Tavis: The title of this book I think begs the obvious question – are we underestimating the intelligence of the American worker?

Rose: I think we do. What comes to mind is a metaphor that I know you've seen. We talk about all the new, snazzy work – computers, electronic technology – as neck-up work, and all the other kind of work – blue collar work, old industrial work, service work – people call that neck-down work.

Think of what that implies. It implies that all of the work that goes on in factories and in restaurants and all the work of our forbears didn't involve the mind at all. So that metaphor, that little saying, says it all to me. I think we have a real bias about folks who make the world go ‘round.

Tavis: And yet the flip side of that is that those persons who you say in the book we undervalue, to the extent that business enterprise can, they're finding equipment, machines, to replace what they do anyway. So there is a different kind of intelligence that they can replicate to take the place of those workers.

Rose: Right, and of course the phrase is that you build the skill into the machine. But while a lot of industry does do that, there's still this tremendous need for somebody who has a sense of how the machines work. And furthermore what we're finding is is that people who have local knowledge, knowledge about what's going on in a particular setting, in a particular place, they're still really valued.

You can't take the mind completely out of work; you simply can't…

And while some jobs can be broken down and shipped overseas, many can't. Look at all the kinds of service work that can't be shipped out because you need that presence of another human being in front of you. Whether it's your drain that's clogged up, or your hair that needs done, or you want a meal in a restaurant.

Those jobs are not exportable, right? The bigger question, I think, is how are we in the future going to think about work? Are we simply going to try to further break it down and export it, or are we going to continue to think about how we make it better. How can we organize work so that people can both be productive and do work that has meaning?

These are the kinds of questions that a lot of people wrestle with and I think that get to the heart of what this book's about, which is that we don't value enough all that it takes to do everything from make a table to make a good meal in a restaurant. And if we would, perhaps we would organize work differently, perhaps we would think of ways to help workers more fully develop themselves.