Dan Pink is this left brain nerd who romanticizes charts and data. He proudly claims to have been in the percent of the law school class that made the top 90% possible. He talks about data visualization like it’s art.
But he fundamentally gets a major shift that’s changing what it means to be talented in this economy. In books, at TED, and last week at an Innovation Summit I attended, he’s proclaimed – it’s creative ideas and design thinking that determine who moves ahead and who falls behind in today’s economy.
We live and work in an economy of abundance. 98% of households have color televisions. 88% have mobile phones – each one holding more computing power than existed in the world when Pink’s grandparents were his age.
Overcoming that challenge of abundance to create growth takes artistic, cognitive skill. Bold, inventive acts. Today, there’s a premium on giving people something they didn’t know they were missing.
How many of you already have an iPad? In the first 6 weeks, a million of them were sold.
How many of those people do you think thought they were missing an iPad 6 months ago? In an economy of abundance, it’s invention that makes us desire something new.
To get to those big, bold ideas we need right brain thinking.
The left brain has all the essential skills. Logic, linear, sequential, spreadsheeting abilities. Essential, but not sufficient. Today’s economy demands the skills of the right brain. Artistry, empathy, inventiveness. The right brain deals with context rather than text; synthesizes rather than analyzes.
How do you inspire people to think that way?
We don’t need sweeter carrots and sharper sticks, Pink said. We need a whole new approach, an approach that puts more stock in intrinsic motivation. He identified three elements that comprise a new way of thinking about management. People are motivated to right brain thinking by:
- Autonomy: The urge to direct our own lives.
- Mastery: The desire to get better at something that matters.
- Purpose: The yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.
That all sounds a lot like how we work in the lab. Self directed projects, ample resources, and the opportunity to change an industry.
In the video below, Pink debunks a lot of the myths about what motivates us to contribute right-brained thinking.
Read more about what works in today’s economy in my continued coverage of Pink’s talk:
On Advergirl: The India problem (or: why we all have accountant blood on our hands)
On Brand Liberators: Advice Dan Pink gave me
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