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RIGHT SIDE BRAIN USE WILL EMPOWER YOU TO RULE THE FUTURE WORLD OF TECHNOLOGY LIFESTYLE..... Posted by Champaklal Dajibhai Mistry on March 12, 2007 |
CAREER SUCCESS IN 21ST
CENTURY NEEDS: EMPATHETICAL
RIGHT BRAIN
SUPPORTING
ANALYTIC LEFT BRAIN
WILL RULE THE FUTURE WORLD
Mr. Daniel Pink a contributing editor at
Wired magazine. His articles on business and technology have appeared in The
New York Times, Harvard Business Review, and Fast Company. He is popular
speaker, and has provided analysis on television and radio broadcasts,
including CNBC's Power Lunch, ABC's World News Tonight, and NPR's Morning
Edition.
Here is what he says about his new theory of
need of use of right side brain by humans in the technological job market
and also in personal life living in evolving technology age in his book
titled: A WHOLE NEW MIND: WHY RIGHT BRAINERS WILL RULE THE FUTURE....
lawyers. Accountants. Radiologists. Software engineers.
That's what our parents encouraged us to become when we grew up.
But Mom and Dad were wrong.
The future belongs to a very different kind of person with
a very different kind of mind.
The era of "left brain" dominance, and the Information Age
that it engendered, are giving way to a new world in which "right brain"
qualities-inventiveness, empathy, meaning-predominate. That's the argument
at the center of this provocative and original book, which uses the two
sides of our brains as a metaphor for understanding the contours of our
times.
In the tradition of Emotional Intelligence and Now, Discover Your Strengths,
Daniel H. Pink offers a fresh look at what it takes to excel.
A Whole New Mind reveals the six essential aptitudes on
which professional success and personal fulfillment now depend, and includes
a series of hands-on exercises culled from experts around the world to help
readers sharpen the necessary abilities.
This book will change not only how we see the world but
how we experience it as well.
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PVAF THE
ETERNAL GNaan =TRUE
KNOWLEDGE SHARING WEBSITE
PVAF is publishing this news story which is
about career success in life because PVAF's primary program is
REMOVAL OF POVERTY THROUGH EDUCATION....and
EDUCATION is what develops your brain to think with
KNOWLEDGE ACQUIRED THROUGH EDUCATION to evolve in life for HAPPIER
TOMORROW THAN TODAY....
When wealth is created and used in life based
on TRUE KNOWLEDGE = GNaan acquired
through education from the SCIENCES OF vED...then
a human can create what is called BASELINE SHIFT
PARADIGM which leads one to the path of
moKSH = liberation from cylce of joy and pain to the
status of life travels in the state of aanND
= eternal bliss without joy-pain cycles which are a must without
moKSH......
Canadian Globe and Mail has done an article on Daniel
Pink's book described in the left column....here are some of the facts on
the need to use your right brain to develop empathy in your work and
personal life to support the always calculating profit and loss with left
brain based on the SCIENCES OF vED
called viGNaan which knowledge is
only the worldly knowledge of how pRkRUti =
Nature works and not GNaan
which is how one' aat'maa (soul)
and one's body made of pRkRUti
= Nature works....
Right side brain will empower you to acquire
GNaan through study of
vED and in turn will help your
calculating left side brain to live by DHARm
meaning living without causing any pain to any creation rather than
calculating how to live by aDHARm...which
means living causing pains and may be temporary joys to creations..
- In the past century, humanity in industrialized
countries moved from an economy built on people's backs to an economy
built on people's left-brain, analytical knowledge.
- And now in one generation people in
industrialized countries are moving to a society in which career success
will depend on thinking with your relational right-brain.
- A left-brain-oriented person thinks of every task in
sequence and in detail, with a conviction that: "no, my success is not
luck, I worked hard for everything I've achieved."
- But someone who has a right-brain approach and the
answer would look at the bigger picture and that person would say: 'In
many senses, I am lucky,' "
- Computer software is replacing left-side brain power.
Tax programs and will-writing kits provide alternatives to expensive
sessions with an accountant or a lawyer.
- Need to develop your ability to synthesize existing
ideas into something new and exciting and from developing empathy, which
is a right-brain activity.
- That means you should be exercising your right-brain in
activities that turn the routine into analytical activities by
synthesizing disparate ideas into something new
which also means use your right brain to make connections with people and
developing empathy.
- The right-brain skills are needed in other parts of
your life, for which you cannot use computers.
Please click on the line outside this box to read the
entire article with the above information and also read the interview with
Daniel Pink at Management Consulting News....
(This entire news story with sharing of
vED knowledge has been contributed
by Champaklal Dajibhai Mistry of
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada as part of his regular knowledge sharing on PVAF
web site with a prayer that YOUR
TOMORROW WILL BE HAPPIER THAN TODAY with this continuing
enlightenment with knowledge....PVAF expresses its appreciation) |
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Are you a right-sided
thinker?
