Think! PDF Download

Author: Michael R. LeGault
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416524665
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 369

View

Book Description
This isn't the time to Blink. It's time to THINK! -- before it's too late. Outraged by the downward spiral of American intellect and culture, Michael R. LeGault offers the flip side of Malcolm Gladwell's bestselling phenomenon, Blink, which theorized that our best decision-making is done on impulse, without factual knowledge or critical analysis. If bestselling books are advising us to not think, LeGault argues, it comes as no surprise that sharp, incisive reasoning has become a lost art in the daily life of Americans. Somewhere along the line, the Age of Reason morphed into the Age of Emotion; this systemic erosion is costing time, money, jobs, and lives in the twenty-first century, leading to less fulfillment and growing dysfunction. LeGault provides a bold, controversial, and objective analysis of the causes and solutions for: • the erosion of growth and market share at many established American companies, big and small, which appear to have less chance of achieving the dynamic expansion of the past • permissive parenting and low standards that have caused an academic crisis among our children -- body weights rise while grades plummet • America's growing political polarization, which is a result of our reluctance to think outside our comfort zone • faulty planning and failure to act on information at all levels that has led to preventable disasters, such as the Hurricane Katrina meltdown • a culture of image and instant gratification, fed by reality shows and computer games, that has rendered curiosity of the mind and spirit all but obsolete • stress, aversion to taking risks, and therapy that are replacing the traditional American "can do" mind-set. Far from perpetuating the stereotype of the complacent American, LeGault's no-holds-barred analysis asks more of us than any other societal overview: America can fulfill its greatest potential starting today, and we need smart teachers, smart health care workers, smart sales representatives, smart students, smart mechanics, and smart leaders to make it happen. Now is the time to THINK! -- because a mind truly is a terrible thing to waste.

Author: Tom Chatfield
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1529758807
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 84

View

Book Description
This is a book about thinking. Engaging and down-to-earth, it captures the habits and practices that are fundamental to clear thinking and effective study. In his warm and friendly style, Tom Chatfield shows you how to: Identify and examine your biases Engage in lively, curious skepticism See the value in emotion and use rhetoric persuasively Know when to say ′I don′t know′ Construct reasoned arguments and explanations Think critically about how you engage with technology. Short and punchy, the book views critical thinking as a skill to be continually practiced and developed. It equips you with a toolkit for clearer thinking, describing ten key concepts that help you to apply what you have learned. Including regular reflective exercises, key concepts, further readings, each chapter also offers recommendations for how to put the ideas it discusses into practice. This book is for undergraduate students and anyone looking to understand the core ideas behind critical thinking. Celebrating both self-reflection and collaboration, this book empowers you to pause, think twice and, above all, think well.

Author: Steve Krug
Publisher: Pearson Education
ISBN: 0321648781
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 256

View

Book Description
Five years and more than 100,000 copies after it was first published, it's hard to imagine anyone working in Web design who hasn't read Steve Krug's "instant classic" on Web usability, but people are still discovering it every day. In this second edition, Steve adds three new chapters in the same style as the original: wry and entertaining, yet loaded with insights and practical advice for novice and veteran alike. Don't be surprised if it completely changes the way you think about Web design. Three New Chapters! Usability as common courtesy -- Why people really leave Web sites Web Accessibility, CSS, and you -- Making sites usable and accessible Help! My boss wants me to ______. -- Surviving executive design whims "I thought usability was the enemy of design until I read the first edition of this book. Don't Make Me Think! showed me how to put myself in the position of the person who uses my site. After reading it over a couple of hours and putting its ideas to work for the past five years, I can say it has done more to improve my abilities as a Web designer than any other book. In this second edition, Steve Krug adds essential ammunition for those whose bosses, clients, stakeholders, and marketing managers insist on doing the wrong thing. If you design, write, program, own, or manage Web sites, you must read this book." -- Jeffrey Zeldman, author of Designing with Web Standards

Author: Alan Jacobs
Publisher: Currency
ISBN: 0451499603
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 162

