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Book Review - A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink

Written by: Michael Schutzler

Article Overview: This is a great book for leaders to read, digest, and start working on with their teams. Left brain prowess is no longer enough - you need to also sharpen your right brain!

Book Review - A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink

This is a fun yet profound read that you can easily finish on a cross-country flight and that you will probably not forget. It will deeply interest most people faced with challenges in leading a growing organization. The author’s main premise is that the forces of “automation, abundance, and asia” have combined to make speed to market, efficient production, and technical prowess mere table stakes in a global marketplace. Left brain prowess is not enough - you need to also sharpen your right brain.

He asserts that just as our societies and economies moved from agriculture to industrial to information ages, we are now poised on the next transition - to the conceptual age. In the past 50 years or so, he explains how our schools and workplaces honed and rewarded those with strong analytic skills and those adept at creating and manipulating functional technologies. Mr. Pink shows us how these are no longer enough and that there are six “senses” that need to be honed to win in a more complex and global environment: design, story, symphony, empathy, play and meaning. If you doubt this, witness the ridiculous success of the ipod and iphone. Fortunately, he gives us more than theory; he tells stories about each of these six topics, provides exercises, and suggests additional reading to help us hone them.

Dan Pink is a best-selling author [Free Agent Nation, 2001] and was a chief speechwriter for former vice-president Al Gore.

(c) 2008 BlueSevenPartners.com

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Article Tags: abundance, al gore, analytic skills, automation, chief speechwriter, country flight, cross country, empathy, environment design, former vice president, free agent nation, global environment, global marketplace, information ages, iphone, mr pink, premise, right brain, six senses, technical prowess



Related Forum Posts
My reading log - Hi OmnivoreInk, Before starting my business, I read the following books as research: -"The Art of the Start" by Guy Kawasaki -"The AdSense Code" by Joel Comm -"Don't Think Pink" and "Mind Your X's and Y's" by Lisa Johnson And since then I've continued my "research" by reading (in this order): -"Technical Tennis" by Rod Cross -"For One More Day" by Mitch Albom -"The Twits" by Roald Dahl -"Little Black Book of Connections" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Secret" by Rhonda Byrne -"The Profitable Retailer" by Doug Fleener -"Blink" by Malcolm Gladwell -"Little Gold Book of YES! Attitude" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" by C.S. Lewis -"Little Green Book of Getting Your Way" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" by J.K. Rowling And I'm currently reading and am in the process of finishing the following: -"There's No Such Thing as Public Speaking" by Jeanette and Roy Henderson -"The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell -"The Book of Tells" by Peter Collett -"Little Red Book of Sales Answers" by Jeffrey Gitomer -"Chocolates on the Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience" by Jonathan M. Tisch -"The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity" by Julia Cameron -"The Inner Game of Tennis" by Timothy Gallwey
Re: Books for the Entrepreneur - I like "A Whole New Mind" by Daniel Pink, and "Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape our Decisions" by Dan Ariely.
Re: Top 50 Lists - Hi Evan, How about "Top 50": -Inventor Blogs To Watch -Franchising Blogs To Watch -Business Book Review Blogs -Women Entrepreneur Blogs -Young Entrepreneur Blogs
Re: Disney to refund Baby Einstein DVDs for Marketing Blunder - Hi Kevin, I have found television and especially DVDs to be excellent sources of stimulation and education for my daughter. The opinion that exposing kids to tv is always harmful is a corruption of the sensible opinion that tv and DVDs should be used with discretion. If I remember rightly, my daughter had gone through a whole library of the Japanese Anpan Man DVDs, Winnie the Pooh and - this was my choice! - Tom and Jerry to name a few. She was also keen on the Pink Panther cartoon, but I was less keen on it because of the lack of dialogue (Okay, Tom and Jerry doesn't have much, but a lot more than the Pink Panther...). Watching stuff on tv did a lot to help my develop her English as well as Japanese language skills at exactly the age when you want that to start happening (er, "before they are two"). When I read the comments on the report, I realized that the fuss may have been about children not turning into geniuses because they were being left in front of the tv to watch the DVDs without any adult supervision. I doubt that was what Disney intended. I trust all those who receive refunds from Disney will feel ashamed enough to donate the cash to children's charities, and while they are at it, they might as well donate the DVDs to a charity shop.
Re: Significance of Review Sites - Exactly! Review sites are very helpful for providing better understanding to a product or service.


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