E-Book Overview
50,000 copies sold, now in paperback... If you can think impossible thoughts, then you can do impossible things!! The power of change: create new thinking for new solutions! Includes a new introduction demonstrating the "power of impossible thinking," plus access to exclusive book summary and authors' interview at the book's companion Web site. The Power of Impossible Thinking is about getting better at making sense of what's going on around you so you can make decisions that respond to reality, not inaccurate or obsolete models of the world. This bestseller reveals how mental models stand between you and the truth and how to transform them into your biggest advantage! Learn how to develop new ways of seeing, when to change to a new model, how to swap amongst a portfolio of models, how to understand complex environments and how to do "mind R and D," improving models through constant experimentation. Jerry Wind and Colin Crook review why it's so hard to change mental models and offer practical strategies for dismantling "hardened missile silos". Finally they show how to access models quickly through intuition, and assess the effectiveness of any mental model. Purchasers of this book gain access to audio summaries on a companion web site, along with a new half-hour interview with the authors.
E-Book Content
Are you having trouble making a needed transformation? Are you stuck in your career? Is your organization stalled in its progress? Are you lagging behind competitors in innovation? Are you having trouble making your diet and exercise program work? Are you overwhelmed by information? It could be that you need to change your mental models. Transforming your mental models can help you think impossible thoughts and overcome the barriers to change in your life, work and society. This book will show you how.
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It’s almost midnight. You are walking down a dark city street toward your car parked several blocks away, when you hear footsteps behind you. You don’t turn around, but you quicken your pace. You remember a news story from a few weeks ago about a robbery at knifepoint in the neighborhood. Your pace quickens. But the footsteps behind you are also moving very quickly. The person is catching up to you. At the end of the block, under the street lamp, the steps are immediately behind you. You turn suddenly. You recognize the familiar face of one of your colleagues, heading to the same parking lot. With a sigh of relief, you say hello, and you and he continue on your way together. ■
What just happened? The reality of the situation didn’t change at all, but the instant you recognized the face of your colleague, the world in your mind was transformed. The image of the pursuing attacker was transformed into that of a friend. How could so little have changed in the situation, yet so much have changed in the way you viewed it? First of all, you had created a complete picture of what was happening based on a tiny bit of information—the sound of footsteps behind you at night. From this mere suggestion, you drew upon memories of news stories of crimes, together with your personal fears and experiences, to conjure up an image of a potential attacker. You changed your actions based on this assessment of the situation, walking faster to escape an assailant. This could be a great survival instinct, but in this case, you were fleeing an assailant who did not exist. Then, just as quickly, in the flash of the street lamp, you gained a little more information—and the entire picture shifted. In a split second, you recognized the face of a colleague—again based on the vaguest hints. You didn’t take time to stare or think deeply about it. There might have been other possibilities in the situation. Could the person have been an assailant wearing a mask to look like your colleague? Could your coll