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

How often have we heard: "You can do anything once you set your mind to it," or "It's all in the way you look at it." This book helps readers unleash the straitjacket of your current thinking and unleash your potential with powerful new mental models so you can do the seemingly impossible! Jerry Wind and Colin Crook explain how your mental models stand between you and reality, distorting all your perceptions...and how they create both limits and opportunities. Next, they show how to keep your models relevant and fresh. You'll learn how to develop new ways of seeing; when to change to a new model; how to swap amongst a portfolio of models; how to "zoom in and out" to understand complex environments; and how to do "mind RD" -- improving your models through constant experimentation. Wind and Crook tell why it's so hard to change mental models, and offer practical strategies for dismantling the "hardened missile silos" that are your old and obsolete models. Finally, they show how to access models quickly through intuition, and help you assess the effectiveness of any mental model.With profiles on Howard Schultz, Oprah Winfrey and Andy Grove the authors provide real examples of their ideas in action. Simply put, this is the first "hands-on" guide to enhancing your mental models: the key to breakthrough success in business -- and in life.

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