Flexible Thinking in a Time of Change Archives

Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know by Adam Grant. A wonderfully interesting book that promotes all the benefits of doubt. Yes, call it re-thinking. Actually, call it why we refuse to change and the negative results that arise.

Adam accurately states: The first rule of the Dunning-Kruger club is you don’t know you’re a member of the Dunning-Kruger club. At the same time, in today’s charged political landscape I had a number of good laughs.

Accordingly, Adams message is that easy access to web-based articles or videos written by anyone on any topic, we believe that we can become subject matter experts in two minutes.

This has disastrous consequences. Yet, Adam reveals how we can overcome this flaw by developing habits that force us all to embrace the challenge to our beliefs and change them when necessary.

Chapter 4’s Fight Club addressing Brad Bird’s role at Pixar is a worthy example of how teams can alter accepted skillsets to create award winning animation. You will learn how The Incredibles forced Brad to work with his “Pirate team” and still succeeded wildly. You can learn about changing long held beliefs.

Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a Time of Change by Leonard Mlodinow. Leonard is in fact a theoretical physicist and widely recognized for his discoveries in physics.

Throughout the book he shares stories about both parents (before meeting) having survived the holocaust. His father was part of the resistance in Poland and was sent to Buchenwald. Moreover, he worked and co-authored a book with Stephen Hawking.

Leonard describes elastic thinking as “what endows us with the ability to solve novel problems and to overcome the neural and psychological barriers that can impede us from looking beyond the existing order.”

This book certainly reveals new discoveries in the neuroscience of change. Above all, our brain works in many ways, right side versus left side, injury outcomes, medication, and absolutely amazing technology advancements in brain research. For example, the introduction story of Pokemon Go is a baseline example for Elastic Thinking.

Dr. Mlodinow unquestionably identifies elastic thinking as a series of multiple sets: neophilia (an affinity for novelty), schizotypy (a tendency toward unusual perception), imagination and idea generation, and finally divergent and integrative thinking.