Lucky for you
Left-sided Brain Logic alone
will no longer cut it
Globe & Mail: February 2, 2007: WALLACE
IMMEN
Are you lucky?
It's a question job candidates should be asked as a test of how likely they
are to succeed on the job in an increasingly global and automated future,
workplace theorist Daniel Pink told Canada's largest meeting of human
resources professionals.
"In the past century, we moved from an economy built on people's backs to an
economy built on people's left-brain, analytical knowledge. And now in one
generation we are moving to a society in which career success will depend on
thinking with your relational right-brain," Mr. Pink, author of
A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the
Future, told the Human Resources Professionals Association
of Ontario conference in Toronto this week.
And what does luck have to do with it? A left-brain-oriented person thinks
of every task in sequence and in detail, he says. That kind of person will
say "no, my success is not luck, I worked hard for everything I've
achieved."
But ask the question to someone who has a right-brain approach and the
answer would look at the bigger picture. "That person would say: 'In many
senses, I am lucky,' " Mr. Pink explained.
For instance: "I live in a free country, I've had an opportunity to get an
education and I've been able to use my skills in a good paying job."
So how does this predict career success?
"The analytical skills of the left-side brain will still be necessary in the
future, but they will no longer be sufficient," he says. That's because any
job that is quantifiable and routine is becoming a commodity in the global
wired world, he said.
"Routine is the scariest word in careers today. Any kind of work that can be
reduced to numbers, formulas and repetitive steps is destined to be
outsourced," Mr. Pink warned.
For instance, India alone has more skilled
knowledge workers than the population of Canada, and with advanced
telecommunications, the cost to shift routine jobs around the world where
salaries are much lower is negligible.
And even if a job can't be moved, software is replacing left-side brain
power. Tax programs and will-writing kits provide alternatives to expensive
sessions with an accountant or a lawyer.
He said the question everyone should be asking about their career should be:
"Does what I do deliver significance as well as utility?" |
As an example, during his speech in Toronto, Mr. Pink held up a fly swatter.
If it's just a piece of plastic of the kind that's been made for decades, it
has utility but no significance beyond what it does.
But this one was designed by Philippe Starck and is so interesting in shape
that it fits in a stand to serve as tabletop artwork. "There are four cents'
worth of plastic in this, but it sells for $14. That's what they call a big
margin," he said.
And adding that kind of margin to what you do will ensure career survival.
This comes from developing your ability to synthesize existing ideas into
something new and exciting and from developing empathy, which is a
right-brain activity, he said.
That means you should be exercising your right-brain in activities that turn
the routine into high-margin activities by synthesizing disparate ideas into
something new, he advised. You should also be working at making connections
with people and developing empathy.
This puts women at an advantage in the shift in career priorities, Mr. Pink
said. While it may not be politically correct to say women are more
empathetic in business, a growing body of research shows that women are
better connected to their right-brain functions, which gives them an
advantage in forming relationships and such things as making inferences.
"Does that mean we all have to get in touch with the feminine right side of
our brains -- especially those of us with hairy arms and deep voices? Yes,"
he said. "But it doesn't mean rejecting the systematizing left side of our
brains."
Some of the ways he suggests to build right-brain abilities include studying
design or taking art classes, learning to be a good story teller and doing
volunteer work, which will develop your empathy.
As you develop right-brain skills, these will find uses in other parts of
your life, he said. And, importantly, "these are things that can't be done
by computers or offshore workers."
There is good news for older workers in this, Mr. Pink added. Recent
research on brain functions show that, as we age, the left-brain's speed at
handling analytical tasks slows, but in most people, the brain makes a
compensation and draws more on the right side in processing information.
But at any age, he recommends aligning your career goals to what you are
passionate about in your life, because these are activities that naturally
activate your right-brain.
"Ask yourself would I be doing this job if I had $20-million or only 10
months to live?" Mr. Pink suggested. Then ask yourself what would you be
doing if you were in one of those situations.
"I'm willing to bet there aren't any people who are sculptors by day who
would choose to fill out tax forms as their weekend hobby."
© The Globe and Mail. Republished with permission. All Rights Reserved. No
part of this article may be reproduced or republished or redistributed
without the prior written consent of the copyright holder.
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In his first book, Free Agent Nation, Daniel Pink chronicled
the rise and impact of the new world of work. His recent book, A Whole New
Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, takes us a step
further to describe how to thrive in an outsourced, automated, and upside
down world.
Pink is a contributing editor at Wired magazine. His articles on business
and technology have appeared in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review,
and Fast Company. He is popular speaker, and has provided analysis on
television and radio broadcasts, including CNBC's Power Lunch, ABC's World
News Tonight, and NPR's Morning Edition.
