Left Meets Right Brain: The Future of Your Job (Plus)

If a $500-a-month accountant in India doesn't swipe your accounting job, TurboTax will. Now that computers can emulate left-hemisphere skills, we'll have to rely ever more on our right hemispheres. - Revenge of the Right Brain, Wired article, February 2005, by Daniel Pink

"It's interesting, reading your blog I wouldn't have ever guessed that you were a geek," says Jon Strande. He's a geek at heart too and applauds my choice for the 100 Bloggers book project, Jon Udell. Udell is one of those been-blogging-forever-bloggers that inspired me to drop the whiny "but I have no time" excuse and get going with my first blog. Just a brief conversation with him at Infoworld's CTO Summit is where I realized the blog wasn't actually part of his InfoWorld responsiblities, he simply made the time and even the whole work/life distinction was murky. That's what passion does for you. (Or is it does to you?)

One of the dozens of reasons I started blogging was to showcase my expertise in foreseeing emerging technology trends to a wider circle than just a few co-worker. If you're a good searcher, you may turn up more geekdom posts on behalf of Pivia's (pre-acquisition) corporate blog.

Todd said last week in Seattle, "We [readers] wouldn't know what to make of it if you did write a post on tech trends."

How did I stray so far off the tech beat? I grew more and more interested in sharing the patterns tying together my eclectic interests and delving into The Intersection where innovation emerges.

In addition, after a while I was tired of getting a phone call after each technology reference. "What... I can't mention Google either?" Those muzzling NDAs (non-disclosure agreements - I'm trying to use less Silicon Valley and blogosphere jargon) from clients turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to my blogging because....

[W]e're progressing yet again - to a society of creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers. - Daniel Pink

Jon Strande continues, "You have obviously been well schooled in eastern thought and write with a wonderful sensibility that showcases your compassion and humanity."

It is impossible for a man to learn what he thinks he already knows. - Epictetus

Thanks, but ummm...it's been much more about about unlearning than about schooling. But that's a subject for another post. Synchronistically, Strande then recommends the Wired article, Revenge of the Right Brain, that I've been sidetracked from mentioning here earlier (and I pointed it to Jory just minutes before Jon's email).

Beneath the nervous clatter of our half-completed decade stirs a slow but seismic shift. The Information Age we all prepared for is ending. Rising in its place is what I call the Conceptual Age, an era in which mastery of abilities that we've often overlooked and undervalued marks the fault line between who gets ahead and who falls behind...

If the Industrial Age was built on people's backs, and the Information Age on people's left hemispheres, the Conceptual Age is being built on people's right hemispheres. We've progressed from a society of farmers to a society of factory workers to a society of knowledge workers. And now we're progressing yet again - to a society of creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers, and meaning makers.

But let me be clear: The future is not some Manichaean landscape in which individuals are either left-brained and extinct or right-brained and ecstatic - a land in which millionaire yoga instructors drive BMWs and programmers scrub counters at Chick-fil-A. Logical, linear, analytic thinking remains indispensable. But it's no longer enough.

To flourish in this age, we'll need to supplement our well-developed high tech abilities with aptitudes that are "high concept" and "high touch." High concept involves the ability to create artistic and emotional beauty, to detect patterns and opportunities, to craft a satisfying narrative, and to come up with inventions the world didn't know it was missing. High touch involves the capacity to empathize, to understand the subtleties of human interaction, to find joy in one's self and to elicit it in others, and to stretch beyond the quotidian in pursuit of purpose and meaning. - - Adapted from Daniel Pink's (eagerly, very much anticipated new book), A Whole New Mind: Moving from the Information Age to the Conceptual Age

These days, this is the type of trend forecasting I like writing about most. Note that Pink is not saying any one group of nationality is better at this left and right brain melding. I see talented individuals will form their own networks that transcend national and cultural boundaries. For instance, see if you can spot the pattern in this post about a highly lauded technology book.

I developed my right side and emotional capacities not out of gleefully foreseeing the future competitive landscape spread before me. I was once quite lopsided. There came a point where problems couldn't simply be figured out, calculated, analyzed and sifted. In my own life, "lopsided" was an euphemism for unhappy.

