I’ve got a great book to recommend by Dan Pink called, “A Whole New Mind.” It’s a great gift for clients (I’ve given five copies away already) and my whole family is reading it.

I was given a copy while on a video shoot, by a Madeira High School teacher who uses it in his class. The subtitle, “Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the World,” sets up the theme of the book.

I grew up in an age of schooling where you read a chapter in a textbook, took notes in class, had a quiz at the end of the week and repeated until the final at the end of the semester. If you looked at someone else’s answer, it was called “cheating.” Now schools are teaching collaboration and teamwork. Projects are worked on as a group, presented to the rest of the class, and failures are re-worked to discover what went wrong and find new solutions.

Those in my high school and college who successfully learned in a left-brain environment solved problems with logic in a linear manner and became doctors, lawyers and CPAs. 21st Century leaders will solve problems by connecting patterns and configurations in spontaneous ways using the creative, right side of their brain.

One quick fun example from this book is negative space. The next time you see a FedEx truck, see if you can find the arrow within the lettering of their logo. This book is full of revelations. Barnes & Noble should have replaced their stock by now (after I bought out all they had).

A great read for summer. I’ll be re-reading this one. Let me know what you think.

By Michael Murray