We have too much email, juggle multiple remotes, and hack through thickets of regulations from phone contracts to health plans. But complexity isn’t destiny. Sull and Eisenhardt argue there’s a better way. By developing a few simple yet effective rules, people can best even the most complex problems.   In Simple Rules, Sull and Eisenhardt masterfully challenge how we think about complexity and offer a new lens on how to cope. They take us on a surprising tour of what simple rules are, where they come from, and why they work. The authors illustrate the six kinds o f rules that really matter - for helping artists find creativity and the Federal Reserve set interest rates, for keeping birds on track and Zipcar members organized, and for how insomniacs can sleep and mountain climbers stay safe.   Drawing on rigorous research and riveting stories, the authors ingeniously find insights in unexpected places, from the way Tina Fey codified her experience at Saturday Night Live into rules for producing 30 Rock (rule five: never tell a crazy person he’s crazy) to burglars’ rules for robbery (“avoid houses with a car parked outside”) to Japanese engineers mimicking the rules of slime molds to optimize Tokyo’s rail system. The authors offer fresh information and practical tips on fixing old rules and learning new ones.   Whether you’re struggling with information overload, pursuing opportunities with limited resources, or just trying to change your bad habits, Simple Rules provides powerful insight into how and why simplicity tames complexity.

    America's leadership expert John C. Maxwell will teach you how to be more creative and when to question popular thinking. You'll learn how to capture the big picture while focusing your thinking. You'll find out how to tap into your creative potential, develop shared ideas, and derive lessons from the past to better understand the future. With these eleven keys to more effective thinking, you'll clearly see the path to personal success.The 11 keys to successful thinking include:Big-Picture Thinking - seeing the world beyond your own needs and how that leads to great ideasFocused Thinking - removing mental clutter and distractions to realize your full potentialCreative Thinking - thinking in unique ways and making breakthroughsShared Thinking - working with others to compound resultsReflective Thinking - looking at the past to gain a better understanding of the future.

    They employ what psychologists call "lateral thinking: to rethink convention and break "rules" that aren't rules.These are not shortcuts, which produce often dubious short-term gains, but ethical "smartcuts" that eliminate unnecessary effort and yield sustainable momentum. In Smartcuts, Snow shatters common wisdom about success, revealing how conventions like "paying dues" prevent progress, why kids shouldn't learn times tables, and how, paradoxically, it's easier to build a huge business than a small one.From SpaceX to The Cuban Revolution, from Ferrari to Skrillex, Smartcuts is a narrative adventure that busts old myths about success and shows how innovators and icons do the incredible by working smarter—and how perhaps the rest of us can, too.

    System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior. The impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulties of predicting what will make us happy in the future, the challenges of properly framing risks at work and at home, the profound effect of cognitive biases on everything from playing the stock market to planning the next vacation—each of these can be understood only by knowing how the two systems work together to shape our judgments and decisions.Engaging the reader in a lively conversation about how we think, Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuitions and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking. He offers practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives—and how we can use different techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble. Thinking, Fast and Slow will transform the way you think about thinking.

    An invaluable resource for any manager or professional, this book offers a collection of proven, practical methods for simplifying any problem and making faster, better decisions every time.

    Burger teaches at Wiliams College; Starbird at The University of Texas at Austin. Here, they “reveal the hidden powers of deep understanding (earth), failure (fire), questions (air), the flow of ideas (water), and the quintessential element of change that brings all four elements together. By mastering and applying these practical and proven strategies, readers develop better thinking habits and learn how to create their own successes.”Brilliant people aren't a special breed--they just use their minds differently. By using the straightforward and thought-provoking techniques in "The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking," you will regularly find imaginative solutions to difficult challenges, and you will discover new ways of looking at your world and yourself--revealing previously hidden opportunities.The book offers real-life stories, explicit action items, and concrete methods that allow you to attain a deeper understanding of any issue, exploit the power of failure as a step toward success, develop a habit of creating probing questions, see the world of ideas as an ever-flowing stream of thought, and embrace the uplifting reality that we are all capable of change. No matter who you are, the practical mind-sets introduced in the book will empower you to realize any goal in a more creative, intelligent, and effective manner. Filled with engaging examples that unlock truths about thinking in every walk of life, "The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking" is written for all who want to reach their fullest potential--including students, parents, teachers, businesspeople, professionals, athletes, artists, leaders, and lifelong learners.Whenever you are stuck, need a new idea, or want to learn and grow, "The 5 Elements of Effective Thinking" will inspire and guide you on your way.

    Thaler, and Cass R. Sunstein: a revelatory look at how we make decisionsNew York Times bestsellerNamed a Best Book of the Year by The Economist and the Financial Times Every day we make choices—about what to buy or eat, about financial investments or our children’s health and education, even about the causes we champion or the planet itself. Unfortunately, we often choose poorly. Nudge is about how we make these choices and how we can make better ones. Using dozens of eye-opening examples and drawing on decades of behavioral science research, Nobel Prize winner Richard H. Thaler and Harvard Law School professor Cass R. Sunstein show that no choice is ever presented to us in a neutral way, and that we are all susceptible to biases that can lead us to make bad decisions. But by knowing how people think, we can use sensible “choice architecture” to nudge people toward the best decisions for ourselves, our families, and our society, without restricting our freedom of choice.

