Copyright: 2007
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
ISBN: 978-1-59139-912-4

In Five Minds for the Future, Howard Gardner explores the mental capacities that he believes will be crucial to the success of individuals in the future.  He explores these five concepts in a multi-faceted manner, looking at not only the educational ramifications but also the continuing improvement of the mind in the work place.  Gardner manages to skirt many touchy political issues but his liberal bias comes out from time to time (as in his comparison of Jon Steward to Ralph Nader.)  The book is thought provoking and very well written, and while I normally avoid reading psychologists and philosophers, Gardner is a psychologist who manages to approach his subject matter without the usual high-brow approach of his peers. 

 The Five Minds

To quickly get to the core of the book, the five minds that Gardner discusses are as follows:

  1. The Disciplined Mind
  2. The Synthesizing Mind
  3. The Creative Mind
  4. The Respectful Mind
  5. The Ethical Mind

Each of these minds has a special meaning and purpose which I will touch on briefly.  The disciplined mind is one that has chosen a discipline, profession or craft and has developed a mastery in that field.  This involves, as Gardner and others have indicated, a minimum of a decade to accomplish in most cases.  Once a mastery of one or more fields has been achieved, one can become a synthesizer of information, although we shouldn't wait that long to start learning these skills. Then moving beyond existing knowledge, you can begin to come up with creative ideas.  The last two minds are more mindful of the global environment in which we live, whereby we will be required to work alongside and with people who are very different from us.  This will require a respecful mind.  The ethical mind goes a bit further and requires that we envision our place in the world and how we can accomplish "good work". 

Empires

"The empires of the future will be empires of the mind."  -- Winston Churchill

Globalization is a recurring theme throughout Five Minds and Gardner identifies four trends of globalization that are pertinent:

  1. Ease of movement of capital around the world.
  2. Ease of movement of humans around the world.
  3. Ease of movement of information around the world.
  4. Ease of movement of pop culture around the world.

When viewed as a whole, this list gives plenty of food for thought about new ways of doing things.  For instance, many years ago (before the printing press was invented) the need for rote memorization was great.  However, now that information can easily be written down and distributed, both through printed books and electronic means, the skill of memorization has a lower priority.  Likewise in this age of search engines and pocket computers, the need for retaining massive amounts of information in your memory is a less valued skill than the skill of being able to nimbly scour the information troves and retrieve the nuggets for which you are searching. 

The same thinking applies to the means of amassing and utilizing capital,  cultivating and retaining human resources and understanding and tapping into open markets. 

Discipline

Gardner identifies four steps to a disciplined mind:

  1. Identify truly important topics or concepts
  2. Spend a significant amount of time studying them
  3. Approach the topic in a variety of ways
  4. Set up "performances of understanding" (tests of your advancement)
Synthesis

Gardner identifies four steps to developing a synthesizing mind:

  1. A goal - statement of what you are trying to achieve with the synthesis
  2. A starting point or seed idea
  3. Selection of a strategy, method and an approach
  4. Generate drafts and collect feedback

Creativity and cold fusion

Creativity occurs, according to Gardner's paraphrase of Csikszentmihalyi, "when -- and only when -- an individual or group product generated in a particular domain is recognized by the relevant field as innovative and, in turn, sooner or later, exerts a genuine, detectable influence on subsequent work in that domain."  This flies in the face of the "one size fits all" creativity thinking popularized by Edward de Bono.  Rather than creativity being something that anyone can generate any time and any place, it appears that creativity is the result of an individual, in a particular domain, in a given social field all combining to generate a new idea or way of thinking about an old problem.

 Occassionally however that triad can produce some unexpected, and inaccurate results!  Take the case of Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, physicists at the University of Utah.  They conducted some experiments in 1989 in which they believed they had discovered "cold fusion"... a low temperature atomic reaction capable of releasing massive amounts of energy safely.  Unfortunately for them (and the world!) they came to some incorrect conclusions and in their haste to announce their discovery did not adequately verify their results.  In the weeks and months that followed, their reputation suffered greatly as other scientists began to debunk their experiment.

It is incumbent on the "creator" to make sure that his or her work is complete and is validated by other experts in the domain before claiming to have discovered any new truths.

Synthesizers vs. Creators

Gardner compares and contrasts the normal character traits found in synthesizers with those found in creators.  The fact that these differences exists does not mean that one is limited to one activity or the other.  Rather it is a way of looking at people and understanding their tendencies better. 

Synthesizers tend to seek order, equilibrium and closure.  Creative types on the other hand are motivated by uncertainty, surprise, continual challenges and disequilibrium.  I can look at people I know and see these character traits in them... and in myself if I am honest.  Understanding which traits lend themselves to which activity is helpful in cultivating the mind that can both synthesize existing information and create new ideas. 

Politicians and Respect

I personally enjoyed Gardner's writing on the topic of respect.  It was refreshing to read an account that deals with issues such as political correctness in a remarkably down to earth manner.  Gardner does not do the typical "academic" thing and embrace one side or the other, but rather he frames the issue in a pros and cons framework that lets the reader see both sides of the issue. 

One key point that I found relevant was his observation about politicians with regard to their constant talk about respecting people of races and cultures other than their own.  He points out that while politicians may say a lot of things in their speeches, the true test of their respect comes out in who they choose to fill key positions.  It is less important to see who is standing behind them while they give a speech than it is to see who occupies the offices of their closest advisors. 

Gardner did not go into great detail regarding the make up of the Cabinet over the last two Presidents but it only takes a bit of research to find some interesting thoughts.  Looking at the record of President Clinton and President Bush it makes for an interesting comparison between what the men said and what they did.  According to a USA Today story in 2004, President Bush, in his first term, managed to appoint a more diverse set of people to Cabinet posts than any President in history.  He did it with no fanfare, no promise to "create an administration that looks like America" as President Clinton did.  Instead President Bush simply appointed people that he felt were qualified for the posts.  I wonder how much of the Clinton's speeches are "just speeches" and how many minority people have been duped into thinking that President Bush is a racist because of the spin that politicians manage to put on stories such as this?

What does it mean to have a Respectful Mind?

In part, a person with a respectful mind will do the following things according to Gardner:

  1. Give people the benefit of the doubt
  2. Avoid group thinking
  3. Reserve censure of individuals
  4. Remain open to the possibility that they might be wrong
  5. Look for reasons to respect someone, even if that person has previously lost their respect
What is Ethical Work?

Gardner talks about the difference between "respect" and "ethics" this way.  Respect deals with the interactions between people.  Ethics deals with how you view your role in society and the world as a whole.  With that thought in mind, he places a great emphasis on doing "good work".  What is good work?  It is work that:

  1. Is excellent in quality
  2. Is responsible
  3. Is engaging

An ethical person will seek out good work and will seek to do good work wherever they may be.  Gardner is part of an interesting project found at GoodWorkProject.org. 

Conclusion

While I certainly don't agree with the political leanings of Gardner, I found his book to be intriguing and thought provoking.  Viewing the mind as something that needs to be molded for our current and future generations is an important thing for anyone, particularly those of us who are parents and / or teachers and are responsible for young people.  I would recommend this book to anyone seeking to improve their own thinking as well as to anyone in the position of influencing young people.