Notable passages from
A Whole New Mind by Daniel L. Pink
Riverhead, New York, 2006
High concept involves the capacity to detect patterns and opportunities, to create artistic and emotional beauty, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into something new. High touch involves the ability to empathize with others, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one's self and to elicit it in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning.
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Call the first approach L-Directed Thinking. It is a form of thinking and an attitude to life that is characteristic of the left hemisphere of the brain—sequential, literal, functional, textual, and analytic. Ascendant in the Information Age, exemplified by computer programmers, prized by hardheaded organizations, and emphasized in schools, this approach is directed by left-brain attributes, toward left-brain results. Call the other approach R-Directed Thinking. It is a form of thinking and an attitude to life that is characteristic of the theright hemisphere of the brain—simultaneous, metaphorical, aesthetic, contextual, and synthetic. Underemphasized in the Information Age, exemplified by creators and caregivers, shortchanged by organizations, and neglected in schools, this approach is directed by right-brain attributes, toward right-brain results.
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If standardized, routine L-Directed work such as many kinds of financial analysis, radiology, and computer programming can be done for a lot less overseas and delivered to clients instantly via fiber optic links, that's where the work will go. This upheaval will be difficult for many, but it's ultimately not much different from transitions we've weathered before. This is precisely what happened to routine mass production jobs, which moved across the oceans in the second half of the twentieth century. And just as those factory workers had to master a new set of skills and learn how to bend pixels instead of steel, many of today's knowledge workers will likewise have to command a new set of aptitudes. They'll need to do what workers abroad cannot do equally well for much less money—using R-Directed abilities such as forging relationships rather than executing transactions, tackling novel challenges instead of solving routing problems, and synthesizing the big picture rather than analyzing a single component.
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How can we prepare ourselves for the Conceptual Age?… In a world … in which L-Directed Thinking remains necessary but no longer sufficient, we must become proficient in R-Directed Thinking and master aptitudes that are high concept and high touch. We must perform work that … satisfies the aesthetic, emotional, and spiritual demands of a prosperous time.
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Design is a classic whole-minded aptitude. It is, to borrow Heskett's terms, a combination of utility and significance. A graphic designer must whip up a brochure that is easy to read. That's utility. But at its most effective, her brochure must also transmit ideas or emotions that the words themselves cannot convey. That's significance. A furniture designer must craft a table that stands up properly and supports its weight (utility). But the table must also possess an aesthetic appeal that transcends functionality (significance). Utility is akin to L-Directed Thinking; significance is akin to R-Directed Thinking. And, as with those two thinking styles, today utility has become widespread, inexpensive, and relatively easy to achieve—which has increased the value of significance.
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Daniel Goleman writes about a study of executives at fifteen large companies: "Just one cognitive ability distinguished star performers from average: pattern recognition, the 'big picture' thinking that allows leaders to pick out the meaningful trends from a welter of information around them and to think strategically far into the future." These star performers, he found, "relied less on deductive, if-then reasoning" and more on … intuitive, contextual reasoning.…
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More and more employers are looking for people who possess this aptitude. Sidney Harman is one of them. The eightysomething multimillionaire CEO of a stereo components company says he doesn't find it all that valuable to hire MBAs. Instead,
I say, "Get me some poets as managers." Poets are our original system thinkers. They contemplate the world in which we live and feel obligated to interpret and give expression to it in a way that makes the reader understand how that world turns. Poets, those unheralded systems thinkers, are our true digital thinkers. It is from their midst that I believe we will draw tomorrow's new business leaders.
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I am best at what I can't do.
It has become my ability to feel strong and confident in these situations. I feel free to move, to listen to my heart, to learn, to act even if that means I will make mistakes.
If you want a creative life, do what you can't and experience the beauty of the mistakes you make.
– Marcel Wanders, Professional Amateur www.marcelwanders.com
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The University of Southern California's renowned School of Cinema-Television now offers a master of fine arts degree in game studies. "When USC started a film school 75 years ago, there were skeptics," says Chris Swain, who teaches game design at USC. "We believe that games are the literature of the twenty-first century. When you look at games today, it may be difficult to see that. But the pieces are in place for this to happen."
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Shammi and Stuss maintain that humor represents one of the highest forms of human intelligence.
Humor embodies many of the right hemisphere's most powerful attributes—the ability to place situations in context, to glimpse the big picture, and to combine differing perspectives into new alignments.
It's time to rescue humor from its status as mere entertainment and recognize it for what it is—a sophisticated and peculiarly human form of intelligence that can't be replicated by computers and that is becoming increasingly valuable in a high-concept, high-touch world.
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