Why Creative Right-Brain Skills will Become More Important for Success in the Future

Although Daniel Pink admits to himself that he is a left-brain person, he nevertheless says that right-brain skills are becoming increasingly more important in today's society. He is the author of the book "A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future" and more recently the book "Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us"

He uses the metaphore of left-brain to represent a linear logical skill-set that includes writing computer code and crunching numbers. These are the skills that used to matter most in the workplace and are skills that have been associated as skills that one should learn to excell at in school in order to be successful. On the other hand, the right brain is more holistic, creative, and sees the big picture. In short, the left is the analytical. And and the right is the creative.

Although left brain skills are still important, the tides are shifting such that right brain skills will become more important in the future.  This is due to three factors (the three A's): abundance, automation, and Asia.

First let's talk about abundance.  We live in a society where we have technological abundance. There are many MP3 players out there.  There are no shortage of companies that can make MP3 players.  Although, the engineering skills needed to build a MP3 player is a left brain skill; all of the MP3 players, it is the Apple's iPod that has become so successful. Why? Because of its aesthetics, design, user ease of use -- and these are all right brain skills.

Left brain skills such as computer coding, accounting, and tax calculations, and other routine tasks can now often be done by a computer faster and less expensively.  Left brain skills can be automated.  Right brain skills can not as easily. 

Left brain skills can also be outsourced overseas to say Asia where knowledge workers can perform the same work at a much lower cost.

Daniel Pink summarize these three factors in an interview on Ophra (video here) when he says, "In order to make it today, you have to do work that is hard to out-source, hard to automate, and that delivers on this new imperatives of this very abundant age".

In the Ophra conversation, they alluded to the fact that the right-brain may be the seat of the soul. As evidence, they mentioned how Jill Bolte Taylor found nirvana when a stroke had disabled her left hemisphere. You can read more about Jill Bolte Taylor's insight here.

Pink makes the analogy that the left brain thinks in the "past" and in the "future". Whereas, the right brain thinks in the "present".

Daniel Pink also had talked to Michael Krasny on a Forum radio program linked here as to why right-brain skills becoming more crucial.

In his book, Daniel Pink mentions the six right-brain skills as being...
1. Design
2. Story
3. Symphony
4. empathy
5. Play
6. meaning

Daniel Pink also talks about abundance, Asia, and automation at the Aspen Ideas Festival 2006 which you can see in this video. He provides some persuasive numbers and arguments and make it humorous as well.