MCNews talked to Pink about why consultants should embrace a whole new mind.
MCNews: You say we are in transition
from the information age to the conceptual age. What does that mean, and how
is the change manifesting itself?
Pink: Well, the scales are tipping away
from what it used to take for people to get ahead—logical, linear,
left-brain, and spreadsheet-type abilities—in favor of abilities like
artistry, empathy, and big-picture thinking, which are becoming more
valuable.
Left-brain skills are still absolutely necessary in our complex world.
They’re just not sufficient anymore.
Left-brain skills are still absolutely necessary in our complex world.
They’re just not sufficient anymore.
MCNews: Aren’t some industries, like advertising, built around conceptual,
right-brain thinking?
Pink: Sure. Besides advertising, another example is the motion picture
industry, which is about narrative, or story-telling. Increasingly, consumer
products companies are also tapping into right-brain skills.
Procter & Gamble, for instance, is relying more and more on design. And
Target is competing successfully against Wal-Mart, not on the left-brain
dimension of price, but on the right-brain dimension of design. I’m
surprised that more companies haven’t followed that lead.
MCNews: Are there companies that have
made the transition to the conceptual age?
Pink: The grocery chain, Whole Foods, is
an interesting example. The retail grocery industry is a low-margin,
cutthroat business. And yet, Whole Foods exacts premium prices by appealing
to customers using the right-brain sensibility of wholeness and the back
stories of products as a differentiator.
The success of Whole Foods is phenomenal. The figures are impressive on
every dimension—number of stores opened, revenue, profits, and stock price.
In a business where the typical strategy is to go for economies of scale,
cut costs, and eke out a tiny bit more of a margin, Whole Foods has taken a
different tack.
The focus of Whole Foods is on the customer’s grocery shopping for the
family as a holistic experience. It’s about wellness, and doing something
good for the world on a small scale. That approach may seem touchy-feely,
but Whole Foods is outperforming every other grocery chain in America.
MCNews: Is this trend finding its way
into traditional, left-brained businesses?
Pink: Yes. At a recent shareholders’
meeting, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said, “What we've got at GM now is a
general comprehension that you can't run this business by the left,
intellectual, analytical side of the brain. You have to have a lot of right
side, creative input. We are in the arts and entertainment business, and
we're putting a huge emphasis on world-class design."
That’s a 70-year-old former Marine saying we tried running the company in a
left-brain way and it didn’t work. We have to start running it in a
right-brain way. Lutz is a serious figure in the automotive industry. When
GM is in the arts business, we’re all in the arts business.
MCNews: What’s the impact of the conceptual age on the workplace,
particularly as it relates to the people you hire?
Pink: You want to hire people who have
the kind of right-brain abilities that can’t be outsourced or automated, and
that satisfy some of the nonmaterial needs of this abundant age.
If you peel that back, what you want is people who are intrinsically
motivated. That is, they are doing what they love. And it tends to be
right-brain activities that generate that kind of motivation.
For instance, people don’t become designers because they want to make a
gazillion dollars, but because they love it. They’re almost compelled to do
it. Same thing is true with story-telling and even empathy. These abilities
are part of our nature—the things that we’re motivated to do, not for the
extrinsic rewards, but for internal fulfillment, joy, and challenge.
Now it turns out happily enough that these abilities increasingly confer an
economic advantage. So hire people who are intrinsically motivated. They
will end up doing great work, and they display abilities that have enormous
value in a world where so many other skills can be outsourced or digitized.
MCNews: But many companies fail to tap
that part of their employees’ capabilities.
Pink: That’s right. Every weekend, I’m
sure there are accountants in their garages painting water colors, or
lawyers writing screenplays. But I doubt there is anybody with a day job as
a sculptor who, for fun on the weekends, does other people’s taxes.
Many people went into the professions out of a sense of economic need, which
made perfect sense. But maybe they weren’t naturally motivated in that
direction. I see an increasing congruence between the talents that confer an
advantage in labor markets and what people are intrinsically motivated to
do.
MCNews: In the past, people “dropped
out” of the corporate rat race to do what they really loved. Are you’re
saying that doing what you love is the best way to reach your professional
goals?
Pink: The counsel to do what you love is
actually very hardheaded advice right now. It’s not just an idealistic
notion. I think it’s the best way to get ahead today. And that was not
necessarily true in 1950.
There’s a study—I think by Gartner—that shows fewer and fewer young people
want to become computer programmers. Partly that’s a reaction to what they
perceive to be labor market signals because they see so many stories about
programming jobs going overseas.
