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,

analyticto

R-Directed Thinking: simultaneous, metaphorical,

aesthetic, contextual, syntheticSource: 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. L-Directed 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 L-Directed 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