IQ and EQ
When museum curators of the future assemble an exhibit on American schooling in the twentieth century, they’ll have many artifacts to choose from—chunky textbooks, dusty blackboards, one-piece injection-molded desks with wraparound writing surfaces. But one item deserves special consideration. I recommend that in the center of the exhibition, enclosed in a sparkling glass case, the curators display a well-sharpened No. 2 pencil.
If the global supply chain ever confronted a shortage of No. 2 pencils, the American education system might collapse. From the time children are able even to grasp one of these wooden writing sticks, they use them to take an endless battery of tests that purport to measure their current ability and future potential. In elementary school, we assess children’s IQs. Later on, we measure their skill in reading and math—then plot their scores against children from the rest of the state, the country, and the world. By the time kids arrive in high school, they’re preparing for the SAT, the desert they must cross to reach the promised land of a good job and a happy life. As I’ve noted, this SAT-ocracy has its virtues. But America’s test-happy system also has several weaknesses that are only recently being acknowledged.
For example, Daniel Goleman, author of the groundbreaking book Emotional Intelligence, has examined an array of academic studies that have attempted to measure how much IQ (which, like the SAT, measures pure L-Directed Thinking prowess) accounts for career success. What do you think these studies found? Grab a No. 2 pencil and take a guess.
According to the latest research, IQ accounts for what portion of career success?
a. 50 to 60 percent
b. 35 to 45 percent
c. 23 to 29 percent
d. 15 to 20 percent
The answer: between 4 and 10 percent. (Confining oneself only to the answers presented is a symptom of excessive L-Directed Thinking.) According to Goleman, IQ can influence the profession one enters. My IQ, for instance, is way too low for a career in astrophysics. But within a profession, mastery of L-Directed Thinking matters relatively little. More important are qualities that are tougher to quantify, the very kinds of high-concept and high-touch abilities I’ve been mentioning—imagination, joyfulness, and social dexterity. For instance, research by Goleman and the Hay Group has found that within organizations, the most effective leaders were funny (that is, funny ha-ha, not funny strange). These leaders had their charges laughing three times more often than their managerial counterparts.9 (And humor, as I’ll discuss in Chapter 8, depends heavily on the brain’s right hemisphere.) But where have you seen a standardized test that measures comedic aptitude?
Actually, you could find one in New Haven, Connecticut, where a Yale University psychology professor is developing an alternative SAT. Professor Robert Sternberg calls his test the Rainbow Project—and it certainly sounds like a lot more fun than the pressure-packed exam many of us endured as teenagers. In Sternberg’s test, students are given five blank New Yorker cartoons—and must craft humorous captions for each one. They must also write or narrate a story, using as their guide only a title supplied by the test givers (sample title: “The Octopus’s Sneakers”). And students are presented with various real-life challenges—arriving at a party where they don’t know anybody, or trying to convince friends to help move furniture—and asked how they’d respond. Although still in its experimental stages, the Rainbow Project has been twice as successful as the SAT in predicting how well students perform in college. What’s more, the persistent gap in performance between white students and racial minorities evident on the SAT narrows considerably on this test.
Sternberg’s test doesn’t aim to replace the SAT—only to augment it. (In fact, one of its funders is the College Board, which sponsors the SAT.) And the SAT itself recently has been revised to include a writing component. But the Rainbow Project’s very existence is revealing. “If you don’t do well on [the SAT],” Sternberg says, “everywhere you turn the access routes to success in our society are blocked.” But as more educators are recognizing, those roadblocks can exclude people with aptitudes that the SAT doesn’t measure.10
This is especially true for high-touch abilities—that is, the capacity for compassion, care, and uplift—which are becoming a key component of many occupations in the Conceptual Age. The number of jobs in the “caring professions”—counseling, nursing, and hands-on health assistance—is surging. For example, while advanced nations are exporting high-tech computer programming jobs, they are importing nurses from the Philippines and other Asian countries. As a result of this shortage, nursing salaries are climbing and the number of male registered nurses has doubled since the mid-1980s.11 We’ll learn more about this in Chapter 7.
Money and Meaning
While work is going high concept and high touch, the most significant change of the Conceptual Age might be occurring outside the office—and inside our hearts and souls. Pursuits devoted to meaning and transcendence, for instance, are now as mainstream as a double tall latte. In the United States, ten million adults now engage in some form of regular meditation, double the number a decade ago. Fifteen million practice yoga, twice the number in 1999. American popular entertainment is so awash in spiritual themes that TV Guide heralds the rise of “transcendental television.”12
The aging of U.S. baby boomers—as well as the even more notable aging of the populations of Japan and the European Union—is also accelerating this shift. “As people mature,” writes psychologist David Wolfe, “their cognitive patterns become less abstract (left-brain orientation) and more concrete (right-brain orientation) which results in a sharpened sense of reality, increased capacity for emotion, and enhancement of their sense of connectedness” (parentheses in the original).13 In other words, as individuals age, they place greater emphasis in their own lives on qualities they might have neglected in the rush to build careers and raise families: purpose, intrinsic motivation, and meaning.
