Think Better (Hurson, 2008)

An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking

Review
"It's a sensible, thorough, step-by-step approach, geared to the way the mind works. Within each step, Mr. Hurson offers excellent tools to apply. The book is clearly written, with good examples and nice touches of storytelling..." - Harvey Schachter (Globe And Mail )

Product Description

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.

[JLJ - imagine your own private consultant, sitting down with you and trying to help you take steps towards solving your problems in business, life or just about any area. Tim Hurson walks you through the necessary steps to make progress towards a solution, and yes, it involves doing some thinking. There is a direct application to game theory or to any event which requires strategic thought.]

xiii productive thinking is a skill that anyone can learn and develop. Regardless of your starting point, you can learn to use your mind better. It's not much different from driving a car.

p.11 The Productive Thinking Model is a disciplined, repeatable process for thinking better, thinking more creatively, thinking more innovatively... it can be learned.

p.12 The unexpected connection is the heart of the productive thinking process. Seeing old things in new ways - seeing the initially strange but later obvious connections between familiar things - is what AHA! is all about.

p.15 To create the future, you have to be able to imagine it. Productive thinking is a way to help you do that. It's not magic. It's a disciplined approach to thinking more creatively and more effectively. You can actually train yourself to think better. The more you practice it, the better you'll get... The power of productive thinking lies in its potential to increase your chances of finding, developing, and ultimately implementing unexpected connections.

p.45 Productive thinking consists of two distinct thinking skills: creative thinking and critical thinking. The overarching principle of productive thinking is this: Creative thinking and critical thinking have to be separate.

p.60 Productive thinking requires us not to rush to answers but to hang back, to keep questioning even when the answers seem obvious.

p.73 How else might we solve the problem? Who else might be involved? Where else might a solution come from? What else haven't we thought of yet? Else is one of the most powerful words in the productive thinking vocabulary.

p.126 We can influence the future but not see it. - Stewart Brand (1938- )

p.128,130 Once you know what you want your Target Future to be, you need to figure out how you'll know when you've gotten there. That's the purpose of the second step in the productive thinking process... you create Future Pull in two ways: by imagining how it might feel if you actually achieved your Target Future and by establishing observable Success Criteria so that you can recognize your destination once you get there. The power of Future Pull lies in creating a compelling vision that literally pulls you toward solutions.

p.136 DRIVE is an acronym for Do, Restrictions, Investment, Values, and Essential Outcomes. DRIVE asks five basic questions designed to generate observable criteria for success:

Do: What do you want your eventual solution to do? What must it achieve?
Restrictions: What changes or impacts must you avoid?
Investment: What resources are you willing to allocate? What are your "not-to-exceeds"?
Values: What values must you live by in achieving your solution?
Essential Outcomes: What are the nonnegotiable elements of success? What measurable targets must be met?

p.140 What's Success? consists of two substeps. The first is to robustly imagine an ideal future in which your issue is resolved: to create a powerful motivation to reach your Target Future. The second is to establish clear, observable Success Criteria that can be used in subsequent phases of the productive thinking process to evaluate potential solutions.

p.144 The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong question. - Peter Drucker

p.147-149 In my experience, one of the most common reasons that programs, products, and change initiatives don't work is that the wrong question has been asked... If you start with the wrong problem, it's unlikely you'll ever arrive at an effective solution... Productive thinking... asks you to generate problem questions that actually invite answers.. Once you have established your Itch, your Target Future, and your Success Criteria, you have the basic ingredients for beginning to ask useful problem questions.

p.192 Forge the Solution consists of two substeps, both of which employ the principle of Generative Judgment and both of which may be iterated several times depending on the complexity of the issues and the time available. The first substep is to use an Evaluation Screen to compare the three to five ideas you selected in Generate Answers with the key Success Criteria developed earlier in What's Success? Then you choose the most promising ones to develop further. The second substep is to use the POWER tool to analyze, improve, and refine an embryonic idea into a robust solution.

p.217 All models are wrong; some are useful. - George Box

p.218 What's Going On? is the central diagnostic foundation of productive thinking... Regardless of the type of work you do... the better you understand what's really going on, the greater your chances of success.

p.241 If you can identify an area in which your world might be improved, put productive thinking to the test. The more you use it, the more natural it will become for you, the better you'll get, and the more benefit you'll get out of it. I promise you that if you make productive thinking part of your life, you'll find you get better at just about everything you do.

Productive thinking can help you think better, work better, and do better in every aspect of your life. The sooner you begin, the sooner you will benefit.

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