    Includes Peter Drucker's prophetic The Coming of the New Organization and Ikujiro Nonaka's Knowledge-Creating Company. A Harvard Business Review Paperback.

    We put out fires. We deal with emergencies. We stay downstream, handling one problem after another, but we never make our way upstream to fix the systems that caused the problems ... [This book] probes the psychological forces that push us downstream--including 'problem blindness,' which can leave us oblivious to serious problems in our midst. And Heath introduces us to the thinkers who have overcome these obstacles and scored ... victories by switching to an upstream mindset.

    The book has been stimulating creativity in millions of readers, translated into eleven languages, and used in seminars around the world.Now Roger von Oech's fully illustrated and updated volume is filled with even more provocative puzzles, anecdotes, exercises, metaphors, cartoons, questions, quotations, stories, and tips designed to systematically break through your mental blocks and unlock your mind for creative thinking. This new edition will attract an entire new generation of readers with updated and mind-stretching material.

    The very latest research in the fields of business and psychology has been distilled into practical training methods that will save readers from ever making a bad decision again.

    The harsh truth is that they mismanage many of those choices, even though they have the right intentions. These blunders take a huge toll on leaders, their organizations, and the people they serve.Why is it so hard to make sound decisions? We fall victim to simplified mental routines that prevent us from coping with the complex realities inherent in important judgment calls. Yet these cognitive errors are preventable. In Think Twice, Michael Mauboussin shows you how to recognize-and avoid-common mental missteps, including:-Misunderstanding cause-and-effect linkages-Aggregating micro-level behavior to predict macro-level behavior-Not considering enough alternative possibilities in making a decision-Relying too much on expertsSharing vivid stories from business and beyond, Mauboussin offers powerful rules for avoiding each error. And he explains how to know when it's time to think twice-to question your reasoning and adopt decision-making strategies that are far more effective, even if they seem counterintuitive.Master the art of thinking twice, and you'll start spotting dangerous mental errors-in your own decisions and in those of others. Equipped with this awareness, you'll soon begin making sounder judgment calls that benefit (rather than hurt) your organization.

    Godin shows that winners quit fast, quit often, and quit without guilt--until they commit to beating the right Dip.Every new project (or job, or hobby, or company) starts out fun...then gets really hard, and not much fun at all. You might be in a Dip--a temporary setback that will get better if you keep pushing. But maybe it's really a Cul-de-Sac--a total dead end. What really sets superstars apart is the ability to tell the two apart.Winners seek out the Dip. They realize that the bigger the barrier, the bigger the reward for getting past it. If you can beat the Dip to be the best, you'll earn profits, glory, and long-term security. Whether you're an intern or a CEO, this fun little book will help you figure out if you're in a Dip that's worthy of your time, effort, and talents. The old saying is wrong--winners do quit, and quitters do win.

    His quest for wisdom originated partly from making mistakes himself and observing those of others but also from the philosophy of super-investor and Berkshire Hathaway Vice Chairman Charles Munger. A man whose simplicity and clarity of thought was unequal to anything Bevelin had seen. In addition to naturalist Charles Darwin and Munger, Bevelin cites an encyclopedic range of thinkers: from first-century BCE Roman poet Publius Terentius to Mark Twainfrom Albert Einstein to Richard Feynmanfrom 16th Century French essayist Michel de Montaigne to Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett. In the book, he describes ideas and research findings from many different fields. This book is for those who love the constant search for knowledge. It is in the spirit of Charles Munger, who says, "All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there." There are roads that lead to unhappiness. An understanding of how and why we can "die" should help us avoid them. We can't eliminate mistakes, but we can prevent those that can really hurt us. Using exemplars of clear thinking and attained wisdom, Bevelin focuses on how our thoughts are influenced, why we make misjudgments and tools to improve our thinking. Bevelin tackles such eternal questions as: Why do we behave like we do? What do we want out of life? What interferes with our goals? Read and study this wonderful multidisciplinary exploration of wisdom. It may change the way you think and act in business and in life.

    Meetings are a crucial part of all our lives, but too often they go nowhere and waste valuable time. In Six Thinking Hats, Edward de Bono shows how meetings can be transformed to produce quick, decisive results every time. The Six Hats method is a devastatingly simple technique based on the brain's different modes of thinking. The intelligence, experience and information of everyone is harnessed to reach the right conclusions quickly. These principles fundamentally change the way you work and interact. They have been adopted by businesses and governments around the world to end conflict and confusion in favour of harmony and productivity. 'An inspiring man with brilliant ideas. De Bono never ceases to amaze with his clarity of thought' Richard Branson.Edward de Bono invented the concept of lateral thinking. A world-renowned writer and philosopher, he is the leading authority in the field of creative thinking and the direct teaching of thinking as a skill. Dr de Bono has written more than 60 books, in 40 languages, with people now teaching his methods worldwide. He has chaired a special summit of Nobel Prize laureates, and been hailed as one of the 250 people who have contributed most to mankind