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

by Daniel H. Pink (Goodreads author)

book data

1,250 ratings, 3.88 average rating, 347 reviews (more data...)

rating	frequency	%
5		28%
4		40%
3		23%
2		5%
1		2%

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published

March 7th 2006 (first published 2005) by Riverhead Trade

binding

Paperback, 288 pages

isbn

1594481717 (isbn13: 9781594481710)

description

The future belongs to a different kind of person with a different kind of mind: artists, inventors, storytellers-creative and holistic "right-bra...more

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05/21/08

Kelly Hoffman rated it:

bookshelves: 2008

Read in July, 2008

recommended to Kelly by: Heggel
recommends it for: insecure lefties :)

Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind makes many excellent points. Unfortunately, it suffers from an awkward and unconvincing metaphorical framework.

Chapter 1: Right Brain Rising

Pink starts out explaining about the brain’s left and right hemispheres, and how each side is responsible for different cognitive activities - the left hemisphere tends to be responsible for sequential logic, analysis, and language; the right hemisphere for holistic reasoning, pattern recognition, em...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

1 comment

08/05/08

Edy rated it:

Read in February, 2008

Buku ini bercerita tentang adanya pergeseran dari pemikiran otak kiri (Directed Left Thinking) yang teoritis dan analitis ke arah pemikiran otak kanan (Directed Right Thinking). Pergeseran tersebut didorong oleh adanya masa kelimpahmewahan, otomatisasi dan serbuan negara dengan tenaga kerja murah. Ketika selera orang semakin meningkat sedangkan komputerisasi dan tenaga kerja murah dari asia membanjir, membuat warga negara maju harus berpikir tentang eksistensi mereka di dunia tenaga kerja.
...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

3 comments

05/23/08

T.J. rated it:

bookshelves: this-book-is-wretched

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: my enemies, self absorbed petty bourgeois functionaries unconcerned with global poverty

I hate this book and want to set it on fire.

No, seriously. Daniel Pink takes a bunch of self-evident ideas, hammers them togethers with some feel-good rationale, and writes a pampered, whiny how-to of middle class comfort telling us to use our right brains to stay competitive and maintain our middle class relevance.

His examples are trite and his sources appalling--looking at the selections at your local suburban Target is not the way of justifying your belief in a cult...more

Like this review? yes (4 people liked it)

5 comments

01/09/08

Rick rated it:

bookshelves: non-fiction

Read in November, 2007

Besides having an author name seemingly borrowed from “Reservoir Dogs,” there is much to like in this popular business/pop psychology book. It posits a movement from an era when “Left-Brained” Knowledge Work was at a premium to one in which “Right-Brained High-Concept and High Touch” Work will be the demand opportunity. Computers and a global workforce have reduced the at home demand for knowledge work—computers do it massively faster and smart, English-speaking workers in West Asi...more

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08/01/07

Joel rated it:

Pink's proposal is a touch idealistic, but the vision he paints is promising. Basically, since automation and outsourcing to Asia can now accomplish lots of left-brain heavy jobs (computer coding, etc.) and since affordability of so many products has freed up some of our time and energy, Pink suggests that future jobs (and happiness) will depend more on those who master six critical senses managed by the right side (the creative side) of the brain: design, play, story, symphony, empathy, and mea...more

Like this review? yes (3 people liked it)

1 comment

01/14/08

Michael Bunnystyle rated it:

Read in January, 2005

If you are a right-brain creative type, this book will make you feel like your parents were wrong and you are highly employable, after all. "An art degree?! What are you gonna do with an art degree??!! You might as well be an English major!!" Well friends, according to Dan Pink, with an art degree you are poised to pretty much rule the world. Of course, it does require a good right brain/left brain balance and this book tells you how, and why, to find that balance. It's an interestin...more

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04/19/09

Lauren Deland rated it:

