The Power of Impossible Thinking: Transform the Business of Your Life and the Life of Your Business (Hardcover)

~ Jerry Wind (Author), Colin Crook (Author), (Author) "It's midnight, and you hear a loud radio in the apartment downstairs..." (more)
Key Phrases: adaptive disconnects, adaptive experimentation, old mental models, United States, New York, Cold War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The world you live in is all in your mind, according to Wharton Business School Professors Yoram Wind and Colin Crook. The Power of Impossible Thinking is a witty and lucid translation of neuroscience research about "mental models"--the deeply ingrained assumptions and images that shape our reality and influence opportunities for success and failure. "Our models are gated communities," say Crook and Wind, who offer a superb crash course on the power and limit of mental models.

The key questions: How do you know when an old model is worn out? How do you avoid "cognitive lock," filtering out information that conflicts with your model? How do you know a new model will live up to its hype? Many of the answers lie in "Mind R&D"--developing an inventory of new and old models and refining your intuition to fit your current reality. These engaging ideas are detailed with portraits of three impossible thinkers (Oprah Winfrey, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and Intel's Andy Grove) and vivid examples (The music industry vs. Napster, a French fry cancer scare, O-rings on the Challenger). Wind and Crook make such a brilliant case for new ways of seeing that readers may wish for more coaching to recognize the obsolete models that keep us from changing our minds. --Barbara Mackoff

Review

"This is an important book that 'makes sense of how we make sense.' The authors provide a thorough, fresh, and compelling exploration into the dimensions of mental models. All leaders who want to be more effective in their actions would be served well to leverage the principles in this book to learn about how they think and make sense of the world around them."

Nick Pudar
Director of Strategic Initiatives, General Motors

"This is a really great piece of work. It is 'immersion into the process of insight'. Truly a valuable addition to any forward-thinking person's library in light of the rapid change we face in today's world—business and personal."

J.Allen Kosowksy, CPA
Forensic Accountant and Director, 0N2 Technologies

"A masterfully written book that is sure to capture the attention of every thinking person who's willing to look at the world of business through new lenses. The Power of Impossible Thinking is both timely and intriguing."

Kathy Levinson, Ph.D.
Author of The 60-Second Commute

"Tough-minded managers like to think they see the world as it is. Wind and Crook, drawing on recent neuroscience research, demonstrate that none of us, tough-minded or not, do anything of the sort. What we perceive as 'the world' is as much inside our heads as outside. By realizing that and making choices about how we see things, we can become much more effective managers."

Rob Austin, Ph.D.
Harvard Business School and co-author of Artful Making

"While most of us may recognize that the world we respond to is more in our mind than in any physical reality, often we don't have a clue why this is so. This very important book clearly explains how our mental models work to construct these distinct inner worlds. And more importantly it offers empowering advice on how we can use this knowledge to work for us rather than against us in creating a better outer world for ourselves, our organizations, and our societies."

Charles C. Manz
Best-selling author of SuperLeadership, Fit to Lead, and Temporary Sanity

"Today, life moves at hyperspeed. Hence, the age-old human skill of pattern recognition is more essential to our health and happiness than ever before in history. The Power of Impossible Thinking is a wonderful guide to help you understand the patterns you recognize and—critically—when those patterns serve you well, when they don't, and what you can do about it."

Douglas K. Smith
Co-author of The Wisdom of Teams and author of On Value and Values

"I have been trying to explain why Japan has fallen into a pitfall and cannot come out of even the simplest problems. One can call it an innovators dilemma, but that does not solve the problem. This book suggests we have to go back to the basics of reviewing our underlying 'mental models' now and then, and only then, have to construct a new model, perhaps plural, and move onto exploring the new terrain."

Kenichi Ohmae
Author of the international bestseller, The Borderless World

"Jerry Wind and Colin Crook have one of the most powerful messages there is about dealing with the present changing world. Perspectives are prisons, they say. The only way to thrive in the coming environment is to cultivate the ability to sense the new patterns and relationships as (and before) they emerge—otherwise you'll be locked in the past. This book can get you out of that jail."

John L. Petersen
President and founder of The Arlington Institute and author of
Out of the Blue: How to Anticipate Wild Cards and Other Big Surprises

"The Power of Impossible Thinking is a health spa for the executive brain. Poor mental models can do more than ruin your reputation, your organization, or your team. How many times do we ignore market changes because of personal bias? Thanks to Wind and Crook we have a new vast insight into 'making sense' to help global leaders master the models needed for successful leadership behavior."

Cathy L. Greenberg, Ph.D
Executive Director, Institute for Strategic Leadership,
LeBow College of Business, Drexel University

"Everyone is familiar with exhortations for mindset change, attitudinal change and paradigm shift. But slogans are not solutions and words are not deeds. What is missing is a "how to" book. Wind and Cook have brilliantly filled this chasm of need with an extraordinary book that revolutionizes businesses, individual lives and society."