View

Book Description
"Absolutely splendid . . . essential for understanding why there is so much bad thinking in political life right now." —David Brooks, New York Times How to Think is a contrarian treatise on why we’re not as good at thinking as we assume—but how recovering this lost art can rescue our inner lives from the chaos of modern life. As a celebrated cultural critic and a writer for national publications like The Atlantic and Harper’s, Alan Jacobs has spent his adult life belonging to communities that often clash in America’s culture wars. And in his years of confronting the big issues that divide us—political, social, religious—Jacobs has learned that many of our fiercest disputes occur not because we’re doomed to be divided, but because the people involved simply aren’t thinking. Most of us don’t want to think. Thinking is trouble. Thinking can force us out of familiar, comforting habits, and it can complicate our relationships with like-minded friends. Finally, thinking is slow, and that’s a problem when our habits of consuming information (mostly online) leave us lost in the spin cycle of social media, partisan bickering, and confirmation bias. In this smart, endlessly entertaining book, Jacobs diagnoses the many forces that act on us to prevent thinking—forces that have only worsened in the age of Twitter, “alternative facts,” and information overload—and he also dispels the many myths we hold about what it means to think well. (For example: It’s impossible to “think for yourself.”) Drawing on sources as far-flung as novelist Marilynne Robinson, basketball legend Wilt Chamberlain, British philosopher John Stuart Mill, and Christian theologian C.S. Lewis, Jacobs digs into the nuts and bolts of the cognitive process, offering hope that each of us can reclaim our mental lives from the impediments that plague us all. Because if we can learn to think together, maybe we can learn to live together, too.

Author: Irving Lester Janis
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0029161614
Category : Crisis management
Languages : en
Pages : 408

View

Book Description
Janis shows corporate executives, organizational policymakers, and general managers how to avoid critical errors and ensure high quality in decision making.

Author: Adam Grant
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1984878123
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 321

View

Book Description
#1 New York Times Bestseller “THIS. This is the right book for right now. Yes, learning requires focus. But, unlearning and relearning requires much more—it requires choosing courage over comfort. In Think Again, Adam Grant weaves together research and storytelling to help us build the intellectual and emotional muscle we need to stay curious enough about the world to actually change it. I’ve never felt so hopeful about what I don’t know.” —Brené Brown, Ph.D., #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dare to Lead The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential, Originals, and Give and Take examines the critical art of rethinking: learning to question your opinions and open other people's minds, which can position you for excellence at work and wisdom in life Intelligence is usually seen as the ability to think and learn, but in a rapidly changing world, there's another set of cognitive skills that might matter more: the ability to rethink and unlearn. In our daily lives, too many of us favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. We listen to opinions that make us feel good, instead of ideas that make us think hard. We see disagreement as a threat to our egos, rather than an opportunity to learn. We surround ourselves with people who agree with our conclusions, when we should be gravitating toward those who challenge our thought process. The result is that our beliefs get brittle long before our bones. We think too much like preachers defending our sacred beliefs, prosecutors proving the other side wrong, and politicians campaigning for approval--and too little like scientists searching for truth. Intelligence is no cure, and it can even be a curse: being good at thinking can make us worse at rethinking. The brighter we are, the blinder to our own limitations we can become. Organizational psychologist Adam Grant is an expert on opening other people's minds--and our own. As Wharton's top-rated professor and the bestselling author of Originals and Give and Take, he makes it one of his guiding principles to argue like he's right but listen like he's wrong. With bold ideas and rigorous evidence, he investigates how we can embrace the joy of being wrong, bring nuance to charged conversations, and build schools, workplaces, and communities of lifelong learners. You'll learn how an international debate champion wins arguments, a Black musician persuades white supremacists to abandon hate, a vaccine whisperer convinces concerned parents to immunize their children, and Adam has coaxed Yankees fans to root for the Red Sox. Think Again reveals that we don't have to believe everything we think or internalize everything we feel. It's an invitation to let go of views that are no longer serving us well and prize mental flexibility over foolish consistency. If knowledge is power, knowing what we don't know is wisdom.

