Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking [Hardcover]

Tim Hurson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 26, 2007

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.

Editorial Reviews

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 & Mail 2008-02-13)

From the Back Cover

Want to Outsmart the Competition? Learn how to Think Better.

“Marvelously choreographed and insightful... A treasury of powerful ideas for anyone who wants to boost their own brand equity and contribute mightily to their company's success.”-Andy Boynton, Ph.D., Dean, Carroll School of Management, Boston College, and author of Virtuoso Teams

“If you want success in your career, in your business, or in your life, Think Better is for you. Buy it, read it, and don't look back.”-Roger J. Burns, Worldwide Partner Mercer Human Resource Consulting

“Brilliant, thought-provoking, easy-to-read, this book is one of the best creativity books I have read in 30 years. Buy it, read it, and change your life!!””-Arthur B VanGundy, Ph.D., Professor of Communication, University of Oklahoma, author of Getting to Innovation

“Get copies for everyone you work with, talk about it together, and then get on with inventing your future. This book will show you how.”-Ian Percy, author of The Profitable Power of Purpose

“A practical guide to the power and importance of productive thinking that should be read by everyone. Use it to unlock the full creative power of your mind.”-Glenn Bishop, Director, Engineering, Yahoo! Europe

“Tim will get your gray matter in an uproar. I can't stop thinking about Think Better. But you should. Stop thinking about buying this book and go buy it…NOW.-Stephen Shapiro, author 24/7 Innovation

“More than worthwhile - a must.”-Roger von Oech, author A Whack on the Side of the Head

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 300 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill; 1 edition (September 26, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0071494936
• ISBN-13: 978-0071494939
• Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1 x 9.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #70,126 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Throughout his career, Tim has helped Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 organizations in the US, Canada, and the UK create innovation, marketing, and new product development programs. In the process, he's seen how barriers to creative and productive thinking are also barriers to success -- for individuals and for groups.

He is a sought-after international speaker, having addressed audiences in 32 countries on five continents. He speaks regularly about how to use the principles of productive thinking to manage change rather than be swamped by it.

Tim is the founding partner of ThinkX Intellectual Capital, a firm specializing in helping organizations explore and implement innovative solutions to a wide range of challenges. ThinkX trains, facilitates, and coaches executives in the US, Canada, Mexico, UK, France, Australia, Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Singapore. Tim is also a founding director of Facilitators Without Borders, a not-for-profit offering the same services to charitable organizations and communities in need.

Think Better: An Innovator's Guide to Productive Thinking is its third English-language printing and has been translated into six languages.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

101 of 106 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars I recommend this book to my colleagues and customers November 21, 2007

By Jeffrey Phillips VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

I received a new book to review called Think Better. The subtitle is "An innovator's guide to productive thinking" and the book was written by Tim Hurson from Thinkx.

There are a LOT of new books on innovative thinking, or just innovation in general, so I was a little leery of another book, but I found this one to be very insightful and useful. There's a lot to like, and a lot to use, in this book, whether you happen to hail from the consulting and services oriented side of innovation, or are just starting out and want your internal corporate team to become more productive innovative thinkers.

I'll admit to being a bit jaded, and the first few sections of the book offer more of a history lesson about innovation and innovative thinking than I felt necessary, but for those approaching the topic for the first time, the concepts of the monkey mind and gator brain are compelling, since they demonstrate that our current methods of thinking avoid risk and most often simply react to threats or patterns. The book starts to get really interesting in the fourth chapter, which deals with resisting the urge to quickly arrive at an answer. Instead, the book encourages us to "Stay with the Question". In his approach, Hurson sucks us in, peeling the onion a little at a time and getting agreement, till we are in violent agreement that we must change drastically. Then he rolls out section three of his book, which outlines a process for creative and innovative thinking, supported by a number of simple but powerful tools.

The phases describe a method to generate better ideas, use some divergent then convergent thinking to stretch them, then move on to evaluate and determine which ideas should be considered for evaluation.... What I also like is that he adds a step for deciding actions and assigning resources. Too often we get excited about selecting ideas for further investigation without determining and identifying the resources and plans necessary for the critical next steps. Along this process he introduces a number of tools: the I-cube or the C-5 or the DRIVE model, all of which are relatively easy to use and bring shape and focus around thinking and decision making that traditionally has been very subjective.