Dr. Y Y Wong
Chairman and Founder, The Wywy Group of Companies

"Wind and Crook have written a marvelous book that can teach you how to think more effectively in personal and business settings. Read it and learn!"

Drea Zigarmi
Author of The Leader Inside: Learning Enough About Yourself To Lead Others and co-author of Leadership and the One Minute Manager

"We like to say, 'See it with your mind's eye.' Wind and Crook show us that our mind is our eye. What we think is what we see, and what we see directs how we act. Not only do the authors make this paradigm clear, but they offer concrete and practical ways to change our mind's eye and as a consequence change our actions and the results we get. The value of that is hard to top."

J. Stewart Black, Ph.D.
co-author of Leading Strategic Change
and Professor, University of Michigan Business School

"This is a very important book. It deals with truly fundamental issues—both for practitioners as well as academicians—relating to making sense out of a variety of complex events in the real world, and how to keep an open mind regarding all of this. We often become 'prisoners' of set routines and behaviors, and thus gradually grow less and less effective. This book points the way out of this dilemma--in a most convincing sense. Models, properly focused around the best in human minds, are key here. These can help us understand paradigm shifts, maintain relevance, and keep momentum. To see things differently becomes central. The book makes seminal contributions here. It provides a strong, rigorous—and practical—conceptual base for this! I am equally impressed with the book's focus on implementation, both in terms of setting out an agenda for transforming one's world, as well as in terms of pointing out how action can be achieved—quickly and naturally—following the prescriptions of the book. All in all, I find the book to be a true seminal contribution, with a strong conceptual underpinning, convincing empirical verification, and realistic implementational focus. This book will become a must, for practitioners and academicians alike."

Dr. Dr. h.c. Peter Lorange
President IMD, The Nestle Professor

"The authors have done a masterful job examining the power and limits of our mental models and how to better accomplish change in the complex world ahead.... This book offers a road map with a real set of attributes that can help us make the tough choices in a time of transition.... I would put this book at the top of my 'keeper' list for those on the front lines of change management and mission accomplishment."

Ken Minihan
Lt. General, U.S. Air Force, Retired

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Product Details

The Power to do the Impossible: The Oprah Winfrey Story [2.00mb PDF]

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Wharton School Publishing (July 22, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0131425021
• ISBN-13: 978-0131425026
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (62 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #453,680 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

131 of 134 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Challenge Your Mental Models, September 28, 2004

By	Craig L. Howe "The Pointed Pundit" (Darien, CT United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Who says I am not capable of change?

When I first say this book I was turned off by what I perceived as its "positive thinking power" approach. I am glad I did not stop there. A careful reading revealed the book to contain a systematic process which helps define the importance of mental models, assess their relevance and steps for action.

The authors propose a four step process for assessing and changing your models.

1. Recognize the power and limits of mental models.
2. Test the relevance of your models against the changing environment, generate new models and develop an integrated portfolio.
3. Overcome change inhibitors by reshaping infrastructure and thinking.
4. Transform your world by quick action. Continuously experiment, assess and strengthen your models.

This fourth point, the authors say, is accomplished by "zooming in" and "zooming out." Zooming in is a process that involves focusing of a situation's details without being over whelmed by them. The process includes these approaches:

1. Engage in rigorous analysis. Pay attention to outliers and inconsistencies.
2. Categorize and Prioritize. Categorize by similarity, common fate and continuation.
3. Avoid Paralysis caused by too broad a focus.

Zooming out allows you to look at the big picture. It is accomplished by:

1. Recognizing the limits of your vision field.
2. Avoid Cognitive fixation.
3. Appreciate the context.
4. Create time for reflection.
5. Use many approaches.
6. Collaborate.

The models you adopt shape your approach to life. The dot-bomb bubble provides interesting lessons, the authors say.

1. Understand your models.
2. Know when to change. Do not get swept away with fads.
3. Recognize that paradigm shifts are a two-way street. Old models have value in an e-commerce world.
4. Develop a new way to see and perceive.
5. Mine nuggets of sense from streams of complexity.
6. Experiment.
7. Bridge disconnects.
8. Examine your infrastructure.
9. Trust your intuition - but have the courage to challenge it.

To change your world, you have to change your thinking. This book is a thoughtful, systematic approach expanding your personal and business opportunities.

55 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars We are what we think, April 21, 2005

By	Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

To paraphrase Descartes:

I think it is...therefore it is.
I think it's not...therefore it isn't.

Wind and Crook assert that a given opportunity is perceived to be either possible or impossible, depending upon one's mental model(s). In this brilliant book, they explain how to understand the power and limits of mental models; how to test the relevance of mental models against a changing environment, generate new models, and develop a "portfolio" of models; how to overcome inhibitors to change by reshaping infrastructure and the thinking of others; and finally, how to transform one's world by acting quickly upon the new models, continuously experimenting and applying a process by which to assess and then strengthen one's mental models. Long ago, Henry Ford observed: "Whether you think you can or think you can`t, you're right." I agree with Ford to an extent: Self-fulfilling prophecies are almost always based on a positive or negative attitude. Nonetheless, I am wrong if I think that I can defeat Tiger Woods in match play competition. Wind and Crook would insist, however, that with the proper mental model and lots of hard work, I could eventually become a much better golfer than I would otherwise be.

