What in the world?

Dan Pink is author of two bestsellers. I had the privilege of hearing him speak during a recent visit to Seattle. Some of his comments have me thinking this world is about to get tipped on its side.

Dan's key thesis in his new book, A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age, is that the future no longer belongs to analytical left-brain professionals—the linear, logical knowledge people (the “SAT people,” he calls them). It belongs instead to creators and empathizers. The future belongs to the right hemisphere thinkers—wholistic, empathic, and big picture. The left-brain thinkers who do not engage their right hemisphere will be left in the dust!

Dan shared three things that are changing the face of how we do business: Abundance, Asia, and Automation:

Abundance:

• America is an incredibly wealthy country, deep into the middle class. Our standard of living drives our need for higher pay.
• Although our standard of living is much higher in America, our level of happiness and fulfillment is no different than it was 50 years ago. We see massive growth in the demand for services in these fields: health and wellness, coaching, the simplicity movement, yoga/meditation, and other services that bring quality and meaning to our lives.
• The self-storage industry makes $17 billion per year. This is larger than the motion picture industry’s earnings.
• The US spends more money on trash bags than the entire GNP of more than 40 countries.
• Americans want products that appeal to our sensibility, and companies want to produce something to differentiate. The substance of style comes into play, producing such things as designer toilet bowl brushes that beautifully adorn our bathrooms and sell for $100 (only in America!).
• In America there are more cars than there are licensed drivers.

Asia:

• India has 1 billion people. By the year 2010, they will be the largest English-speaking country in the world. They are well educated, and they learn English at a very early age. The Philippines is another country that has a large number of English-speaking people. A number of Asian countries are providing a growing percentage of the American workforce – from their homes in Asia, where the cost of living is much lower, so their salaries are much lower.
• Outsourcing is moving our technical support, financial, and programming (left brain) work to India.
• Repetitive work can easily be taught to someone in Asia, and they can perform the work for a fraction of the cost that an American can do it for. Why? The average income in India is $14,000 a year, so they don’t require high salaries. Examples:
  --Radiologists can read and interpret x-rays during their workday (night-time for us), so we can get a report the next day -- quicker turn-around time for less money than it would cost for an American doctor to interpret the x-ray!
  --Drive-through orders at McDonald’s can be taken by someone in India. Now that the cost of long distance calling is so low, the savings in wages is huge. (Would you like curry…I mean fries with that?)
  --CPA firms are hiring junior CPAs to prepare simple tax returns in India, saving large sums of money in salaries.

Automation:

There are certain tasks that people cannot do cheaper and computers can do faster. Computers have become very good at replacing left-brain work. Examples…

• If you want to get an uncontested divorce in the US, it will cost about $3000 for the most basic legal forms to be completed by a US attorney. At www.CompleteCase.com, India is offering the same assistance for $249.
• Go to www.USlegalforms.com to get the forms to complete the bulk of your work, and then pay for one hour with an attorney to help you finalize it, vs ten hours of a US attorney's time (billed at an average of $180/hr.) to do the whole thing from start to finish.
• TurboTax has become very popular for people who do not have complicated taxes.

Dan suggested that left-brained thinkers engage more of their right brain in order to do well in this conceptual age that we are moving into. He shares six capabilities that are essential for success in the new Conceptual Age. He calls them the six “senses”:

• Design -- remember the toilet bowl brush? And Starbucks is not just selling a cup of coffee; they are providing an experience.
• Story -- products or services that provide context with emotional impact. Read the labels of many of the foods in Whole Foods grocery. You will find a story about where the ingredients came from, or what cause the profits are supporting.
• Symphony -- synthesizing, bringing components together, helping people to see the big picture and have the total experience.
• Empathy – some things cannot be outsourced.
• Play – video games are being used to recruit our kids into the army: www.americasarmy.com. They've learned how to make it fun and engage the kids. They watch activities and know when it's time to start heavily recruiting them. Our kids will tell you how important play is. We better listen, as they are the upcoming generation that will be making buying decisions.
• Meaning – people are searching for it; material goods are not enough.

Our schools are gearing education toward the SAT scores (left brain) and are slashing art, music, drama, and other right-brain activities from the budget. Although there are a few alternative public schools that are doing really great things, most schools are headed in the wrong direction.Getting ahead today requires not high tech, but high concept and high touch.

Even the chairman of GM says about succeeding, “It’s more a right brain thing…I see us in the art business.”

I'm still digesting the information from Dan's talk. I feel grateful that I was already embracing many of these concepts, based on a gut feeling about the changing shape of things to come. As a productivity consultant, I have been on the front line of observing the HUGE cost of abundance in many people's lives. I was not surprised by the factoid about how much money Americans spend storing their junk...and I am not surprised by how much time and money Americans are willing to invest to get rid of it so they can simplify their lives.

I'll comment on Dan's other book, Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself, in another posting.

Click on "comments" below. I'd love to hear your thoughts...