INDEX

Action crisis, 114

Aikido, 37

Airbnb, 63

Albert, Neil, 75

Alto prototype computer, 141

American Express OPEN Forum, 146n

An Anti-Creativity Checklist (Youngme Moon), 149–150

Apple, 16–17, 50, 141–142

Argyris, Chris, 59

Assumptions:

made in stress evaluation, 166–167

surfacing, 79–82

testing, 83–85

Atkinson, Bill, 141

Attention density, 73–75

Available resources, 72–73

Ayduk, Ozlem, 162

Ayres, Ian, 51n

“Beast Barracks,” 118–119

Beck, Charlie, 21

Behavioral economics, 95

Belleville, Bob, 142

Berger, Warren, 40, 41

Blink (Malcolm Gladwell), 26, 27

Bounded rationality, 91

Brain, mind vs., xii–xiv

Brainstorming:

basic rules of, 37–38

and leaping, 8

limitations of, 14

prevention of idea rejection in, 131

Bratton, William, 21

Braun, 142

Buckingham, Marcus, 123

California Institute of Technology (Caltech), 33

California Peace Officer Standards and Training Command College, 30

Can-if cascading (technique), 121–122

Cannes Film Festival, 100

Cassell’s Complete Book of Sports and Pastimes, 29

Channel tags, 133

Choices, 97–98

Choking (in performance), 74

Christensen, Karen, 168

Cirque du Soleil, 63

“Connect & Develop” strategy, 17, 143–144

Corporate culture, 129–131

Creativity in Business (Ray and Myers), 153

Curse of knowledge, 138–140

Da Vinci, Leonardo, 73

Decomposition (technique), 102–104

Deja vu, 10

The Design of Business (Roger Martin), 79

Design thinking, 67, 99 (See also Synthesis)

Dictionary.com, 78n

Do The Work (Steven Pressfield), 154

Dorsey, Jack, 41

Double down (technique), 101–102

Downgrading, 14–15, 109–126

defining, 111–114

jumpstarting to fix, 120–126

and neuroscience of goal-directed action, 117–118

and perseverance, 118–119

in Prisoner’s Release challenge, 30

reasons for, 114–117

Dramatic destinations, 116

Duckworth, Angela, 118–119

Duncker, Karl, 48

Duncker candle problem, 48n

Edmunds, 145

Einstein, Albert, xi, 1, 25, 42, 45, 67, 89, 109, 129, 149

Elegant solutions, 5–6

Epictetus, 98

Epstein, Brian, 135

Ericsson, K. Anders, 125

Experimental design, 83–85

Experiments, 77, 78

rapid, 76, 85

Failure, 77

FAST thinking:

not invented here in, 137

and pulsing, 125

SLOW vs., 31–37

Fastlane development program, 145

Fear, 152, 155

Fear of missing out (FOMO), 98

Festival of Festivals, 100

Fields, Debbi, 135

The Fifth Discipline (Peter Senge), 91

Fixation, 9–10, 45–66

defining, 48–54

insight problems showing, 45–48

inversion to fix, 60–66

neuroscience of, 57–58

and patterned thinking, 59–60

in Prisoner’s Release challenge, 30

reasons for, 54–57

in self-censoring, 150

self-censoring as, 17, 18

Foch, Ferdinand, 134

FOMO (fear of missing out), 98

Fonda, Henry, 155

Ford, Henry, 111–112

Framestorming:

after can-if cascading, 122

to fix leaping, 9, 37–43

and fixation, 51

in inversion exercise, 64–65

questioning in process of, 40–42

Framing, in problem-solving, 8–9, 38

Fresh starts (technique), 124–125

Functional fixedness, 9, 48 (See also Fixation)

Gaming the goal, 113

General Electric (GE), 113

General Motors, 49

George Costanza (fictional character), 61n

Gilbert, Paul, 157

Gladding, Ruth, 57–58, 154, 162

Gladwell, Malcolm, 26–27, 32

Goal-directed action, 117–118

Goals:

setting attainable, 117

stretch, 120

Google, 121

Grit Scale, 119

Hackomotive, 145

Handling, Piers, 99–101

Harvard Business Review, 104, 144

Hashtags, 133–134

Hastings, Reed, 41

Heath, Chris, 138

Heath, Dan, 138

Hebb’s law, 58

Heuristics, 95–97

Hippocampus, 33, 34

Hitler, Adolf, 55–56

Huston, Larry, 143–144

Hypothesis, 78, 84

Ice industry, 49–50

Ideas, quality and quality of, 137

IDEO (design firm), 67–68

“The Impartial Spectator,” 18, 161

Incentive-disengagement cycle, 113–114 (See also Downgrading)

Innovation:

encouraging with hackathons, 145–146

encouraging with knowledge networks, 146–148

at Procter & Gamble, 142–144

and prototesting, 12

The Innovator’s Hypothesis (Michael Schrage), 83

Insight problems:

and fixation, 45–48

and satisficing, 89–90

solutions to, 171–174

Integrative thinking, 99, 104 (See also Synthesis)

