Drawing on the words and deeds of many of the world's greatest leaders and using interactive quizzes, this enpowering book helps you assess your thinking style, guides you to new ones, and step by step teaches you the secrets of
* Big-Picture Thinking---seeing the world beyond your own needs
and how that leads to great ideas.
* Focused Thinking---removing mental clutter and distractions to
realize your full potential
* Creative Thinking---stepping "out of the box" and making
breakthroughs
* Shared Thinking---working with others to compound results.
* Reflective Thinking---looking at the past to gain a better
understanding of the future and much more.
Maxwell is America's most trusted and admired motivational teacher. He examines the very foundation of success and self-transformation.
Thinking for a Change is manual you never recieved on how to
best use one of your most precious possessions: your mind.
Maxwell devotes a separate chapter to each of the eleven types of thinking: Big Picture, Focussed, Creative, realistic, Strategic, Possibility/Potentiality, Reflective, Popular (thinking which creates agreement, consensus, teamwork, etc.), Shared/Collaborative, Unselfish, and Bottom-line. According to Maxwell, his book "does not try to tell you what to think; it attempts to teach you [in italics] how to think." At the conclusion of each chapter, he thoughtfully includes a brief exercise which requires the reader to apply the key points in the chapter to her or his own circumstances. I have no problem with the fact that there is some redundancy in Maxwell's presentation of material. First of all, the eleven types of thinking are interrelated, interdependent. Strengthening one inevitably helps to strengthen the others. Also, certain key points need to be reiterated for purposes of both review and emphasis. Presumably Maxwell agrees with me that there is a compelling need for new thinking about how to change one's way of thinking. Metaphorically, we need both new wine AND new bottles but also new, better ideas about the process of producing wine.
Paradoxically, as the prophet Eccelesiastes asserts, "there is nothing new under the sun." I am not damning with faint praise when suggesting that there is (essentially) nothing new in Maxwell's book. Almost all of the key concepts in this book can be found in the works of Aristotle, Marcus Aurelius, Immanuel Kant, William James, and others. (Maxwell duly acknowledges a wealth of resources.) For me, the great value of this book is not derived from any original insights offered by Maxwell; rather, from his brilliant organization and presentation of essentially fundamental ideas about the process of thinking clearly on so many different levels, from so many different points of view. This may well prove to be his most important contribution to our understanding of what can and should be accomplished by more effective use of the abundant resources which are already available...between our two ears.
The moral of this tale is: read specific works that are written by those who are experts in one of these 11 dimensions. Maxwell is superficial. He kinda has to be, as he is in the business of writing many books in the knowledge lite category. He may point out useful directions to follow up on. It's up to YOU to get the hint and follow the trail. Also suggest that you read Don't Jump To Solutions (cognitive psychologists call this problem "rush to structure"), by William B. Rouse, or Games, Strategies & Managers by John Mc Millan and of course, The Logic Of Failure by Dietrich Doerner.... soon enough you get the idea that strategic thinking is A. both a science and an art, and B. one heck of a lot of hard work to do well, and C. inspiration doesn't hurt, but perspiration wins the day..
Still hot to trot ? Bramson and Harrison's work on the dominant thinking styles in western cultures, Analytic, Idealistic, Pragmatic, Synthetic, and Realistic remains better than almost any other typology, perhaps more significant and elegantly simple than the Briggs-Myers system...
You've been warned, fellow students. Maxwell is the threshold, not the full structure. Don't make the mistake of thinking that Thinking For A Change is enough. You need more, a lot more.