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(Pink continued): But
the other thing people are saying is that a lot of computer programming is
fairly routine, or rote. People are, in some cases, willing to do routine
work. If it generates a high income, people are willing to make that trade
off.
But work that is routine has the potential for offshoring or automation. And
so, people may be saying, it’s not that fun or creative to begin with, but
it also doesn’t confer reliable rewards. What confers the greatest rewards
and what we want to do anyway is the stuff that taps greater artistry,
empathy, creativity, and big-picture thinking.
MCNews: Coming back to the workplace, if
you’re operating a business in a conceptual age, what’s the best working
environment to create for people so they stay with you?
Pink: You need to allow people a certain
measure of autonomy to do great work but also hold them accountable. You’ve
got to have deadlines and measures of accountability. You can’t just have a
free-for-all where everyone sits around and paints all day and no one
actually serves customers.
So, in general, promote autonomy and relinquish a measure of control. And to
the extent it’s possible, create a context that allows people’s intrinsic
motivation to flourish and that makes the work part of something larger than
the individual.
Organizations that provide a sense of purpose, that connect individuals’
talents and aspirations to a larger goal are the ones that are going to
succeed. You already see that in a remarkable way with a lot of companies.
Google, for example, talks about wanting to do great things for the world
even if it means sacrificing some short-term profits.
Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE, speaks about meaning and purpose. He says that the
reason people want to work for GE is that they want to be about something
larger than themselves.
MCNews: Has the shift to the conceptual
changed how companies are organized?
Pink: Yes. I think we’re seeing the
emergence of companies that you might call not-only-for-profit. They’re
profit driven, but that’s not their only driving force. They want to be
about something beyond making their quarterly numbers and returning wealth
to shareholders.
This is different from the Ben & Jerry’s socially responsible kind of
company. GE is making a monumental investment in green technologies in part
because it’s a good thing, in part because it’s a lucrative thing. It’s the
same with Google. Google’s mission is to democratize information and to put
facts and knowledge at people’s fingertips. But that’s good business too.
Creating not-only-for-profit companies that plug people’s individual talents
into a larger purpose becomes very important, particularly for baby boomers.
MCNews: The professional services
business has traditionally been left-brained. What advice would you give
professional services providers so their practices thrive in the conceptual
age?
Pink: Well, they need to think through
the same imperatives: Are you doing something that someone overseas can’t do
cheaper, or that a computer can’t do faster? Does what you do satisfy some
of the spiritual, emotional, or esthetic needs of our society?
I think that design has become a fundamental literacy in business,
particularly for consultants.
Accountants, for example, may become this generation’s blue-collar workers.
They are imperiled by cheaper workers overseas, and by the ability to put
many accounting measures into a system of rules in a piece of software.
Sarbanes Oxley is keeping accountants busy today. But once compliance with
Sarbanes Oxley becomes automated, look out. Some consulting work,
particularly research and entry-level, analytical tasks, could be
outsourced. So success is not only about raw analytical abilities, having a
high math SAT score, and going to a good business school.
Your ability to draw on right-brain skills has become much more important.
For instance, I think that design has become a fundamental literacy in
business, particularly for consultants. Whether it’s industrial design,
graphic design, environmental design, or even fashion design, a good
consultant must be literate in that now to go into an organization and offer
useful advice.
And, again, I really do think that more companies, partly out of enlightened
self-interest, are going to morph into not-only-for-profits. And they’re
going to need guidance to change from left-brained companies in the pursuit
of making those quarterly numbers to companies that are more
right-brained—companies that can attract talented, intrinsically motivated
people. That’s a tough transition for companies to make, and I think
consultants could help with that.
MCNews: Have any consulting firms
shifted their services to help clients succeed in the conceptual age?
Pink: Some of the big consultancies are
branching into architectural consulting because the physical design of the
workplace has productivity-enhancing potential. You can reengineer business
processes and that can boost productivity, but the physical layout and
design of office space turns out to have value as well. That requires a very
different sensibility than streamlining the supply chain or decreasing the
number of steps in the procurement process.
Workplace design is very hard to automate because it involves a physical
presence, intuition, looking around, and getting a feel for things. That’s
right-brain work.
MCNews: One last question: if you were
going to give somebody just one piece of advice about how to be successful
in this new age, what would it be?
Pink: The best career move is to find
what you love to do, what you’re great at, and pursue that. I think you will
be more valuable in the workforce. If you love accounting and you’re great
at it, you’re going to be okay.
I worry about the folks who pursue careers because their parents, teachers,
or spouses give them outdated advice and they’re dutifully marching into
careers they don’t really care about because they think it’s the way to make
money. Not only is that bad for their individual self-actualization but I
think it’s a bad career move, too.
MCNews: Thanks. I really appreciate your
time.
You can find out more about Daniel Pink, his books, and services at
www.danpink.com.
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