Daniel Pink's Argument For R-Directed Thinking

In recent decades, according to Daniel Pink, the information era has dominated. This means that lawyers, accountants, and software engineers have been highly valued professions. However, Pink proposes that we are moving from the information age into a conceptual era where rational, logic-based thinking is no longer enough to succeed in our economy. Businesses will urgently need designers, inventors, teachers and storytellers. Their ability to come up with new ideas and see the big picture is projected to be essential for success in business, media, and marketing.

We have come to a point in the western world where prosperity has created such material abundance that increasingly our interests are shifting to right-brained pursuits and desires such as beauty, spirituality and emotion. Pink feels that this shift will have profound impact on all of us both professionally and personally. It will affect

Pink relies heavily on anecdotes and less on L-Directed facts. To me, the book was essentially a repetitive recount of the same thing my mother told me long before I ever entered the workforce: “The people who make the most money are not the people who know how to do stuff. They are the ones who know how to tell those people what to do.”

Although there is merit in Pink’s argument for R-Directed Thinking, some of the examples he uses to prove his points are gaping with holes. In particular, the example about General Motors being in the art business as a way of turning around the automaker—in fact, the company has since filed bankruptcy.

A Whole New Mind offers readers an explanation of how abundance, Asia and automation are giving rise to R-Directed Thinking and how each of us can build valuable right-brain skills. Whether or not the 6 aptitudes of Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning are the exact aptitudes for the future, it is clear there is a pattern forming and case building for R-Directed