Inversion (technique), 10, 60–66

Isaacson, Walter, 16–17

Ive, Jonathan, 142

James, Lebron, 162–163

James, William, 119

Jameson, Julietta, 110

Jobs, Steve, 10, 16–17, 135, 141–142

Jones, Morgan, 55

Jumpstarting (technique), 14–15, 120–126

Jung, Carl, 152

Kahneman, Daniel, 31, 32, 36

Kant, Immanuel, 59

Karate, 37

Kennedy, John F., 55

Kettering, Charles, 77

Kleitman, Nathaniel, 125n

Klinger, Eric, 113

Knowledge, curse of, 138–140

Knowledge networks (technique), 146–148

Kross, Ethan, 162–163

Ladder of inference (technique), 59

Lafley, A. G., 17, 142–144, 146

Land, Edwin, 41

Land, Jennifer, 41

Langer, Ellen, 158–161, 166–167

LAPD bomb squad, 1–5, 20–21, 27–28

Leahy, William, 135

Leaping, 8–9, 25–43

defining, 26–28

FAST and SLOW thinking, 31–37

framestorming to fix, 37–43

neuroscience of, 33–34

reasons for, 28–31

Learning:

natural, 75–76

one-shot, 33–34

through testing, 76

Learning patterns, 75–77

Lee, Sang Wan, 33

Lexus, 116, 117n, 121

Limitations, personal, 150

Made to Stick (Heath and Heath), 138

Mankoff, Bob, 106

Mars Pathfinder team, 116, 122

“The Marshmallow Challenge,” 67–71

Martial arts, 37

Martin, Roger, 13, 79, 81–82, 99, 101–104, 106–107, 143, 168

Maximizing, satisficing vs., 97–98

Means, motives and, 117–118

Meditation, 160–161

Mental accounting periods, 124

Mental models, 59

Messina, Chris, 133–134

Milkman, Katherine, 124

Mind, brain vs., xii–xiv

Mindfulness, 18, 20

Mindfulness (Ellen Langer), 158

Mindlessness, 158–160

Mindsets, 59

Mitroff, Ian, 49

Models of Man (Herbert Simon), 13, 90

Mona Lisa (painting), 73

Monty Hall Problem, 96–97

Moon, Youngme, 149–150

A More Beautiful Question (Warren Berger), 40

Morgan, Adam, 121, 122

Motives, means and, 117–118

Myers, Rochelle, 153

Nalebuff, Barry, 51n

NASA, 116, 130, 131

Natural learning, 75–76

Nature Neuroscience, 74

Neurochemicals, 139–140

Neuroplasticity, 49, 60 (See also Inversion)

Neuroscience:

of fixation, 57–58

of goal-directed action, 117–118

of leaping, 33–34

of not invented here, 139–140

of overthinking, 73–75

of self-censoring, 156–157

The Neuroscience of Leadership (J. Schwartz and Rock), 139

New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest, 104–106

Nightline (television program), 68

Not invented here (NIH), 15–17, 129–148

examples of, 129–136

neuroscience of, 139–140

in Prisoner’s Release challenge, 30

proudly found elsewhere to fix, 141–148

reasons for, 137–138, 140–141

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), 49, 60

Olson, Ken, 135

On Problem Solving (Karl Duncker), 48

One-shot learning, 33–34

Open hackathons (technique), 145–146

The Opposable Mind (Roger Martin), 99

Opposite World (technique), 61–65

Osborn, Alex, 131–132

“Outsider effect,” 165–166

Overthinking, 11–12, 67–86

defining, 68–71

and learning patterns, 75–77

neuroscience of, 73–75

in Prisoner’s Release challenge, 30

prototesting to fix, 78–86

reasons for, 72–73

and self-censoring, 18

Pachet, Pierre, 134

Palme d’Or, 100

The Paradox of Choice (Barry Schwartz), 97

“The Paradox of Stretch Goals” (Sim Sitkin), 120n

PARC (Xerox Palo Alto Research Center), 141

Pareto solution, 112

Pasteur, Louis, 134

Patterned thinking, 59–60

Patton, George, 72

Pauling, Linus, 137

People’s Choice Award, 101

Pepperdine University, 148

Perfection, 117n

Permeable boundaries, 144

Perseverance, 118–119

Personal limitations, 150

PFE (proudly found elsewhere), 17, 141–148

P&G (Procter & Gamble), 17, 142–144, 146

Picasso, Pablo, 17, 140–141

PLoS Biology, 33

Police officers, 26–28

Pragmatism (William James), 119

Prefrontal cortex, 33, 34

Pressfield, Steven, 153–154

Principled-Problem Solving course, xii

Prison systems, 123–124

Prisoner’s Release challenge:

downgrading in, 112, 115

solution, 169

as thinking exercise, 28–31

Problem-solving:

and neurochemicals, 139–140

“outsider effect” on, 165–166

Procter & Gamble (P&G), 17, 142–144, 146

Prototesting, 12, 78–86

Prototypes, 84

Proudly found elsewhere (PFE), 17, 141–148

Psychology Today, 163–164

Pulsing, 125 (See also Fresh starts)

