We’ve covered a lot of ground on this journey with Daniel Pink, and I think it’s good to pause and reflect for a moment. Reflect not only on what we’ve learned, but also on how we’re going to respond. If it’s true that things are changing, and they certainly seem to be, then how do we want to “be” as we move into the future? How successfully and gracefully will we be part of the transition into the Conceptual Age? The choice is up to each one of us, and depends upon our ability… actually, I think it has much more to do with willingness… to change and try on some new ways of both thinking and doing.
Pink writes (pg 246),
Individuals and organizations that focus their efforts on doing what foreign knowledge workers can’t do cheaper and computers can’t do faster, as well as on meeting the aesthetic, emotional, and spiritual demands of a prosperous time, will thrive.
To close out this series, here are Pink’s final words (pg 245ff),
The promise is that the Conceptual Age jobs are exceedingly democratic. You don’t need to design the next cell phone or discover a new source of renewable energy. There will be plenty of work not just for inventors, artists, and entrepreneurs but also for an array of imaginative, emotionally intelligent, right-brained professionals, from counselors to massage therapists to schoolteachers to stylists to talented salespeople. What’s more, as I’ve tried to make clear, the abilities you’ll need—Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play, and Meaning—are fundamentally human attributes. They are things we do out of a sense of intrinsic motivation. They reside in all of us, and need only be nurtured into being.
The peril is that our world moves at a furious pace. Computers and networks grow faster and more interconnected each day….[and] that means that the greatest rewards will go to those who move fast. The first group of people who develop a whole new mind, who master high-concept and high-touch abilities, will do extremely well. The rest—those who move slowly or not at all—may miss out or, worse, suffer.
And with that, we end our review of Daniel Pink’s, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. But our own reflection and contemplation needs to continue. More than that, it needs to lead us to a place where we can find new and fulfilling ways of being the in flow of the new paradigm of Right Brain growth, leadership and development… for our own sake… and for the sake of our world.
I’m certainly ready to embark upon the challenge. Are you coming, too?