 | Summaries and Customer Reviews are supplied by Amazon.com | There are thousands of books about thinking. But there are very few books that provide clear how-to information that can actually help you think better. Think Better is about Productive Thinking — why it’s important, how it works, and how to use it at work, at home, and at play. Productive Thinking is a game changer — a practical, easy-to-learn, repeatable process that helps people understand more clearly, think more creatively, and plan more effectively. It's based on the thinking strategies that people we celebrate for their creativity have been using for centuries. Tim Hurson brings Productive Thinking out of the closet and presents it in a way that makes it easy for anyone to grasp and use — so you can think better, work better, and do better in every aspect of your life. Think Better demonstrates how you can start with an intractable technical problem, an unmet consumer need, or a gaping chasm in your business strategy and, by following a clearly defined, practical thinking process, arrive at a robust, innovative solution. Many companies use the Productive Thinking model to generate fresh solutions for tough business problems, and many individuals rely on it to solve pressing personal problems. The principles you'll find in Think Better are straight-forward: separate your thinking into creative thinking and critical thinking; stay with the question; strive for the “third third” by generating lots and lots of ideas; and look for unexpected connections. The model consists of six interlocking steps: Step 1:What's Going On? Explore and truly understand the challenge. Step 2: What's Success? Envision the ideal outcome and establish success criteria. Step 3: What's the Question? Pinpoint the real problem or opportunity. Step 4: Generate Answers List many possible solutions. Step 5: Forge the Solution Decide which solution is best. Then make it better. Step 6: Align Resources Create an action plan. Tim Hurson starts by explaining how we all build inner barriers to effective thinking. He identifies our habits of thinking that severely limit our behavior, from “monkey mind” to “gator brain.” Then he demonstrates how to overcome these barriers. More than anything, productive thinking is an attitude that will let you look at problems and convert them into opportunities. At the end of this disciplined brainstorming process, you'll have a concrete action plan, complete with timelines and deadlines. The book is filled with many of Hurson's original brainstorming tools that will empower you to generate, organize, and process ideas. For example, you can identify your best ideas using the five C's: Cull, Cluster, Combine, Clarify and Choose. And you can transform an embryonic idea into a robust solution with POWER, which stands for Positives, Objections, What else?, Enhancements and Remedies. To create the future, you first must be able to imagine it. Productive thinking is a way to help you do that. |
Average Customer Rating:  The section on brainstorming is worth the price of admission Hurson makes incisive comments about brainstorming that are fresh and incisive and will, I'm sure, make brainstorming a much more effective activity, and a legitimate activity even for the highest levels of leadership. Practical and easy-to-use advice for better thinking I rarely ask a publisher to send me a book for review. I get more than I can possibly review without asking. But when I saw some of Tim Hurson's comments on Twitter connected to his book, Think Better: an innovator's guide to productive thinking, I knew it was a book I had to read and wanted to review.
I was prepared to be impressed, even though I'm very picking about "thinking" books. I've been fascinated by the subject my whole life. I've written on problem solving techniques, and helped design a course on creativity and innovation for a major oil company.
I think you can divide most books about "thinking" into four groups. There are books of tools, such as Michael Michalko's Thinkertoys. There are books about thinking or decision making in a specific context such as Creativity in Business or Thinking in Time. There are books which present a "system" for thinking such as Six Thinking Hats. And, of course, there are the psychological and cognitive science books that attempt to explain the underlying psycho-biological processes of thinking.
Think Better gives you the best of the tools, context, and system books. What you get is a system that's a big enough tent to cover a lot of situations and a workable selection of tools to use. If you want to find out more or get a bigger toolbox, this book is a great starting point. Here's how it's organized.
There are fourteen chapters. Here are the first six, in order. These chapters give you reasons why you should improve your thinking and introduce you to basic principles.
Why Think Better?
Monkey Mind, Gator Brain, and the Elephant's Tether
Kaizen vs. Tenkaizen
Stay in the Question
The Miracle of the Middle Third
Productive Thinking by Design
Then, chapters seven through twelve show you the Productive Thinking by Design Model in detail.
What's Going On? is about exploring the issue or issues that need attention.
What's Success? establishes criteria for success.
What's the Question? defines the problem you want to solve. In my experience, Americans and Canadians like to assume that everybody knows what the question is and jump right to the next step. If you or your people say "everybody knows" much, then this chapter is worth the price of the book.
Generate Answers. This is a stunning chapter. It will show you why so many "problem solving" processes don't produce anything worth keeping.
Forge the Solution is about transforming your "answers" into a solution. This chapter could be worth the price of the book if you find yourself coming up with great answers that never seem to turn into solutions.
Align Resources moves you gently from coming up with a solution to coming up with a solution that works. The difference is the difference between a lightning bug and lightning.
The final two chapters recap the lessons of the book and give you some ideas about how to move on. An appendix, glossary, and notes all help you get more from the book.
I have one quibble about Think Better. It may not be fair, since it's outside the author's stated purpose. My experience is that nothing ever works the way you expect straight out of the box. I'd like to see an "Observe and Adjust" step in the process. But, maybe Tim Hurson is saving that for his next great book.
Guidelines for business improvement that are based on reality Focusing on effecitve innovation that is grounded on realistic outcomes without sounding pollyannish. It had a straightforward apporach which actually makes people want to think about his suggestions before applying them to their workplaces. Practical tool for improving creativity Tim Hurson begins with a simple premise: Anyone can learn to "think better" - in other words, more creatively and productively. He says that by applying his methods, anyone can reliably come up with fresh ideas and solutions. If you've dipped into the fields of creativity, innovation or brainstorming before, you may find yourself nodding along, since his initial ideas are not surprising. Similarly, some of the techniques Hurson offers and the examples he shares to illustrate them will be familiar to anyone who has even a passing acquaintance with the field. However, others of his techniques are new. Hurson supplies prompts, basic diagrams, questions and examples. He adores mnemonics, formulas and acronyms. The book is written clearly and simply enough to appeal to inexperienced readers. However, getAbstract especially recommends it to managers and trainers with knowledge of the field; you'll be more able to quickly see the distinctions between Hurson's techniques and other brainstorming methods and appreciate the value he is offering. You Will Feel Better After Reading Think Better THINK BETTER manages to take the subject of critical and productive thinking not only further but deeper, and thankfully in an inviting and engaging manner. THINK BETTER is for anyone who likes the idea of using a comprehensive method to be a more productive thinker. Tim Hurson will remind you of one of your favorite instructors, an enthusiastic, warm and nurturing guide - as he takes you through the material, introducing you to memorable stories, powerful principles, steps and tools along the way. Here you not only learn his many insights into more productive thinking, but how to put these into action, to practice what you have learned, and to make what you have learned part of your personal curricula. Like a good presenter, he tells you in advance what you'll learn in each lesson, then he shares with you the lesson in a refreshing and personal manner, reinforcing what you've learned before moving on to the next subject. I found this to be an extremely useful book - one whose lessons I applied almost immediately to a wide array of intractable problems, questions and situations to great results. This is a book that yields many treasures and I found it to be a very rewarding read. Rich yet accessible, it is a book I'd consider taking to a desert island - not only because one could benefit from reading the book several times through but also because the tools I learned within could help me think my way off of the island!
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