Quantum Zeno effect, 58

Questions:

in framestorming, 40–42

in satisficing, 94

Rams, Dieter, 142

Ramsbotham, Sir David, 123

Rapid cognition, 26 (See also Leaping)

Rapid experimentation, 76, 85

Raskin, Jef, 141

Ray, Michael, 153

“Reality distortion field,” 10

Reframing, 20

Reinhart, Robert, 156

Reliability, 79

Resistance, 153–154

Resources, available, 72–73

Results-only work environment (ROWE), 64

Riel, Jennifer, 101–104

Rock, David, 18, 139–140, 161

Rotman Management, 168

Rotman School of Management, 99

ROWE (results-only work environment), 64

Rowe, Dick, 135

“Sacred cows,” 64

Sakkab, Nabil, 143–144

Sarnoff, David, 134

Satisficing, 12–13, 89–107

defining, 90–94

and heuristics, 95–97

maximizing vs., 97–98

in Prisoner’s Release challenge, 30

reasons for, 94–95

synthesis to fix, 99–107

Savant, Marilyn vos, 96n

Schrage, Michael, 12, 83–85

Schwartz, Barry, 97–98

Schwartz, Jeffrey, 49, 57–58, 60–61, 139–140, 154–156, 162

Schwartz, Tony, 125

The Sciences of the Artificial (Herbert Simon), 67n, 99

Seelig, Tina, 10, 42, 62

Seinfeld (television program), 61n

Self-censoring, 17–19, 149–168

defining, 151–155

and mindlessness, 158–160

neuroscience of, 156–157

in Prisoner’s Release challenge, 30

reasons for, 155–156

self-distancing to fix, 160–168

Self-distancing, 18–19, 160–168

Self-doubt, 149

Senge, Peter, 91

“Serious play,” 12

Shampoo bottle exercise, 4–5

downgrading in, 112

framestorming in, 9, 42

health club’s solution to, 10

jumpstarting in, 15

not invented here in, 16, 132

overthinking in, 73

satisficing in, 13

self-censoring in, 18, 151

typical solutions to, 6–7

Sherlock Holmes, 8

Shimojo, Shinsuke, 34

Siegal, Daniel, 161

Simon, Herbert, 12–13, 67n, 90–91, 95, 99

Sitkin, Sim, 120n

Six sigma, 67

Skillman, Peter, 67–68

Sleep cycles, 125

SLOW thinking:

FAST vs., 31–37

and not invented here, 139

and performance, 74–75

and pulsing, 125

Smalltalk programming language, 141

Smith, Adam, 18, 161–162

Southwest Airlines, 116

Stanovich, Keith, 31

Star Video, 51n, 54

Stewart, Jon, 164

Stress, 158–159, 166–167

Stretch goals, 120

Subject matter expertise, 138–140

Sudarshan, George, 58

Surfacing assumptions, 79–82

“Survival on the Moon” exercise, 130–131

Sutton, Robert, 10

Synthesis:

to fix satisficing, 13, 99–107

and permeable boundaries, 144

Target, 102–103

Temporal landmarks, 124

Tesla cars, 63

Tesler, Larry, 141, 142

Testing:

assumptions, 83–85

learning through, 76

The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Adam Smith), 161–162

Thinking:

design, 67, 99

integrative, 99, 104

patterned, 59–60

(See also FAST thinking; Overthinking; SLOW thinking)

Thinking, Fast and Slow (Daniel Kahneman), 31

Threat-protection system, 156–157

Tice, Lou, 111n

The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell), 26

Toronto International Film Festival, 99–101

Toyota, 115–116

Twitter, 133–134

Tyson, Mike, 72

Uber, 63

University of Toronto, 99

University of Toyota, xii, 121, 146

Validity, 79

Variety, 101

Videotape rewinding exercise, 51–52

downgrading in, 112

framestorming in, 52–53

not invented here in, 132

overthinking in, 73

self-censoring in, 151

Star Video’s solution to, 54

Voice of Judgment (VOJ), 153

Vuja de, 10

Wall Street Journal, 133–134

Walmart, 101–102

Walters, Helen, 10

The War of Art (Steven Pressfield), 153–154

Warner, H. M., 134

Waters, Sarah, 152

Weintraub, Pamela, 163–164

Welch, Jack, 113, 120

West, Richard, 31

West Point cadets, 118–119

Western Union, 134

Westfield Ultramarathon, 109–111

What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20 (Tina Seelig), 62

Why Not? (Nalebuff and Ayres), 51n

Why-how laddering (technique), 122–124

Wikipedia, 137

“Win As Much As You Can” game, 91–94

“Wise Advocate,” 162

Woodman, Geoffrey, 156

Wozniak, Steve, 135

Xerox, 16–17, 141–142

Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), 141

You Are Not Your Brain (Schwartz and Gladding), 57–58, 154

Young, Cliff, 109–112

Your Brain At Work (David Rock), 18, 161

Yousafzai, Malala, 164

Zappa, Frank, 38