Customer Reviews

Retrain Your Business Brain: Outsmart the Corporate Competition

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I thoroughly enjoyed the book--well, at least when my brain wasn't hurting too much. This book does an excellent job of forcing you to not only solve rather difficult puzzles, but also to understand how to solve them (for some types I found myself getting them right without actually knowing what I was doing) and why you find them difficult. Markus, et al. explain the applications of the thought processes required for the puzzles to business and the symptoms of not doing so correctly. I would highly recommend it.

Want to feel dumb? Then just take a look at Retrain Your Business Brain, and try one of the 101 problems inside. Donalee Markus, Lindsey Paige Markus and Pat Taylor designed these visual and verbal puzzles to force open new mental pathways. If pain leads to gain, they've done it, because you'll feel as if your mind is being stretched, bent and twisted. It's like yoga for your brain.

The authors claim that leaders and employees who work their way through the book become better at solving business problems and spotting opportunities; they even promise to turn detail-oriented people into big-picture thinkers. They walk you through solutions, coaching you to color-code and label problem elements, create categories and apply other problem-solving tools. By the final chapter--in which you decipher an ancient Babylonian numbering system without the use of a decoder ring--you'll never approach a problem the same way again, whether it's unraveling a market trend or trying to develop a new product.

In this book you will have to deal with tons of puzzles, primarily of the visual, complete the progression type you find in GMAT (the GMAT puzzles are of the kindergarten level compared to those here). If you enjoy solving puzzles and believe that it can help to improve your IQ (that the authors do diagnose detailedly about your problem solving process which is definitely a plus), you will be highly satisfied. In case you simply get dizzy by looking at them like what my wife does, please give it a pass.

p.s. The five star rating is given to appreciate the effort of the authors for putting the large amount of extremely difficult and diverse puzzles in a 260 page book.