In Border's recently, randomly wandering the aisles, a title caught my eye: Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking by Tim Hurson. Unfortunately it is not available yet on the Kindle (my latest omg-you-have-to-have-this), so I sat down with a cup of coffee and browsed... which led to reading... and the next thing I knew it was late and I'd finished it.
There's nothing "breakthrough" in the text - but it does nicely consolidate into one place an easy-to-read introduction to the general steps that tend to lead towards more effective thinking and problem solving and offers up several interesting tools to facilitate them. What made the book enjoyable to me, however, were his discussions about the ways we sabotage ourselves as we attempt to solve problems and innovate. He makes good use of examples and humor. There are some real Yogi-Berra-ish gems of turns of phrase (like the one above in the title) that make some of the more insightful concepts memorable.
In On Being Certain: Believing you are Right Even When You're Not, Robert Burton takes entire chapters to delve into the medical evidence, biology, metaphysics, phenomenology and epistemology behind Hurson's quip and gives sound reasons to use it as a memory hook. He shows you the big difference between a feeling of knowing and actually possessing knowledge.
Much of the stuff in Hurson's text was like that - it neatly summarized in easily digestible chunks with strong memory hooks a substantial volume of books and articles in any specific area or topic on problem solving, thinking, or innovation and gave practical steps and tools to experiment with if you and your team want to improve. It is not a replacement for the MBM Problem Solving Process - but rather gives you some thought-provoking ideas and tools that might improve your ability to apply it.
I'd be curious to hear from others what books or articles they've found particularly insightful in this regard. Please use the comment section.
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