Thinking For A Change

Part I of this book had some really good shtuff in it, but I wasn’t able to make time to write about the key points that stood out to me. I will do a better job for Part II: Eleven Thinking Skills Every Successful Person Needs. I will actually use these types of posts as my “notepad” when I complete the assigned readings for my Leadership & Critical Thinking course. As most of my posts about the books in my “Bookshelf,” I will just report (in bullet form) the more interesting points that I found in each chapter. Hopefully these bullet points serve a purpose for you; whether they be good conversation starters or even serve as “thought provokers.” Definitely, comment on any of these posts with your thoughts and we can have a discussion 🙂 Enjoy!

Skill #1

• “Where success is concerned, people are not measured in inches, or pounds, or college degrees, or family background; they are measured by the size of their thinking.” – David Schwartz (59)
• “We all live under the same sky, but we don’t all have the same horizon.” – Konrad Adenauer (61)
• How many thousands of people had seen what Eratosthenes saw and never made the same connection? (61)
• When somebody like Jack Welch tells a GE employee that the ongoing relationship with the customer is more important than the sale of an individual product, he’s reminding them of the big picture. (62)
• Spend time with big-picture thinkers and you’ll find that they: (1) Learn continually, (2) Listen intentionally, (3) Look expansively and (4) Live completely. (63-65)
• Big-picture thinkers are never satisfied with what they already know…. they often are able to connect the unconnected. They are life-long learners. (63)
• If I’m going to learn and grow, I must know what questions to ask and know how to apply the answers to my life. (63)
• Big-picture thinkers recognize that they don’t know lots of things. (64)
• Big-picture thinkers realize there is a world out there besides their own, and they make an effort to get outside of themselves and see other people’s worlds through their eyes. (64)
• You can spend your life any way you want, but you can spend it only once. (65)
• [Big-picture thinkers] experience fewer unwanted surprises, too, because they are more likely to see the many components involved in any given situation: issues, people, relationships, timing and values. They are also, therefore, usually more tolerant of other people and their thinking. (65)
• Leaders must: (1) See the vision before their people do, (2) Size up situations, taking into account many variables, (3) Sketch a picture of where the team is going, (4) Show how the future connects with the past to make the journey more meaningful, and (5) Seize the moment when the timing is right. (66-67)
• “He that is everywhere is nowhere.” – Thomas Fuller (67)
• “You’ve got to think about the ‘big things’ while you’re doing the small things, so that all the small things go in the right direction.” – Alvin Toffler (67)
• One of the most important skills you can develop in human relations is the ability to see things from the other person’s point of view. (68)
• see what other see… that is a powerful thing. (68)
• The better the grasp team members have of the big picture, the greater their potential to work together as a team. (68)
• The person who forgets the ultimate is a slave to the immediate. (69)
• With preparation, the most important things will be done well. (69)
• If you want to cultivate the ability to think big picture, then you must get used to embracing and dealing with complex and diverse ideas. (71)
• Learn from Every Experience: Failing Forward (71)
• Teachability is an attitude, a mind-set that says, “No matter how much I know (or think I know), I can learn from this situation.” That kind of thinking can help you turn adversity into advantage. It can make you a winner even during the most difficult circumstances.” (71)
• If you want to be a big-picture thinker, you will have to go against the flow of the world. (73)