Read in April, 2009

If you are already the type to work through your ideas by sketching, dreaming, and creating, this book isn't likely to tell you anything you don't already know. You may, however, come away feeling a little smug towards the persistent chorus of voices that cast doubts on the aspirations of those drawn towards the arts and liberal arts studies.
That is, until you realize that Pink's assertion that "right-brainers will rule the future" isn't really substantiated in this book. Pink...more If you are already the type to work through your ideas by sketching, dreaming, and creating, this book isn't likely to tell you anything you don't already know. You may, however, come away feeling a little smug towards the persistent chorus of voices that cast doubts on the aspirations of those drawn towards the arts and liberal arts studies.
That is, until you realize that Pink's assertion that "right-brainers will rule the future" isn't really substantiated in this book. Pink begins the book with the assertion that the outsourcing of jobs to developing countries is an inevitable symptom of globalization that we simply need to get used to. Shrugging off all questions about the ethics of outsourcing, Pink suggests that the abundance of life in the U.S. (paradoxically coupled with waves of job losses in the technical sector,) will place a premium on jobs that require "empathy" and other forms of fundamentally human understanding. Yet while I hold both a BFA and an MA, I'm not popping the champagne yet, because Pink fails to provide adequate evidence, or even a convincing projection of what a new creative class of U.S. workers may look like. This is where the "right-brained" premise of the book collides with the more practical problems of implementing such jobs: for instance, Pink predicts the (wholly predictable) increase in need for nurses (purveyors of empathetic, "care work") as the Baby Boomers age, but is altogether unconcerned about how spiraling costs in health care could impede this progress.
I would be interested to hear Pink review some of his arguments in lieu of the recent economic downturn-- how might his theories be affected by the new convictions held by many Americans, that we are not quite so affluent as we thought? Moreover, what of the fact that the queasy corporate ethics that Pink ignores are in large part responsible for this crisis? I confess that I cringed when I read Pink's praise of Ford's investment in "artistic-minded" administrators, and when he recited a list of financial service firms that had tasked out their accounting to India: Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase. Sound familiar?(less)

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2 comments

05/28/08

Sally Linford rated it:

Read in June, 2008

Although it goes against my principles to give 5 stars to a self-help book, I make an exception for this gem. It's fascinating and revealing, and full of hope for the future (there's a rare commodity). My book club really loved it--all of us.

Pink (yes, that's his name) outlines his vision for the next generation of world business trends in our "flat" world where automation, asia, and abundance have created new requirements for success--requirements that for the most part ...more

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04/23/08

Brandy rated it:

(review of isbn 1573223085)

bookshelves: 2008reads, for-work, library, non-fiction

Read in April, 2008

Pink has a fundamentally decent, and possibly true, point--that in order to succeed, today's workers need to be more creative than ever before, because all of the logic-driven drone-work will be done by, well, drones--but his point gets buried in this pop-psych, new-agey rhetoric. His advice on what sorts of traits will be necessary seem obvious to me--they boil down to play nice with others, make connections between people and ideas, and have fun--but he did lose me at the end where he advocat...more Pink has a fundamentally decent, and possibly true, point--that in order to succeed, today's workers need to be more creative than ever before, because all of the logic-driven drone-work will be done by, well, drones--but his point gets buried in this pop-psych, new-agey rhetoric. His advice on what sorts of traits will be necessary seem obvious to me--they boil down to play nice with others, make connections between people and ideas, and have fun--but he did lose me at the end where he advocates for spiritual enlightenment and the search for meaning as a surefire tactic to get ahead in this new, conceptual age.

Each chapter is devoted to one of his six traits, and each chapter ends with a hippy-dippy "portfolio" (workbook) section. Readers are instructed to do things like keeping a journal of every metaphor you encounter, taking Emotional IQ tests online, and measuring yourself on the Spiritual Transcendence scale.

If the idea of professional development via Laughter Clubs isn't enough to turn you off this book, I warn anyone of Asian heritage: he's really pissed at you about the whole outsourcing thing. In fact, he believes you are one of the three reasons we're moving from the Information Age to this Conceptual Age: Abundance, Asia, and Automation. Seriously. Even after we're out of the early section on Why We're In This Mess, the text is peppered with lines like "before the Indian programmers have something to fabricate, maintain, test, or upgrade, that something first must be imagined or invented" and "But the sort of emotionally intelligent care [nurses] often provide is precisely the sort of thing that's impossible to outsource or automate. Radiologists in Bangalore can read X-rays. But it's hard to deliver Empathy via fiber-optic cable." And yes, that's Empathy with a capital E.

