Six Senses
The following concepts are based on the book entitled: ‘A Whole New Mind’ by Daniel H. Pink. The book argues that people who develop the Right-side of their brain hemisphere in the future will be the ones that will be in more demand by society and business. People will need to further develop six essential aptitudes which the author labels as six senses. They include: Design, Story, Symphony, Empathy, Play and Meaning.
The author argues that these six senses will increasingly guide our lives and shape our world. Those people that develop these aptitudes first, will have quite an advantage.
He also emphasises that jobs and manufacturing will continue to go overseas. A number of professional jobs have gone to India such as programming / coding tasks. Pink advocates that the jobs that will remain are the ones that require conceptualisation, abstraction and the ability to see the ‘big picture.’ He refers to this as the ‘Conceptual Age’ (creators and empathisers). These ideas compliments and reinforces those that were explored in ‘The World is Flat’ by Thomas Friedman.
Design: when a product, service or experience is created, it is no longer sufficient to make it purely functional. Today we need to design something that is also beautiful, whimsical or emotionally engaging. eg an automobile can be considered as art on wheels.
- may be defined as the human nature to shape and make our environment in ways that have not been done before, to serve our needs and give meaning to our lives
- products will have a combination of utility and significance eg. a brochure needs to be easy to read (significance) but if it is effective, the brochure should also transmit ideas or emotions that words by themselves cannot convey
- more and more people are becoming aware of ‘design’ in today’s society. Note that ‘designer clothes’ are making its way into the like of Target retail stores
- design is interdisciplinary (crosses boundaries) and design schools are producing designers who think holistically
- design is a high-concept aptitude that is difficult to outsource or automate. It offers one a chance to bring pleasure, meaning and beauty to our lives.
Story: today’s technology has society overflowing with information and data. It is no longer enough to create an effective argument because somebody, somewhere will track down a counterpoint to rebut one’s point. We will have to fashion a compelling narrative (story) to be more persuasive, to communicate effectively and to develop better self-understanding.
- for most minds, stories are easier to remember because in many ways stories are how we remember
- story / narrative imagining is the fundamental instrument of thought
- it is our chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning and of explaining
- most of our experience, our knowledge and our thinking is organised as stories
- in a world of instant information where volumes of facts can be obtained, facts become less valuable. The ability to place these facts in context and to deliver them with emotional impact actually matters more in today’s society
- story: context enriched by emotion
- the ability to encapsulate, contextualise and emotionalise has become much more important in the Conceptual Age
- it has been found that in business, people find out more about a business from trading stories as compared to reading the official documents of an organisation
- storytelling does NOT replace analytical thinking, it supplements it by enabling Executives to imagine new perspectives and new worlds
- abstract analysis is easier to understand when seen through the window of a well-chosen story
- we may be all waiting for a wise person to tell us stories
- real estate agencies have started marketing by using stories since the selling of a home is not only a financial one but also an emotional one
- doctors are beginning to listen to the ’stories’ of their patients so that a whole-minded approach can be taken with medical care
- we are our own stories
- stories can provide context enriched by emotion, a deeper understanding of how we fit in and why that matters
Symphony: is like a conductor of a symphony where he / she brings all the musical instruments together to form music for a concert. The conductor is able to see the ‘big picture’ while individual instruments may not be able. What is needed today is ’synthesis’, the ability to cross boundaries and being able to combine different types of information into a new whole.
- People of the Industrial and Information Ages required focus and specialisation but employment has been routed to Asia because of the cheaper labour or people have been replaced by software.
- the most creative among us see relationships the rest of us never notice
- people who are able to operate in different realms are known as ‘boundary crossers’, they develop expertise in several areas, may speak different languages and enjoy the rich variety of human experience
- they live multi-lives because that is more interesting and more effective
- boundary crossers reject either / or choices and seek multiple options and blended solutions
- sometimes the most powerful ideas come from simply combining two existing ideas nobody else ever thought to unite – may be referred to as ‘conceptual blending’
- many inventions and break throughs come from reassembling existing ideas in new ways
- metaphor: allows us to understand one thing in the terms of something else, helps to develop a whole-minded ability (able to see the forest through the individual trees)
- we need to be able to see relationships between relationships which allows us to see the big picture, often we need to think 3 dimensionally rather than 2 dimensionally
Empathy: logic alone will not do in this age of instant, vast amounts of information and advanced analytical tools. Those people that will thrive in the future will be those that understand what makes their fellow human beings tick, the ability to forge relationships, and to care for others.
- Empathy is the ability to imagine yourself in someone else’s position and to intuit what that person is feeling. It is the ability to stand in others’ shoes, to see with their eyes, and to feel with their hearts
- empathy is NOT sympathy, that is feeling bad FOR someone else, it is feeling WITH someone else
- empathy is a stunning act of the imagination, it often requires attuning oneself to another
- “Leadership is about empathy. It is about having the ability to relate and to connect with people for the purpose of inspirng and empowering their lives.” Oprah Winfrey
- Lawyers are losing their jobs overseas and to computers. Those lawyers that remain will be the one that can emphasise with their clients and understand their true needs.
- empathy may be an ethic for living since it is an essential part of living a life of meaning
- empathy is related to symphony — because empathic people understand the importance of context
- To emphathise, one needs a degree of attachment in order to recognise that you are interacting with a person, not an object, but a person with feelings, and whose feelings affect your own. It involves inexactness.
- Sometimes we need detachment; many other times we need attunement. Those that can toggle between the two will thrive.
- There will be a huge demand for people who can emphasise eg. nurses, care-givers.
Play: it has been recognised that too much seriousness in a job can result in less productiveness in the medium to long term. In this age we need to play more which gives a big boost to one’s health and a more positive attitude towards one’s job when laughter, lightheartedness, games and humour are allowed.
- people rarely succeed at anything unless they are having fun doing it
- play is becoming an important part of work, business and personal well-being, its importance manifesting itself in three ways: games, humour and joyfulness
- humour is becoming an accurate marker for managerial effectiveness
- humour, used skilfully, greases the management wheels
- organisations should treat joke-crackers as an asset (humour can be destructive, however)
- online games can instil or develop the values of teamwork, responsibility, organsational skills and different ways for achieving goals
- learning is NOT about memorising isolated facts. It is about connecting and manipulating them.
- experience with online games can deepen the aptitude of Empathy
- the creation of games will increase the demand of artists, producers, story tellers and designers… the actual coding of the games will be outsourced overseas
- games may be the literature of the 21st Century
- laughter is a social activity
- laughter is a form of non-verbal communication that conveys empathy
- laughing people are more creative people, more productive and people who laugh together can work together (collaboration)
Meaning: today’s economy has freed hundreds of millions of people from day-to- day struggles and liberated them to pursue more significant desires: purpose, transcendence and spiritual fulfillment.
- meaning can sometimes grow from suffering but it is not a prerequisite
- the search for meaning is a drive that exists in all of us — a combination of external and internal circumstances will or can bring it to the surface
- people are expressing less concern for material matters and more for spiritual matters
- we may be going from a ‘material want’ period to a ‘meaning want’ stage
- the belief that there is something larger than ourselves may be ‘wired’ into our brain
- the purpose of life is to seek happiness… The Dalai Lama (extract from a quote)
- things that contribute toward happiness: satisfying work, being married, having a rich social network, the ability to express gratitude, forgiveness and generally is optimistic
- identifying your highest strengths and using them in the service of something larger than you are brings about self-satisfaction
- change is inevitable, and when it happens, the wisest response is not to wail or whine but to suck it up and deal with it (moral of a story)
flatclassroom2008 awholenewmind
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