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. - Anais Nin

So if the thought of your livelihood going to India leaves you unfazed and stone cold - perhaps the intriguing thought that happiness is part of the whole mind package might be more up your alley. So, why don't more people bother if it's so rewarding? That's way way beyond the scope of this one teeny post. Short summary: Homeostatis. Commonly known as: Comfort Zone (familiar misery trumps unfamiliar possibility - even if it includes joy). And throw in the Jonah Complex in there too. But enough excuses already.

In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. - Eric Hoffer

It doesn't work to leap a twenty-foot chasm in two ten-foot jumps. - American proverb

The important thing is this: To be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become. - Charles Dubois

Comments

[Jory Des Jardins]

I love the left hemisphere/right hemisphere argument. I prefer to say it this way, it's a new day for the people with soft skills. And you said it beautifully here and at NewComm: people will have to unlearn the formality they took years to get right on the press release.

[Jille]

I just love this post. It gives me hope that what I've been struggling towards after too many traumatic changes, after giving up the law when I couldn't stay awake, may just lie ahead in the not too distant future. And the Anais Nin quote has always been one of my favorites

[Jon Husband]

Telles reflections bien pensees ! zut, alors ...

Hey, evelyn .. have you by any chance ever read the book Digital Aboriginals

http://www.digitalboriginal.com

For some reason this post reminded me of it ... the style of the book was a bit breezy, but the content generally coherent and consistent ... what really interested me were/are their day-long immersive experiences. I almost went once (to one in the Seattle Art Museum), but couldn't afford it.

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

Jory, Unlearning is actually quite liberating, but that's another can of worms. Just for the record, I don't advocate left OR right, but integrating both.

Jille, I wish most change wasn't foisted upon us, but unfortunately (I'm particularly stubborn I suppose) I found that usually did the trick for me even though it was quite painful. (One day I will share more of my story in a book form.) Not only did I recover but it steered me right smack in the direction of my purpose, (which I had been running from previously).

John, Yes I have - I like the book very much.

And folks whose names don't start with J can comment as well...

[Beth]

I love your blog, your posts. Just one wee complaint: I often find myself saying "huh" when you make a big intellectual leap from one point to another. I know I'm not as smart as you and I hate feeling dumb reading your posts trying desperately to understand what's been left out. Perhaps when you're writing you could think about putting more of the stuff in that you leave out, leave unsaid for people like me who need a little more help reading between the lines. Thank you and keep up the great work.

[Dustin]

Evelyn,

Great insights. I loved the Wired article. Saw it mentioned on TP's blog, then followed your link over here. Pink also had a great article in the Harvard Business Review (The MFA is the New MBA). Maybe I love his work just because it is reassuring that I'm on the right track.

I love this statement in your additional comment, "Not only did I recover but it steered me right smack in the direction of my purpose, (which I had been running from previously"

Two books that really helped me "run smack into" the direction of my purpose are "Orbiting the Giant Hairball" By Gordon MacKenzie and "The Gift of Being Yourself" by David Benner. Great reads.

[fCh]

Mr. Pink's conclusion is at most wishful on his part. I wish his argument were more left-brain endowed...

According to the author, today we offshore/automate left-brain type of work, yet what makes he think we won't offshore/automate the right-brain type of work tomorrow? And, in a couple of days, we'll outscource all thinking. Bankruptcy is in the sight...

[Evelyn Rodriguez]

fCh - I agree and said something similar earlier (I'll dig up post in a sec). In fact, those in the East may be actually be much better at integrating the left and right brain from centuries of philsophical inclinations in that direction.

I just got a galley proof of A Whole New Mind so we'll see where Pink takes his argument. I doubt the book is about the U.S. as a competitive entity as a whole. Rather the focus is on an individual level - how do you become 'un-commoditizable' (I think I made that up) and flexibly thrive no matter where the markets head? You never want to be in a position where the only variable is price - that's the definition of a commodity. And most right brain stuff is hard to commoditize.

Post I mentioned above:
http://evelynrodriguez.typepad.com/crossroads_dispatches/2004/09/east_meets_west_2.html