Thinkers, providing corporations cheap labor in abundance.) Pink asserts this regime of L-Directed Thinking in America is diminishing due to three factors: Abundance, Asia, and Automation.
Our guide Dan conjectures -- that in this age of Abundance -- appealing only to functional, logical, and rational requirements is not enough. Design, empathy, play, and other "soft" aptitudes have become the focal point for individuals and companies that want to stand out above the others in a crowded marketplace. Look no further than Apple's design-triumph, the physically appealing and emotionally compelling iPod, for quick confirmation of this notion!
Looking at trends, Pink concludes outsourcing of white-collar jobs (knowledge work) to nations in Asia will have profound "long term effects" on the economic well-being of Australia, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US. Just as factory jobs flowed out of the country during the eighties, globalization of white-collar jobs will soon follow. Consequently, most Americans will need to come up with a new skill set that is not abundant overseas.
Even if Pink is wrong, and Abundance and Asia aren't transforming America, rest assured that Automation is. In long paragraphs, Pink cites specific examples of how Computer Programming, Law, and Medicine have been radically altered by technology. You'll notice this trend in even simpler venues (like self-checkout at supermarket and department store chains) throughout the US. Implication of Pink's research? Transaction based jobs may soon start declining.
Now here are a few key items worthy of consideration -- when it comes to your present or future career track -- according to Dan. Can computers do it faster? Can overseas labor do it cheaper? Are your skills in demand? Are your skills overly abundant?
Eventually we'll all have to find new jobs, Pink theorizes. The Agricultural Age and Industrial Age have fallen away, and the Information Age is fading fast. We're hurtling into the Conceptual Age, where the majority of jobs will be held by people that create something, or by people that are capable of empathizing with others. Most of these jobs will require care, humor, imagination, ingenuity, instinct, joyfulness, personal rapport, or social dexterity.
Writer Pink explains High Concept, High Touch, avenues of growth that are likely to appear, delves into the importance of gaining an MBA or MFA, and then compares the differences between IQ and Emotional Intelligence in rough metaphor. He then closes Part One with two pages of observation on the baby boomer generation, and their newfound gravitation toward meaning and transcendence, and away from the allure of wealth.
Most of A Whole New Mind actually resides in Part Two, wherein Mr. Pink delineates a complex theory of the "six senses" that one could harvest to build a whole new mind. In Dan's worldview, Design is an asset above function. Story is an asset above argument. Symphony is an asset above focus. Empathy is an asset above logic. Play is an asset above seriousness, and Meaning is an asset above accumulation. After an extensive essay about each of these six components, Pink includes a "portfolio" of exercises (further reading, tools, and websites) that one could call upon to enhance this mindset, all being useful.
In the interest of keeping this review at one thousand words I've concentrated on the first half of the book -- since that is the framework that the book is built around. I will allow you the pleasure of reading the majority of part two on your own, but I'll lightly sketch some factoids that I enjoyed in the "portfolios" accompanying Dan's groupings.
Simplistic but Useful Guide to Global Dialog October 20, 2005
59 out of 72 found this review helpful
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This book, like Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself is written for people who live in an ivory tower, a gated community, or a corporate palace. It is completely out of touch with the 90% of humanity that is comprised of the Working Poor in America, or the destitute and disenfranchised everywhere else. For that it loses one star.
However, and this is high praise from me, it is a "must read" for any knowledge worker, and I am particularly recommending it to the new breed of warrior in the U.S. Government, the Information Operations specialist. A **major** part of our government's failure at foreign policy and national security--including its failure at homeland security and its mis-steps in the global war on terror, going back to the Viet-Nam era, can be traced to a combination of excessive reliance on "metrics" (remember the "body counts?") diluted by ideological preferences absent historical or cultural contexts.
This book, while simplistic, is a superb over-view of the alternative methods of **perception**, integration, understanding, and outreach--empathy and strategic communication to others in terms they can "receive," and for that reason I consider it a "must read."
The six senses, design, story-telling (see Steve Dunning), symphony, Empathy (none to be found in this White House), Play (intertwing work and play, mixing it up to energize both), and Meaning, are well covered by this book, and in a way that makes sense, where the value of listening is clear to the reader.
It is a well-put-together book, with the right amount of white space, good illustrations, good notes and recommended readings, and over-all a pleasant and instructive contribution to my library and my reflections.
The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly March 24, 2006
27 out of 34 found this review helpful
First the Good.
The book is easy to read, well written, thought provoking. It presents a useful, simple overview of the left brain/right brain model. And it contains a concise analysis of the dilemma facing knowledge workers in America today: Abundance, Asia, and Automation. Abundance of stuff means that products and people must compete more on hard-to-define, right-brain qualities like beauty, coolness, and meaning. Abundance is produced by cheap foreign labor (Asia) and increasingly sophisticated machines to do the boring left-brain work (Automation). And the last half of the book presents a pretty good way to get started on developing your right brain abilities. That's the Good.
Next the Bad.
The solution the book presents, that Right-brain or even whole-brain thinking, will save our jobs in the face of the three A's, is unsupported and implausible. It may save your job (in fact it may be your only viable option), and it may even save a great many American jobs, but is it the salvation for the American economy? I think not. Mr. Pink is guilty, I think, of what he would call a left brain failure: missing the big picture. Or you could just call it wishful thinking of the sort that fostered the 90's stock market boom and crash. America's abundance is an illusion that can be maintained only as long as foreign lenders are willing to extend us credit. Our Conceptual products are selling to the world but they aren't narrowing our trade deficit and there is no evidence that they ever will. Can we really become largely a nation of concept producers and traders without a foundation in anything physical and real? And even if we could, what is to keep Asia and Automation from eating into our advantage there too? And how many design choices do we need -- aren't we already to the point of being psychically overwhelmed by the Abundance of choices? And how many designers do we need anyway -- not so very many to judge by the contents of our big-box stores and how those contents are pretty much the same everywhere.
Finally, the Ugly.
It's the bigger big picture. The Abundance that we have experienced so far is very dependent on cheap energy, mainly in the form of oil. The world is running out of cheap oil so the whole basis of the 3 A's is undermined. Worse than even that, scientists say, that by burning that oil and other short-sighted actions, we are changing the world climate in ways that will become drastic and unpredictable, but generally bad for food production, etc. Bye bye Abundance. Hello scarcity.
We can only hope that our new-found Right brain abilities will help us to overcome or at least survive the planetary mess we have made for ourselves and our children. Heck, it would be a major step forward if it just helped a majority of us to recognize the problem. But somehow I doubt that the kind of Right-brain thinking that gave us designer toilet brushes is going do the trick. And the kind of Right-brain thinking that leads some of us to believe in Stories of Rapture and Anti-christs -- well, that's not helping much either, is it?
We may gotten into this mess with mainly our Left-brains but it's pretty clear to me that we will need our Whole Minds to have any hope of getting through it.
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