Indeed, two researchers have argued that this fleet of empathic, meaning-seeking boomers has already started wading ashore. In 2000, Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson identified a subculture of fifty million Americans that they dubbed “Cultural Creatives.” Cultural Creatives, they claim, account for one-fourth of U.S adults, a population roughly the size of France. And the attributes of this cohort echo many of the elements of an R-Directed approach to life. For instance, Cultural Creatives “insist on seeing the big picture,” the authors write. “They are good at synthesizing.” And they “see women’s ways of knowing as valid: feeling empathy and sympathy for others, taking the viewpoint of the one who speaks, seeing personal experiences and first-person stories as important ways of learning, and embracing an ethic of caring.”14
Baby boomers are entering the Conceptual Age with an eye on their own chronological age. They recognize that they now have more of their lives behind them than ahead of them. And such indisputable arithmetic can concentrate the mind. After decades of pursuing riches, wealth seems less alluring. For them, and for many others in this new era, meaning is the new money.
WHAT DOES all this mean for you and me? How can we prepare ourselves for the Conceptual Age? On one level, the answer is straightforward. In a world tossed by Abundance, Asia, and Automation, in which L-Directed Thinking remains necessary but no longer sufficient, we must become proficient in R-Directed Thinking and master aptitudes that are high concept and high touch. We must perform work that overseas knowledge workers can’t do cheaper, that computers can’t do faster, and that satisfies the aesthetic, emotional, and spiritual demands of a prosperous time. But on another level, that answer is inadequate. What exactly are we supposed to do?
I’ve spent the last few years investigating that question. And I’ve distilled the answer to six specific high-concept and high-touch aptitudes that have become essential in this new era. I call these aptitudes “the six senses.” Design. Story. Symphony. Empathy. Play. Meaning. And it is to helping you understand and master these six aptitudes that I devote the second
part of this book.
INTRODUCING THE SIX SENSES
In the Conceptual Age, we will need to complement our L-Directed reasoning by mastering six essential R-Directed aptitudes. Together these six high-concept, high-touch senses can help develop the whole new mind this new era demands.
1. Not just function but also DESIGN. It’s no longer sufficient to create a product, a service, an experience, or a lifestyle that’s merely functional. Today it’s economically crucial and personally rewarding to create something that is also beautiful, whimsical, or emotionally engaging.
2. Not just argument but also STORY. When our lives are brimming with information and data, it’s not enough to marshal an effective argument. Someone somewhere will inevitably track down a counterpoint to rebut your point. The essence of persuasion, communication, and self-understanding has become the ability also to fashion a compelling narrative.
3. Not just focus but also SYMPHONY. Much of the Industrial and Information Ages required focus and specialization. But as white-collar work gets routed to Asia and reduced to software, there’s a new premium on the opposite aptitude: putting the pieces together, or what I call Symphony. What’s in greatest demand today isn’t analysis but synthesis—seeing the big picture, crossing boundaries, and being able to combine disparate pieces into an arresting new whole.
4. Not just logic but also EMPATHY. The capacity for logical thought is one of the things that makes us human. But in a world of ubiquitous information and advanced analytic tools, logic alone won’t do. What will distinguish those who thrive will be their ability to understand what makes their fellow woman or man tick, to forge relationships, and to care for others.
5. Not just seriousness but also PLAY. Ample evidence points to the enormous health and professional benefits of laughter, lightheartedness, games, and humor. There is a time to be serious, of course. But too much sobriety can be bad for your career and worse for your general well-being. In the Conceptual Age, in work and in life, we all need to play.
6. Not just accumulation but also MEANING. We live in a world of breathtaking material plenty. That has freed hundreds of millions of people from day-to-day struggles and liberated us to pursue more significant desires: purpose, transcendence, and spiritual fulfillment.
Design. Story. Symphony. Empathy. Play. Meaning. These six senses increasingly will guide our lives and shape our world. Many of you no doubt welcome such a change. But to some of you, this vision might seem dreadful—a hostile takeover of normal life by a band of poseurs in black unitards who will leave behind the insufficiently arty and emotive. Fear not. The high-concept, high-touch abilities that now matter most are fundamentally human attributes. After all, back on the savannah, our cave-person ancestors weren’t taking SATs or plugging numbers into spreadsheets. But they were telling stories, demonstrating empathy, and designing innovations. These abilities have always comprised part of what it means to be human. But after a few generations in the Information Age, these muscles have atrophied. The challenge is to work them back into shape. (That’s the idea behind the Portfolio section at the end of each chapter. This collection of tools, exercises, and further reading materials will send you on your way to developing a whole new mind.) Anyone can master the six Conceptual Age senses. But those who master them first will have a huge advantage. So let’s get started.
Four
DESIGN
The late Gordon MacKenzie, a longtime creative force at Hallmark Cards, once told a story that quickly entered the folklore among designers. MacKenzie was a public-spirited fellow who often visited schools to talk about his profession. He’d open each talk by telling students he was an artist. Then he’d look around the classroom, notice the artwork on the walls, and wonder aloud who created the masterpieces.
