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52 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Nice House, Nobody Home, February 4, 1999
**REVISED**My family and I found the "Super Mind Pack" a grave disappointment. Visually it is a work of art, but in terms of content it verges on insulting to the average educated adult's intelligence. The first of Dr. de Bono's 14 supposedly mind-stimulating games is nothing more than a watered-down version of the old children's card game War, in which each player lays down 1 card and the player with the highest card wins. The "Super Mind Pack" provides each player with a special "deck" of 10 numbered cards for this purpose. Dr. de Bono explains that this teaches one the invaluable skill of "anticipating what the other player will do." It is difficult to imagine a reliable strategy for this game, short of acquiring ESP. Games 2 and 3 are actually just slight variations of Game 1. For example, "Game 2" consists of the following basic change: keeping score. Our initial reaction was that perhaps the book was starting out slowly in an attempt to get the reader warmed up. The rest of the "games," however, are regrettably not much better. Far from encouraging "lateral thinking," of which Dr. de Bono is reportedly a pioneer, all 14 of the games are overly simplistic strategy/guessing games. The only thing that distinguishes them from a plethora of other well-known games like chess, Scrabble®, and charades is that they lack the sophistication of those games and are, without exception, indescribably boring. For a good laugh, try "The Tennis Game" (p.93), that is, if you can decipher the instructions. My family came to the conclusion that the purpose of this game was to (A) develop one's ability to handle mental confusion without going berserk (reading the instructions) and (B) to increase one's tolerance for boredom and pointlessness. An amazing feat in itself, we thought, to take a game so absurdly simple and manage to write instructions for it that would make members of the Mensa Society want to tear their hair out. The game is played on paper and consists primarily in nothing more than rolling a die and (as it turns out, 3 times in 4) immediately giving a point to one of the 2 players. One time in 4, strategy actually enters the game, giving a player all of 2 options: (A) a small chance of scoring (and if not, then a fair chance of "returning the ball") but a greater chance of letting the opponent score, or (B) no chance of scoring but a greater chance of "returning the ball" for more of the same -- as useful and fun as playing chess with 2 pawns on a board with 4 squares. The game continues in this fashion ad infinitum or ad nauseam, whichever comes first. One stands to learn just as much about strategizing in the face of chance by playing Yachtzee® or even craps, either of which are a lot more fun. Frankly, how a product like this has even managed to stay on the market is a genuine mystery. In fact, conducting a survey among purchasers of the "Super Mind Pack" might be very revealing. Dare we hazard a guess as to what most buyers have done with their copy? 60%: "got the most out of it: kindling and/or mulch" 20%: "a gift `FROM SANTA' to a disagreeable relative the following Christmas" 15%: "donated it to Goodwill under conditions of anonymity" 5%: "still unopened in our closet" The book "Thinking for Action," contained in the pack, seems to have been written with junior high or elementary school students as the intended audience and is rife with scintillating observations full of dramatic emphasis (capital letters here correspond to capitals or italics in the original): * "There is no use PRETENDING that EMOTIONS do not exist." * "COMPETITION forces business to be more EFFICIENT." * "We cannot have certain KNOWLEDGE of the FUTURE. So we have to IMAGINE and consider POSSIBILITIES." We were able to find precious little that would be of even remote value to any educated adult. The back cover of the book states that it is "ideal for use in businesses." It is virtually impossible to imagine any respectable company taking this material seriously. A large part of the meager entertainment we got from the "Super Mind Pack" came from simply imagining the reaction a businessperson would get if they actually presented these materials at an office meeting (especially if they tried any of the "games!") The book's sole merit is the beautiful and creative photography found between its covers. How unfortunate that the book is marketed not as a photographic collection, but supposedly as a tool for expanding one's thinking powers.
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