They organize the material in this book as follows:

Part 1: Recognize [and Understand] the Power and Limit of Mental Models
Part 2: Keeping Your Mental Models Relevant
Part 3: Transform Your World
Part 4: Act Quickly and Effectively
Conclusion: What You Think Is What You Do

In the Appendix (The Neuroscience Behind Mental Models), one of the core concepts is that "reality is a story the brain and the world work out together." This is a variation on Lilly Tomlin's suggestion that reality is a "collective hunch." Wind and Crook are describing an on-going process which has four primary phases, each of which is examined in in one of the four Parts. The process is on-going in that, once the power and the limit(s) of mental models are fully understood, it is still necessary to ensure that one's own mental models remain relevant during efforts "dismantle the old order" while finding common ground "to bridge adaptive disconnects."

At every appropriate opportunity, as Wind and Crook carefully explain, it is imperative to be able to respond quickly and effectively. In Chapter 10, they discuss intuition and explain how to develop and enhance its capabilities. (Pages 181-186) Their discussion of "creative leaps" reminds me of much of what Malcolm Gladwell has to say about intuition in Blink. If I understand all this (and I may not), Wind and Crook seem to agree with Gladwell that underdeveloped intuition is (at best) a "lucky hunch" whereas developed intuition enables us to utilize talent, training, and (most important of all) experience to make appropriate decisions when we suddenly find ourselves in a life-threatening situation and must react.

In Chapter 11, Wind and Cook explain how three celebrity CEOs demonstrate in their respective lives and careers "the power of impossible thinking." Howard Schultz formulated new concepts of coffee as a beverage and café as a social environment within which to consume it. Under his leadership, Starbucks continues with rigorous experimentation which challenges its business model (based on Schultz's mental models), constantly trying to "stretch beyond the possible." The Oprah Winfrey Show is a prime example of "impossible thinking" in that Winfrey formulated a new mental model: She would interact with her audience as personal friends. The dialog was deliberately self-revealing as she discussed her own challenges and experiences, especially those which were personally unpleasant, at times deeply hurtful. "She adopted a goal to `transform people's lives.' She changed the ways people thought about talk shows and about their own lives -- in effect, challenging their mental models." With regard to Andy Grove, former chairman and CEO of Intel, he led and managed a huge global enterprise by preparing it for what he characterized as strategic inflection points: each reveals "a mental map of the New World."

As Wind and Crook explain, all three recognized the influence of childhood, education, and early work in shaping their mental models; kept their models relevant; made things happen by transforming the world around them; and acted quickly and effectively.

I appreciate the Conclusion section in which Wind and Crook reiterate their key points. Here are three:

1. "When you face a new decision or new challenge, step back a moment and consider whether or not you have the right model for it."

2. "To carry your new view into the world, pay attention to the factors that keep you locked in the old model or enable you to bring others into the world."

3. "If you can cultivate the ability to think in new directions, you have the possibility to transform the business of your life and the life of your business. There are so many opportunities for transformation if you could only see them. To see these opportunities and to seize them, you need the courage and the understanding to think impossible thoughts -- and then act upon them."

In response to these three points, presumably Henry Ford would suggest, "Whether you think you can or think you can't gain the power of impossible thinking, you're right." Wind and Crook disagree. Although the Model T was indeed a product of Ford's "impossible thinking" in 1908, newer and better mental models have produced newer and better automobiles each year since. In all other industries, newer and better mental models continue to produce newer and better whatevers. My hope is that, after absorbing and digesting the material in this book, many readers will then begin some impossible thinking about the business of their lives and the life of their businesses. They are strongly encouraged to take full advantage of the CD-ROM which accompanies the book. It consists of an audio summary and an interview with the authors.

And perhaps more intellectually adventuresome readers will also do some impossible thinking about impossible thinking...then share it with Yoram (Jerry) Wind and Colin Crook.

39 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended!, August 11, 2005

By	Rolf Dobelli "getAbstract.com" (Switzerland) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This book provides an elementary introduction to the way the mind works, but it is an entirely practical introduction. Authors Yoram (Jerry) Wind and Colin Crook tell readers the basics of mental functioning in order to warn them about putting too much trust in what seems to be. What we see is, in fact, not reality but rather mental models that we ourselves construct. When we understand this, we begin to see why it is important to test our mental models continuously for relevance to reality, and to change them. The authors address the impact of mental models on everything from business to personal health, using strong case histories (such as Oprah Winfrey's life changing story) as illustrations. As a lagniappe, the publisher includes a CD with a brief summary of the book's main points.We recommend this straightforward exposition; it will help you think about how you think.