Author: Jerome Groopman
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0547348630
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 325

View

Book Description
On average, a physician will interrupt a patient describing her symptoms within eighteen seconds. In that short time, many doctors decide on the likely diagnosis and best treatment. Often, decisions made this way are correct, but at crucial moments they can also be wrong—with catastrophic consequences. In this myth-shattering book, Jerome Groopman pinpoints the forces and thought processes behind the decisions doctors make. Groopman explores why doctors err and shows when and how they can—with our help—avoid snap judgments, embrace uncertainty, communicate effectively, and deploy other skills that can profoundly impact our health. This book is the first to describe in detail the warning signs of erroneous medical thinking and reveal how new technologies may actually hinder accurate diagnoses. How Doctors Think offers direct, intelligent questions patients can ask their doctors to help them get back on track. Groopman draws on a wealth of research, extensive interviews with some of the country’s best doctors, and his own experiences as a doctor and as a patient. He has learned many of the lessons in this book the hard way, from his own mistakes and from errors his doctors made in treating his own debilitating medical problems. How Doctors Think reveals a profound new view of twenty-first-century medical practice, giving doctors and patients the vital information they need to make better judgments together.

Author: Grace Lordan
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241987768
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 336

View

Book Description
What are you doing today to make your dream future come true? 'A rare self-help book that's actually informed by evidence. A host of perceptive, practical tips for getting out of your own way and making progress toward your career goals.' Adam Grant, bestselling author of Think Again and Originals 'A practical and accessible guide to using behavioural science in your career.' Caroline Criado Perez, author of Invisible Women ________________ We all have big ambitions for the future but those dreams only become reality if we do something towards them regularly. To achieve audacious goals, we need to take action and make small changes every day. We need to think big and act small. Drawing on cutting-edge research from behavioural science, Dr Grace Lordan offers immediate actionable solutions and tips that will help you get closer to your dream future, every day. Focusing on six key areas - your time, goal planning, self-narratives, other people, your environment, and resilience - Dr Lordan reveals practical, science-backed hacks that will help you get ahead. Each chapter introduces us to behavioural science concepts like the 'halo effect', 'confirmation bias', 'affect heuristic' and the 'ostrich effect', to help you better understand yourself and others, so that you can get the most out of your career. Whether you fantasise about changing industry, landing that big promotion, writing a screenplay or setting up your own company, Think Big creates a clear pathway to the future you want now. Some of the things you'll learn include how to: · Overcome a fear of failure and throw yourself at opportunity · Craft the optimum environment for work and give yourself ample time for tasks · Rewrite self-narratives and tackle imposter syndrome · Watch out for other people's biases and stop them from holding you back Think Big provides a practical framework to keep you moving in the right direction towards any goal. It will help you get out of your own way and propel you on the path to success, transforming you from dreamer to doer!

Author: Lisa Bloom
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1459614593
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 418

View

Book Description
Explains how women can break free from the dumbed-down culture of reality TV and celebrity obsession and instead learn to think for themselves and live an intellectual life.

Author: Clyde W. Ford
Publisher: HarperCollins
ISBN: 0062890581
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

View

Book Description
“Powerful memoir. . .Ford’s thought-provoking narrative tells the story of African-American pride and perseverance.” –Publisher’s Weekly (Starred) “A masterful storyteller, Ford interweaves his personal story with the backdrop of the social movements unfolding at that time, providing a revealing insider’s view of the tech industry. . . simultaneously informative and entertaining. . . A powerful, engrossing look at race and technology.” –Kirkus Review (Starred) In this thought-provoking and heartbreaking memoir, an award-winning writer tells the story of his father, John Stanley Ford, the first black software engineer at IBM, revealing how racism insidiously affected his father’s view of himself and their relationship. In 1947, Thomas J. Watson set out to find the best and brightest minds for IBM. At City College he met young accounting student John Stanley Ford and hired him to become IBM’s first black software engineer. But not all of the company’s white employees refused to accept a black colleague and did everything in their power to humiliate, subvert, and undermine Ford. Yet Ford would not quit. Viewing the job as the opportunity of a lifetime, he comported himself with dignity and professionalism, and relied on his community and his "street smarts" to succeed. He did not know that his hiring was meant to distract from IBM’s dubious business practices, including its involvement in the Holocaust, eugenics, and apartheid. While Ford remained at IBM, it came at great emotional cost to himself and his family, especially his son Clyde. Overlooked for promotions he deserved, the embittered Ford began blaming his fate on his skin color and the notion that darker-skinned people like him were less intelligent and less capable—beliefs that painfully divided him and Clyde, who followed him to IBM two decades later. From his first day of work—with his wide-lapelled suit, bright red turtleneck, and huge afro—Clyde made clear he was different. Only IBM hadn’t changed. As he, too, experienced the same institutional racism, Clyde began to better understand the subtle yet daring ways his father had fought back.