I just finished reading Daniel Pink’s book, “A Whole New Mind.” This masterpiece’s major premise is the 21st Century will demand less left brain thinking and additional right brain thinking. More design and less function. More story and less argument. More symphony and less focus. More empathy and less logic. More play and less seriousness. More meaning and less accumulation.

Whether Pink realizes it or not, he could have titled his book “A Whole New Inclusive Mind” since his 6 new senses, follow a path way toward inclusion.

Design
According to Pink, design is a marriage between utility and significance. It demands a choir instead of soloist. It gets its energy from abundance rather than scarcity.
 
Designers change things. Inclusion advocates are change agents as well in their roles as social architects that help us visualize a brighter tomorrow
 
Story
Pink reasons that story is the scaffolding that holds the human experience together. In these days where meaningful and meaningless stories invade our lives from every electronic gadget imaginable, Pink suggests that someone must take this data and put it into context for us. He predicts storytelling will force us to examine our own personal narratives and pay more attention to each other’s stories, particularly those in a different voice.
 
Symphony
In this volatile, uncertain, constantly changing, ambiguous, white-water world we inhabit, Pink points out we will need folks who can cross boundaries by seeing things most of us don’t perceive. They will achieve great things by connecting with people who do not act, look, talk, think, work, vote and worship like them.
 
These conductors will master the role of metaphor maker as they make sense of the dissonant messages that invade our lives in this Conceptual Age. They will have to be masters of sleeping with strange bed fellows and dancing with the devil, as they take the negative energy of a self-interested world and help us find meaning in symbols that unite rather than divide.
 
Empathy
Pink predicts as more of our work is assumed by knowledge workers in developing economies and as artificial intelligence corners the market on linear thinking and IQ, the 21st Century workplace will be driven by the high-octane fuel of empathy. The unique ability to be genuinely receptive of another person by suspending judgement and assuming a position of curiosity regarding their differences through emotional intelligence.
 
The feelings economy will require a new kind of leader who can persuade and influence people who have different beliefs, biases and behavior. Less emphasis will be placed on transacting the work through bureaucracies that make us act and look the same and more attention will be paid to transformation by letting our people go to find mastery, autonomy and purpose.
 
Play
The Conceptual Age will usher in a new kind of workplace motivation that is an important pillar to being inclusive-not taking ourselves to seriously. Pink forecasts that play, laughter, humor and joyfulness will drive creativity and innovation as we move from the role of our jobs to the soul of our work. Play will enable better social emotional functioning in workplaces inundated with differences of all kinds.
 
Meaning
Millennials have already given us a sneak preview of a meaning oriented work experience. For our world’s largest generation, work is not about a pay check but a meaning check. What better way to find meaning at work but to have a bevy of different viewpoints, opinions, values and attitudes around the table about what gives people meaning.
 
Pink may be correct in that right-brainers may rule the future. Let’s hope they don’t forget in that very same side of the brain, rests most of their potential to be inclusive. A skill that if they embrace, will give them a life time appointment in a connection starved world that needs them more than ever.