My Review 2/5

Would not recommend this book. The author seems to almost have a condescending tone towards anyone who doesn’t see his way of thinking. The content feels a re-hash of more established works. I picked this book because it was on the recommend reading list at work.

The lessons are as follows “Abundance, Asia, Automation”. Know what those three have in common? Neither did I. The author asserts that white-collar jobs are now being exported overseas to ‘Indians, and others who lack the creative thinking of Americans’. Your eligibility for employment is to provide a service that a computer can’t master with a decision tree and can’t be replaced by low paying wages overseas. This book was also published in 2007 and actually cites Lehman Brothers as a pillar of economic activity. This book suffers from the optimism that comes from the end of a bull run.

As America has moved up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs it’s no longer enough that products and services be utilitarian, they must also be emotional and an experience. The left/right brain analogy is very poor as the book is more about how to use hard technical skills with a humane touch. See examples of how Dr.s are sued for bedside manner not technical ability. Further this book ignores huge swathes of the population that live below the poverty line. This book should be title ‘how to succeed once you’ve had the privilege of being born in a first world country to a white upper-middle class family in a low-crime urban environment’.

America had it’s industrial age, it’s knowledge worker age, and now it has it’s conceptual age. Where the best ideas and designs rule the world. Oh wait we still need those lowly ‘left brain thinkers’ to actually get stuff done, but they will be a lower status worker than the creator and inventor. The valid points of the book are known and best stated by John Maxwell. “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”. Yes I agree that products and services no longer compete on price and utility, but also on design (see iPhone). This book did not do a good job of crafting a compelling narrative.

Date Read

2016/03/08

Date Added

2016/05/31

Goodreads book information

A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel H. Pink

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6286510

Bookshelves: business

Author’s Note

Initial md Generated using https://github.com/jsr6720/goodreads-csv-to-md

Daniel H. Pink, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future, Brilliance Audio 2009 (Audio CD)1

Significant revisions

tags: 2016, book, review, Pink, business

  • Apr 22nd, 2024 Converted to jekyll markdown format and copied to personal site
  • Mar 8th, 2016 Originally published on goodreads

EOF/Footnotes

  1. ISBN: =”1423377001” ↩