A Whole New Mind - Chapter 3

A Whole New Mind – Chapter 3

High Concept, High Touch

Pink starts off chapter 3 by talking about the last 3 years: the Industrial Age, the Information Age, and the Conceptual Age. He basically showed us how we have progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers. Back in the Industrial Age, L-Directed thinking was preferred. Now, as North America, Western Europe, Australia, and Japan evolve once again, R-Directed Thinking is beginning to achieve social and economic parity – and, in many cases , primacy. He believes that L-Directed thinking is no longer sufficient.

Pink poses three questions that we must ask ourselves to survive and work in this age:
1. Can someone overseas do it cheaper?
2. Can a computer do it faster?
3. Is what I’m offering in demand in an age of abundance?
He believes that to survive in a job today depends on being able to do something that overseas knowledge works can’t do cheaper, that powerful computers can’t do faster, and that satisfies one of the nonmaterial, transcendent desires of an abundant age. We now need abilities that are high concept and high touch. High concept involves the ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, to detect patterns and opportunities, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to combine seemingly unrelated ideas into a novel invention. High touch involves the ability to empathize, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one’s self and to elicit it in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian, in pursuit of purpose and meaning.

A master of fine arts is the new MBA. Because of Asia, many MBA graduates are ending up being people who entered a workforce full of promise, only to see their jobs move overseas. Also, because of abundance, businesses are realizing that the only way to differentiate their goods and services in today’s overstocked marketplace is to make their offerings physically beautiful and emotionally compelling.

He then goes to talk about how IQ exams, such as the SAT, which measures L-Directed thinking, does not account for much of your future career success. More important qualities that are tougher to quantify are imagination, joyfulness, and social dexterity. High-touch abilities, the capacity for compassion, car and uplift, are becoming a key component of many occupations in the Conceptual Age.