Problem Solving Psychology

Art Thinking combines the mind-sets of art and the tools of business to protect space for open-ended exploration and manage risks on your way to success. Art Thinking takes you from "Wouldn't it be cool if...?" to realizing your highest aims, helping you build creative skills you can apply across all facets of business and life. Warm, honest, and unexpected, Art Thinking will help you reimagine your work and life-and even change the world-while enjoying the journey from point A.

The different ways that social change happens, from unleashing to nudging to social cascades. How does social change happen? When do social movements take off? Sexual harassment was once something that women had to endure; now a movement has risen up against it. White nationalist sentiments, on the other hand, were largely kept out of mainstream discourse; now there is no shortage of media outlets for them. In this book, with the help of behavioral economics, psychology and other fields, Cass Sunstein casts a bright new light on how change happens.

In Life Finds a Way, biologist Andreas Wagner reveals the deep symmetry between innovation in biological evolution and human cultural creativity. Rarely is either a linear climb to perfection - instead, "progress" is typically marked by a sequence of peaks, plateaus, and pitfalls. For instance, in Picasso's 40-some iterations of Guernica, we see the same combination of small steps, incessant reshuffling, and large, almost reckless, leaps that characterize the way evolution transformed a dinosaur's grasping claw into a condor's soaring wing.

We make thousands of decisions every day. In fact, research suggests that an adult brain makes on average about 35,000 remotely conscious decisions on a daily basis. When we were younger, choices were most likely simple. As we get older, our level of responsibility increases, and so does the number of choices that we are faced with on a daily basis. With ever-increasing choices and responsibilities, at least our decision-making process stays the same, right? In actuality, our decision-making process is broken.

Research shows that people often wildly misunderstand the state of the world, regardless of age, sex, or education. And though the internet brings us unprecedented access to information, there's little evidence we're any better informed because of it. We may blame cognitive bias or fake news, but neither tells the complete story. Bobby Duffy draws on his research into public perception, offering a sweeping account of the stubborn problem of human delusion: how society breeds it, why it will never go away, and what our misperceptions say about what we really believe.

Why are some of us better than others at committing to a decision? How can we move from indecision and procrastination to smart choices? What are the forces that hold us back and how can we successfully overcome them? The Art of Decision Making explores, analyses and navigates the idea of volition: ''the power to use one's own will in order to make decisions.' By drawing on diverse sources, Joseph Bikart has created a precise map of the intricate paths we take when we move from will to action.

One of the nation's leading psychologists asks why today's corporate leaders desire but reject creative solutions - and finds some surprising conclusions.

A passionate polemic in favor of pausing to think, not blink. What do these scenarios have in common: a professional tennis player returning a serve, a woman evaluating a first date across the table, a naval officer assessing a threat to his ship, and a comedian about to reveal a punch line? In this counterintuitive and insightful work, author Frank Partnoy weaves together findings from hundreds of scientific studies and interviews with wide-ranging experts to craft a picture of effective decision making that runs contrary to our brutally fast-paced world.

Never mind growing up; it's time we grew down. There are some 400 million people worldwide whose creativity, curiosity and determination put the rest of us to shame. They are experts in their field but have no experience to speak of. Once, you were one of them, too. They are toddlers - and they hold the key to unlocking our potential as adults, at work and in life. In Little Wins, Ella's Kitchen founder Paul Lindley reveals the nine characteristics and behaviours that we can all learn from recalling our toddler selves.

How do people come up with truly original ideas? The answer is to think outside the box - way outside. For the past decade, Cyril Bouquet, Jean-Louis Barsoux, and Michael Wade, professors of innovation and strategy at IMD Business School, have studied inventors, scientists, doctors, entrepreneurs, and artists. These people, or “aliens,” as the authors call them, are able to make leaps of creativity, and use five patterns of thinking that distinguish them from the rest of us.

We're all dealt certain 'cards' in life, the daily challenges we need to overcome in order to thrive. Tackling the problems and challenges of everyday life begins with our thinking. Our thoughts and behaviours can propel us forward or sabotage our goals and relationships. This practical, eye-opening book draws on the philosophy of the ancient Stoics and the ground-breaking therapy of Dr Albert Ellis to help you achieve your goals. Is That Your Card? will help you change your mindset for the better, putting you in position to propel yourself to greater success.

Outraged by the downward spiral of American intellect and culture, Michael R. LeGault offers the flip side of Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling phenomenon, Blink, which celebrated impulse thinking over factual knowledge or critical analysis. If best-selling books are advising us to not think, LeGault argues, it comes as no surprise that sharp, incisive reasoning is on the decline, leading our society to incompetence and failure.

Many of the prices we pay seem to make little sense. We shell out $2.29 for a coffee at Starbucks when a nearly identical brew can be had at the corner deli for less than a dollar. We may be less willing to give blood for $25 than to donate it for free. Americans hire the cheap labor of illegal immigrants to fix the roof or mow the lawn and vote for politicians who promise to spend billions to keep them out of the country.

Why do we do the things we do? The classical view of economics is that we are rational individuals, making decisions with the intention of maximizing our preferences. Behaviorists, on the other hand, see us as relying on mental shortcuts and conforming to preexisting biases. Richard Robb argues that neither explanation accounts for those things that we do for their own sake, and without understanding these sorts of actions, our picture of decision‑making is at best incomplete.

We are about to enter a new age of creativity that will require a new set of superheroes to help the world thrive. This audiobook will make you one of those creative superheroes by unleashing new creative superpowers to help you solve your biggest business problems. This is the modern skillset for creative problem solving.

Who are the greatest innovators in the world? You're probably thinking Steve Jobs, Thomas Edison, and Henry Ford - the usual suspects.

This book isn't about them. It's about people who are just as innovative, entrepreneurial, and visionary as the Jobses, Edisons, and Fords of the world, except they're not in Silicon Valley. They're in the street markets of Sao Paulo and Guangzhou, and the rubbish dumps of Lagos. They are pirates, slum dwellers, computer hackers, dissidents, and inner city gang members.

What is the best way for a company to innovate? That's exactly the wrong question. The better question: How can organizations get the maximum possible value from their innovation investments? Advice recommending "innovation vacations" and the luxury of failure may be wonderful for organizations with time to spend and money to waste. But this audiobook addresses the innovation priorities of companies that live in the real world of limits. They want fast, frugal, and high-impact innovations.

Science confirms the distinction between the biological brain and the conscious mind. Each day, a game of mind versus matter plays out on a field defined by the problems we must solve. Most are routine, and don't demand a more mindful approach. It's when we're faced with more difficult challenges that our thinking becomes vulnerable to brain patterns that can lead us astray.

Taking behavioral economics from the cocktail party to the boardroom, with dramatic results Books like Predictably Irrational and Nudge have brought behavioral economics into the mainstream. But while we all marvel at how different-and weird-real people behave compared to the "rational actors" of traditional economics, in the end we go back to business as usual.

Whether you run your own business or work for someone else, you’ve probably got a lot on your plate. Along with the portion of your work that you truly feel like doing comes a generous helping of things you’d rather not do. As consultants, Steve Levinson and Chris Cooper have seen countless clients struggle - and often fail - to do the many success-producing things they know they should do but don’t feel like doing. The Power to Get Things Done will teach you how to consistently turn your good intentions into action so that you can be as successful as possible.