I like this book because it aligns to what seems right to me - a useful process that anyone can follow to obtain better thinking and better ideas. From our experience in larger organizations, a defined set of steps or phases is necessary to help people understand what has happened, what should happen now and what should happen next. I think the next thing Tim and his team will need to do is decide how to "scale" this capability so that the thinking permeates an organization and the approach becomes a common one across organizations rather than simply in enlightened pockets. Of course, that's something near and dear to my heart.

Creative productive thinking is a great first step. However, creativity without action is interesting but ultimately a sideshow. Tim defines a method to help people think more creatively, but also outlines a set of steps and tools to move an idea through a consistent process to an ultimate conclusion. That's moving from creativity to innovation, and eventually from ideas to new products, services or business models.

Reposted from my original review on the Innovate on Purpose blog Read more ›

68 of 71 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough Presesentation of Working Tools for Creative Problem Solving March 15, 2008

By Robert Alan Black

Format:Hardcover

THINK BETTER by Tim Hurson is a thorough presentation of highly useful working tools for creative idea generation to creative problem solving.

Though I have been teaching the Osborn-Parnes Creative Problem Solving Process Model since 1978 I learned many things through the complete presentation that Tim makes in THINK BETTER.

In the book he provides his interpretation of the OP CPS Process and adds several excellent tools to make the OP CPS Process more effective in either workplace or personal problems.

This is an excellent book for people who are trying to learn much about how to use a complete process fro examining challenges, generating ideas, narrowing down those ideas into potential solutions and developing workable plans and to go through a planning process in order to increase the potential results.

50 of 51 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Think Better - a major new work on creatively confronting challenges March 21, 2008

By A. Michaelides

Format:Hardcover

Tim Hurson's "Think Better" is not a treatise for armchair philosophers but an action-packed thriller, an exciting travel guide from theory to practice.

Productive thinking, Hurson argues, generates new things, as opposed to reproductive thinking, which refines what is known. It is the deliberate search for breakthrough rather than incremental change and it is powered by the alternation of creative and critical thinking.

The book presents a model which includes a rigorous method and superb practical tools and techniques that have been designed, developed and successfully tested in real life by the author. In the process, thinkers are urged to balance facts and feelings, information and imagination, aspirations and action and persevere through the "third third" of the brainstorm - that final stretch where the really great ideas emerge.

The clear writing style and the well-organized content are enhanced by quality story-telling that gives the book soul, with true stories (hospitals, insurance companies, furniture, space travel) as well as imaginary ones (how an airline might make its middle seats attractive).

Tim Hurson has clearly done a lot of productive thinking about productive thinking in this contemporary and comprehensive work, which constitutes a major contribution to the literature of creatively confronting challenges.

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Stop Working, Start Thinking December 11, 2007

By Raymond Jackson

Format:Hardcover

Think Better will help you realize the power of disciplined thinking in an undisciplined way. More than just a thinking tool, this book taps into the innate ways in which an individual can come up with unique and breakthrough ideas. Most powerful of all these techniques is the power of divergent thinking uninhibited by critical review until necessary. An excellent book and a great tool.

52 of 54 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Think Better Now!! October 7, 2007

By Paul J. Groncki

Format:Hardcover

Think better, work better, do better...who doesn't want all of this? Tim Hurson's book illuminates how distractions, instinctual responses and engrained thinking patterns make it so difficult for us to come up with new and creative solutions to the challenges we face. Then he shows us how to break out of those traps and think more productively.

Productive thinking results from successfully separating creative thinking from critical thinking -- separating the generation of ideas from the judging of ideas. Too often we conduct these two thinking processes simultaneously. Tim believes we can learn how to separate creative and critical thinking and he provides simple and useful tools to improve our productive thinking skills.

But this isn't just another dry book about self-improvement. Tim shows us how to think more productively in an engaging and humorous way with anecdotes and examples that will make you say AHA! again and again as you read Think Better. Read this book and think better instantly!!!