Pink
(A Whole New Mind)
&
Littky
(The Big Picture)
Prepared by Tom Peters/09.05.2004
Dan
Pink
“The era of ‘left brain’
dominance—and the
Information Age it engendered—
Is giving way to a new world in
which ‘right brain’ qualities—
inventiveness, empathy,
meaning—will govern.” —Dan Pink, A
Whole New Mind
“The past few decades have belonged to a certain kind
of person with a certain kind of mind—computer
programmers who could crank code, lawyers who
could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch
numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing
hands. The future belongs to a very different kind of
person with a very different kind of mind—creators
and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning
makers. These people—artists, inventors, designers,
storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture
thinkers—will now reap society’s richest rewards and
share its greatest joys.” —Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind
L-Directed Thinking: sequential,
literal, functional, textual,
analytic
to
R-Directed Thinking:
simultaneous, metaphorical,
aesthetic, contextual, synthetic
Source: Dan Pink/A Whole New Mind
“Left-brain style thinking used to be the
driver, and right-brain style thinking the
passenger. Now R-Directed Thinking is
suddenly grabbing the wheel, stepping on
the gas, and determining where we’re
going and how we’re going to get there. LDirected aptitudes—the kind measured by
the SAT and employed by CPAs—are still
necessary. But they’re no longer
sufficient.” —Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind
The Big Three Drivers of Change
Abundance
Asia
Automation
Source: Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind
“But abundance has also produced an
ironic result: The very triumph of LDirected Thinking has lessened its
significance. The prosperity it has
unleashed has placed a premium on
things that appeal to less rational,
more R-Directed sensibilities—beauty,
spirituality, emotion.” —Dan Pink,
A Whole New Mind
India
350,000 engineering grads per year
>50% F500 outsource software work to
India
GE: 48% of software developed in India
(Sign in GE India office: “Trespassers will be recruited”)
Source: Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind
Software’s Enormous Inroads
Docs
Lawyers
Accountants
Source: Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind
Agriculture Age (farmers)
Industrial Age (factory workers)
Information Age (knowledge workers)
Conceptual Age (creators and
empathizers)
Source: Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind
“The MFA is
the new
MBA.”
—Dan Pink, A Whole New
Mind
“What does this mean for you and me? How can
we prepare for the conceptual age? On one
level, the answer is straightforward. In a world
tossed by Abundance, Asia and Automation, in a
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.’ But on another level, that answer is
inadequate. What exactly are we supposed to
do?” —Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind
Design.
Story.
Symphony.
Empathy.
Play.
Source: Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind
Not just function, but also … DESIGN.
Not just argument, but also … STORY.
Not just focus, but also … SYMPHONY.
Not just logic, but also … EMPATHY.
Not just seriousness, but also … PLAY.
Source: Dan Pink, A Whole New Mind
Dennis
Littky
“Thousands of years of history suggest that the
schoolhouse as we know it is an absurd way to rear our
young; it’s contrary to everything we know about what
it is to be a human being. For example, we know that
doing and talking are what most successful people are
very good at—that’s where they truly show their stuff.
We know that reading and writing are important, but
also that these are things that only a small and
specialized group of people is primarily good at doing.
And yet we persist in a form of schooling that measures
our children’s ‘achievement’ largely in the latter terms,
not the former … and sometimes through written tests
alone.” —Deborah Meier, Foreword to Dennis Littky’s The Big Picture
The Real Goals of Education/Dennis Littky/The Big Picture
*Be lifelong learners
*Be passionate
*Be ready to take risks
*Be able to problem solve and think critically
*Be able to look at things differently
*Be able to work independently and with others
*Be creative
*Care and want to give back to their community
*Persevere
*Have integrity and self-respect
*Have moral courage
*Be able to use the world around them well
*Speak well, write well, read well, and work well with numbers
*AND TRULY ENJOY THEIR LIFE AND WORK
“What we want to see is
the child in pursuit of
knowledge, and not
knowledge in pursuit of
the child.” —George Bernard Shaw
“Teaching is
listening.
Learning is
talking.”
—Message painted on a Met
advisor’s truck by his students (from Dennis Littky, The Big Picture)
“We have plenty of
people who can teach
what they know, but
very few who can teach
their own capacity to
learn.”
—Joseph Hart, educator
“From the media, we hear these great tearjerker stories
of kids who succeeded despite the odds. But all of our
kids are instead facing the odds of an education
system that is all wrong. The odds are against them
because the system works against them instead of with
them. … I see it every day: kids who people have
dismissed as ‘dumb in math’ or ‘uninterested in
science’ or ‘nonreaders’ doing incredible things in
these exact same areas because they were (finally)
allowed to start with something they were already
interested in. A 9th-grade kid who ‘hates science’ sees a
movie about freezing people, then decides to read a
college biology text on cryogenics, and then gives a
presentation on it that blows your socks off.” —Dennis
Littky, The Big Picture