Tag Archives: A Whole New Mind
Oh, the Stories I Tell Myself
Cheryl offers: This is embarrassing to admit, but I’m going to do it. I just tried to register for First Friday Book Synopsis only to see the computer screen read “SOLD OUT”. I saw this on my computer screen and thought “What? How can that be?” Now for those of you who are not familiar with this event, it occurs every month on the first Friday, just like the name states. Therefore, I know this happens each month and since I attended last month’s event, I even knew which books were going to be showcased tomorrow. I’m in a real pickle here folks. I’ve been promoting this with some key executives at my company and there are 3 who want to attend tomorrow along with me. How did this happen I ask myself? I found solace in Daniel Pink’s book, A Whole New Mind. When Pink describes the value of telling stories and how much longer we all remember stories than mere data, he says “Story represents a pathway to understanding that doesn’t run through the left side (that would be the logical side) of the brain.” Oh perfect! I was telling myself the story “I know I need to do this and I know I can wait until the last minute. It’s OK because it’s always been OK.” If I had thought about this logically, I would have taken action to ensure things happened smoothly. Lesson learned again: Be careful who I listen to, especially when it’s myself!
A moment or two with Daniel Pink (with a credo from Harrison Ford, and appreciation for conversations facilitated by NPR)
Dan Pink
Daniel Pink, author of Free Agent Nation (which I have read and presented), A Whole New Mind (which I have read) and his new book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (which I am reading, and will present), is speaking in Dallas tonight. I plan to attend, so I thought I would read up a little on him.
Here are two items, unrelated to each other, from his blog:
Item #1: A credo from Harrison Ford (from an interview in Parade):
“When I was a carpenter, I once worked with this Russian lady architect. I would tell her, ‘Look, I’m terribly sorry, but I want to change that a half inch,’ and she would say, ‘No limit for better.’ I think that is a worthy credo. You keep on going until you get it as close to being right as the time and patience of others will allow.”
I think you might recognize this guy...
No limit for better. Good advice for a Monday.
Item #2: And a reminder of the great value of conversations on NPR (including our local Think host, Krys Boyd):
The way ideas spread is pretty simple: Conversation by conversation. One engaged person talks with another engaged person — and out of that daisy chain of human interactions come new ways to navigate our lives.
One of the best and most enduring forums for conversation is public radio. And in the past week, I’ve had the good fortune to talk about the ideas in Drive with several National Public Radio journalists. Here’s a sampler:
1. Morning Edition. A talk with Madeline Brand.
2. Talk of the Nation. Host Neal Conan invited listeners to tell their stories about motivation at work — which brought forth examples of the very good and the very bad.
3. Local programs. Some of the best journalism in this country goes on at the local level. Visiting with hosts like Washington’s Kojo Nnamdi, Philadelphia’s Marty Moss-Coane, Dallas’s Krys Boyd, and the Twin Cities’ Kerri Miller, I learned a lot about both the possibilities and limits of these ideas.
If, er, you’d like to join the conversation, please do…’
Daniel Pink – a name to add to your “ I should read his books” list. And now, now that I’ve discovered it, I have to add his blog to my reading list. So many books; so many blogs; so little time…
Conduct your own Performance Review — An incomplete Blog Post related to Daniel Pink and his new book Drive
First, my apology. This is an incomplete blog post, prompted by too brief a listen to an excellent interview. (It’s a matter of when I was in my car). Krys Boyd, KERA interviewer extraordinaire/host of Think, interviewed Daniel Pink today. I only heard a few of the moments, and I have not had time to listen to the full broadcast from the web site
Daniel Pink
But, here is a nugget worth adopting. Pink said that most performance reviews are not all that helpful – too seldom, too stressed. Instead, he recommends conducting your own performance review, every week. He said that you should “call yourself into the office,” and conduct the review, asking yourself questions such as:
• did you reach your goals for the week?
• did you set challenging new goals for the next week?
• did you work on developing new skills this week?
It sounds like a terrific idea, and goes along with the deliberate practice/10,000 hour concept quite nicely.
Anyway, check out the interview at the Think website. (You can listen to the interview after they post it. I don’t know exactly how long it takes, but yesterday’s interview with Paul Nicklin is now up, so it is certainly up the day after the interview).
And, Pink’s new book, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, is in our “probably will present” list for the First Friday Book Synopsis for later this year.
Vote for Androgynous Leadership
Cheryl offers: There’s a lot of debate in the media right now over whether or not more women in the upper ranks of the financial leadership files would have prevented the current economic situation. In most of them, women and men seem to get “labeled” with all kinds of characteristics, usually stated as if they were fact based on profound research; usually they are not. Samuel Taylor Coleridge once said. “The truth is a great mind must be androgynous” and I tend to agree with him. This infers a great mind would have both female and male characteristics (the best of both worlds so to speak). In Daniel H. Pink’s book, “A Whole New Mind – Why Right Brainers Will Rule the Future” he proposes the idea we are moving from the Information Age, dominated by an economy and society built on logical, linear, and computer-like capabilities (think left brain hemisphere and robotic traders on Wall Street) to one called the Conceptual Age characterized by inventive, empathetic, big picture thinking found primarily in the right hemisphere of the brain. Hmmm…makes me wonder if he’s not correct! How different would our world be if the financial world had not been driven so much by numbers and had instead considered the long-term big picture with an empathetic view on the potential impact on those being affected? This is neither a male nor female view of the world. It’s androgynous and requires the whole brain to be engaged. Research has repeatedly proven more women in upper ranks of leadership will produce better financial and qualitative results. I vote for androgynous leadership rather than new financial laws!
Sara is out of the country on business.