“How many artists are there in the room?” MacKenzie would ask. “Would you please raise your hands?”
The responses always followed the same pattern. In kindergarten and first-grade classes, every kid thrust a hand in the air. In second-grade classes, about three-fourths of the kids raised their hands, though less eagerly. In third grade, only a few children held up their hands. And by sixth grade, not a single hand went up. The kids just looked around to see if anybody in the class would admit to what they’d now learned was deviant behavior.
Designers and other creative types repeated MacKenzie’s tale—often over drinks, usually in a wistful tone—to show how little the wider world valued their work. And when MacKenzie related the story himself to large audiences, people would slowly shake their heads. What a shame, they would mutter. Too bad, they would cluck. But their reaction was, at most, a lament.
In fact, they should have been outraged. They should have raced to their local school and demanded an explanation. They should have consoled their children, confronted the principal, and ousted the school board. Because MacKenzie’s story is not some teary saga about underfunded art programs.
It is a cautionary tale for our times.
The wealth of nations and the well-being of individuals now depend on having artists in the room. In a world enriched by abundance but disrupted by the automation and outsourcing of white-collar work, everyone, regardless of profession, must cultivate an artistic sensibility. We may not all be Dali or Degas. But today we must all be designers.
It’s easy to dismiss design—to relegate it to mere ornament, the prettifying of places and objects to disguise their banality. But that is a serious misunderstanding of what design is and why it matters—especially now. John Heskett, a scholar of the subject, explains it well: “[D]esign, stripped to its essence, can be defined as the human nature to shape and make our environment in ways without precedent in nature, to serve our needs and give meaning to our lives.”1
Look up from this page and cast your eyes around the room you’re in. Everything in your midst has been designed. The typeface of these letters. The book you hold in your hands. The clothes that cover your body. The piece of furniture on which you’re sitting. The building that surrounds you. These things are part of your life because someone else imagined them and brought them into being.
Design is a classic whole-minded aptitude. It is, to borrow Heskett’s terms, a combination of utility and significance. A graphic designer must whip up a brochure that is easy to read. That’s utility. But at its most effective, her brochure must also transmit ideas or emotions that the words themselves cannot convey. That’s significance. A furniture designer must craft a table that stands up properly and supports its weight (utility). But the table must also possess an aesthetic appeal that transcends functionality (significance). Utility is akin to L-Directed Thinking; significance is akin to R-Directed Thinking. And, as with those two thinking styles, today utility has become widespread, inexpensive, and relatively easy to achieve—which has increased the value of significance.
“I think designers are the alchemists of the future.”
—RICHARD KOSHALEK,
president,
Art Center College
of Design
Design—that is, utility enhanced by significance—has become an essential aptitude for personal fulfillment and professional success for at least three reasons. First, thanks to rising prosperity and advancing technology, good design is now more accessible than ever, which allows more people to partake in its pleasures and become connoisseurs of what was once specialized knowledge. Second, in an age of material abundance, design has become crucial for most modern businesses—as a means of differentiation and as a way to create new markets. Third, as more people develop a design sensibility, we’ll increasingly be able to deploy design for its ultimate purpose: changing the world.
I saw all three of these reasons converge one brisk February morning, half a block from Independence Hall in downtown Philadelphia, at a place that Gordon MacKenzie must be smiling down on from heaven.
IT'S 10 A.M. in Mike Reingold’s design studio. As soothing music is piped through the air, one student is posing on a chair that
sits atop a table, while her nineteen classmates sketch her form on their large drawing pads. The scene is straight out of a tony arts academy, except for one thing: the young men and women sketching away are all tenth-graders, and most of them come from some of the roughest neighborhoods in Philadelphia.
Welcome to CHAD—the Charter High School for Architecture and Design—a tuition-free Philadelphia public school that is demonstrating the power of design to expand young minds, while also puncturing the myth that design is the province of a select few.
Before they came to CHAD as ninth-graders, most of these students had never taken an art class, and one-third read and did math at a third-grade level. But now, if they follow the route of those in the senior class, 80 percent of them will go on to two- or four-year colleges—and some of them will enroll at places like the Pratt Institute and the Rhode Island School of Design.
When it was founded in 1999 as the country’s first public high school with a design-centered curriculum, CHAD’s goal wasn’t merely to train a new generation of designers and to diversify a largely white profession. (Three out of four CHAD students are African-American; 88 percent are racial minorities.) The aim was also to use design to teach core academic subjects. Students here spend 100 minutes each day in a design studio. They take courses in architecture, industrial design, color theory, and painting. But equally important, the school marries design to math, science, English, social studies, and other subjects. For example, when they study the Roman Empire, rather than only read about the Roman water delivery process, the students build a model aqueduct. “They’re learning to bring disparate things together to a solution. That’s what designers do,” says Claire Gallagher, a former architect who previously served as the school’s supervisor of curriculum and instruction. “Design is interdisciplinary. We’re producing people who can think holistically.”
A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future Page 6