Now I have to deconstruct why my boss gave this to me: does she think I'm too analytical? Does she think I'm too creative? or is this her subtle way of saying she's on to my plan to use my whole brain to take over my library?(less)

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

3 comments

03/21/08

Seth rated it:

I read Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind on my flight from Dallas to Chicago this morning. It turned out to be a shockingly quick read. While I was put off for several chapters by his apparent need to ingratiate himself to left-brain directed skeptics (myself included), I was gratified to find that he did have a clear line of reasoning, rich in examples of why right-brain directed folks will be in greater comparative demand in the coming years. Much like Thomas Friedman, but much, much quicker to...more

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02/24/09

Scott rated it:

bookshelves: 2009-reading-list

Read in March, 2009

My first 5 star read of the year! This book was great! It contrasts Left brain thinking which has been the key to leadership in the past with Right brain thinking which the author believes will be the leading mode of leadership in the future. Terms that describe left brain: sequential, text, details, categories. Terms that describe the right brain: simultaneous, context, big picture, relationships. Pink believes that the typical organization of the past has rewarded left brain thinking and miss-...more

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03/03/08

Purple rated it:

Read in March, 2008

Daniel Pink was the keynote speaker at the ALA conference last June. There was so much positive feedback from the event that I put this book on my list of books to read. So glad I did. As many others have noticed, Pink offers a positive way of looking at the future in a time when things don't look so great. As always, there will be opportunity for those who adapt to the times.

Pink's way of bringing seemingly disparate things together is helpful/hopeful and decidely right brained. Pi...more

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11/27/07

Max rated it:

Pink offers an alternative to the doom-and-gloom of the Thos. Friedman "We [Americans] Are Going To Die/Be Obsolete Because We Don't Have Any Engineers" school of the future, by pointing out that even if we *had* engineers, we still wouldn't be able to compete dollar-for-dollar with equivalently trained engineers from India, China, etc. So, for Pink, the future lies in content creation and integration - a point Friedman makes too in The World is Flat, only Pink makes it much more eloq...more

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03/31/08

Ryan rated it:

Read in August, 2007

Our faculty read this book over the summer and it's been really applicable to what it is that we do in our classrooms. Pink argues that the age of "left brain" dominance is over... and that the future belongs to a "different kind of person with a different kind of mind: designers, inventors, teachers, storytellers - creative and emphatic "right brain" thinkers." Pink argues that there are 6 Senses that we need to develop and draw upon:Design, Story, Symphony, Empa...more

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09/02/07

Griggette rated it:

Read in June, 2007

recommends it for: Peeps in their 20's

A must-read for anyone in college/recently graduated, as well as educators and professionals. Though Pink's title suggests that vegetable-dyed yarn makers and pan flute players will rule the future, he actually recommends that everyone, left- or right-brain dominate, embrace both hemispheres of their gray matter. His writing style is easy to read and his portfolio suggestions at the end of every chapter make it an interactive reading experience. A good read for anyone with an entrepreneurial ...more

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02/16/09

Steven rated it:

Read in February, 2009

I was disappointed with this book. I must confess I did not finish it. I'm writing a review for the first 60%. I did learn some things. It has been a while since my psychology classes and I enjoyed the brain review. However, it degrades into a cheerleading book without much support. I lost interest at the point where he talks about the CEO who hires poets instead of MBA holders. I need a bit more support to the argument than I asked some rich guy. Are there any studies comparing the success...more

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01/17/09

Andrew rated it:

Read in January, 2009

*personal review

Daniel Pink lays out reasoning why adeptness at right-brained tasks will be tomorrow's competitive advantage. It isn't very fair to say it's just right-brained people that will rule the future, because that suggests an absolute shift from left brainers (accountants, finance people, techies) to right brainers. Instead, he advocates and theorizes an additional layer of right brained abilities ON TOP OF excelling at typical left brain activities to become a stand out i...more

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01/13/09

Judy rated it:

Read in January, 2009

As a person in a typically "right brain" profession, I REALLY enjoyed this book and the author's assertion that the day has come for those who think creatively rather than logically. He makes a good argument for his proposition that many traditionally "left brain" activities can be done by educated workers in China and India, but that creativity is much harder to outsource. Pink believes that we have entered a new age, and outlines history like this:
1. Agricultural Age...more

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03/09/08

Garret rated it:

Read in March, 2008

The basic premise of this book is that because many of our left brain functions (logical, linear, etc.) can now be either oustourced or performed by computers, it is the right brain functions (inventiveness, big picture connections, etc.) that are going to be in high demand. It breaks down right brain functions and provides numerous resources to aid in exploring and developing this part of the brain. I found the book to be well researched and skillfully written. Strong reccomendation. ...more

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06/19/09

Bob rated it:

Read in May, 2009

Pink used to write speeches for VP Al Gore, and quit his job to freelance (about which he wrote in his first book FREE AGENT NATION). In this book, in declarative prose, he writes about social and industrial trends that have paved the way for "right-brained" people--creative, process-oriented folks--to win more friends and influence people.

In the tradition of Dale Carnegie and other business/self-help gurus, Pink lays out his case categorically. He outlines a new age--"...more