HR Professional - August/September 2008 - (Page 51)

OFF THE SHELF B Y J AY S O M E R S E T WHAT’S WORTH READING Think Better: An Innovator’s Guide to Productive Thinking Tim Hurson McGraw-Hill, 2008 Walk into any business brainstorming brain session and there’s a a good chance ch top-brass some top exec will say, wi “Think different, w ya!” will author Tim But a Hurson sugHurs gests people “think better,” “thi and his book attempts to att illustrate ill how to beh come a betco ter thinker. thi Toronto resident and founding partner of consulting f di t f ﬁrm thinkx intellectual capital, Hurson provides a six-step model for ﬁnding solutions to seemingly impossible problems by leading readers through basic steps—and intensive listmaking—that break through inner barriers (“It’ll never work”) and patterned thinking (“It’s just the he way things work in our industry”) to ﬁnd d a new solution. “What’s going on?” begins the process by asking you to explore the challenge at hand. It’s a messy stage full of questions, not answers, and is the longest, most intensive stage of decisionw w w. HRT houghtLeader. c om making. The next ﬁve steps demand envisioning success (the ideal outcome), pinpointing the question (the real problem or opportunity) and generating answers (a solution is scrutinized and tested against new, more radical ideas). Once you’ve identiﬁed the best solution, Hurson again wants you to spend time adjusting and analyzing it until you are left with a ﬁnal solution, which is then put into action. Think Better provides an actual how-to course of action for solving any problem, from engaging employees to ﬁnding new customers, and it’s ﬁlled with great examples (including how Polaroid made “if only we could make instant pictures” a reality). The Art of Woo: Using Strategic Persuasion to Sell Your Ideas By G. Richard Shell and Mario Moussa Portfolio/Penguin, 2007 In 1936, self-improvement guru Dale Carnegie penned How to Win Friends and Inﬂuence People, a book that went on to sell 50 million copies worldwide. w The idea T behind the b book, comb municating m your yo ideas and an getting people on peo your you side, forever is fo relevant, esrele pecially when peci your idea requires quire persuasion. Taking off 384293_psych.indd 1 A u g u s t / S e p t e m b e r 6/9/08 11:08:08 PM 2 0 0 8 51 http://www.HRThoughtLeader.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of HR Professional - August/September 2008

HR Professional - August/September 2008 Contents Editor's Letter Contributors Leadership Matters Upfront Legal Compensation Human Capital The New Frontier On Message Strategy HR 101 Interview with Annette Veschuren Talent Management Training Work/Life Balance Off the Shelf The Last Word

HR Professional - August/September 2008

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