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|  | Author: Gregory Berns
Publisher: Harvard Business School Press
Category: Book
List Price: $29.95
Buy Used: $4.48
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Seller: berkseller
Rating:  71 reviews
Sales Rank: 148564
Languages: English (Unknown), English (Original Language), English (Published)
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 224
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2
ISBN: 1422115011
Dewey Decimal Number: 612.8
EAN: 9781422115015
Publication Date: September 29, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 6-10 of 71
Highly readable and helpful! February 11, 2010
ServantofGod
If it were not for the recommendations of two of my most favorite authors (Mauboussin of More than you know and Ariely of Predictably Irrational), I would definitely have skipped this book simply for the title "Iconoclast" which I would usually have perceived as one of those books with an odd name to grab your attention but of little substance. Indeed, this is a great read, using the right dose of technical jargons to suggest how to improve oneself (IMHO, the author had been too humble to use the phrases "how to think differently" in the book cover & "think a bit more iconoclastically by understanding how the three key brain circuits perception/fear/social work" in pg11 ). A must read for self-improvers! Highly recommended!
p.s. Below please find some favorite passages of mine for your reference.
The brain runs on about 40 watts of power. It doesnt have a lot of energy to spare...The brain takes shortcuts in the interest of efficiency. pg7
Everything that the brain sees or hears or touches has multiple interpretations. The one that is ultimately chosen - the thing that is perceived - is simply the brain's best guess at interpreting what flows into it...heavily influenced by past experience and what other people say. pg8
Cats and dogs dont have blind spots. The phenomenon is unique to humans and other primates. pg21
Sometimes a simple change of environment is enough to jog the perceptual system out of familiar categories. This may be one reason why restaurants figure so prominently as sites of perceptual breakthroughs...when confronted with places never seen before, the brain must create new categories. It is in this process that the brain jumbles around old ideas with new images to create new syntheses. New acquaintances can also be a source of new perception. Other people will frequently lend their opinion of what they see, and these ideas may be enough to destablizie familiar patterns of perception. pg33
Education consists mainly in what we have unlearned. - Mark Twain pg35
Only when you consciously confront your brain's reliance on categories will you be able to imagine outside of its boundaries. pg58
I have learned over the years that when one's mind is made up, this diminishes fear; knowing what must be done does away with fear. - Rosa Parks pg59
If you know the game, you can get through the funnel. You make up stuff. I made it to EVP not by being bright, but by being theatrical. By being passionate. You can fake passion. And the better ideas were being shot down because the other guy didnt do theater as well. - Jim Lavoie pg72
The strategy of substituting a short term stress (physical exercise) for a chronic one may be very effective....similarly...taking on projects that have defined endings. pg81
Thinking first of money instead of work brings on fear of failure and this fear blocks every avenue of business - it makes a man afraid of competition, of changing his methods, or of doing anythign which might change his condition. - Henry Ford pg125
 An explosion of knowledge! January 9, 2010
Carroll W. Bennett
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Gregory Berns has presented the twenty-first century with an astounding analysis of hpw the brain functions and how to pvercome roadblocks to success. Millions of this book must be sold to help people emerge from the stilted twentieth century "slows." Please push sales so President Obama can be helped by new creative thinking from the masses! Readers will individually be renewed, restored, refreshed and rejuvenated. Hallelujah!
Now I understand the science that underpins my teaching January 6, 2010
J. G. Du Plessis (Menlo Park, Pretoria South Africa)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I have finally found a book that explains the science underpinning what I have been involved in for a lifetime: the world of creativity, originality and innovation.
I teach an MBA course at South Africa's Gordon Institute of Business Science: "Imagination for the business mind- thinking differently." From personal experience I have devised a course where I use the arts (mainly the visual arts) to expose the students to material that is foreign to them, even weird and outrageous. Taking them to a world where they might never have been before, or might have visited only occasionally, I reasoned, scrambles the mind, breaks down presuppositions and prejudices and creates an environment where fresh thinking may evolve.
Perceiving differently will lead to thinking differently was my assumption.
The assumption and the process are both vindicated by Berns' book. The thesis, in a nutshell, is that perception is a construct of the mind.
There are two reasons for them mind involuntarily choosing the conventional option:
1. The mind needs to be energy efficient. It will therefore balk at options that require it to spend more energy. The result: the mind puts perceptions into already acquired boxes (categories). Therefore the known will almost always win against the novel. We are therefore programmed to fear the novel. This fear acts as a powerful switch to let the mind use the lower energy option that goes with the conventional.
2. We are also programmed to fear the opprobrium of others. We don't want to stand alone. Berns cites laboratory experiments of others and his own to establish this point sufficiently. He also describes in detail, and in an engaging way how the brain processes visual stimuli and transforms it into perception and understanding.
So, what's to be done? Expose yourself to novel visual environments. Make it almost impossible for the brain to process the wealth of new stimuli within its conventional categories. Train yourself to overcome your fear of novelty. And finally, to be a fresh thinker that accomplishes something in the real world, you have to balance your ability to take a stand against the group or team with the patience and the ability to persuade others to your view.
Berns has persuaded me to prune some of the linguistic material in favour of more material from the visual arts. I also now have a proper scientific foundation for what I do to offer the students. Finally it is a vindication for including courses such as the one I am offering within an MBA curriculum, because you offer students a "safe" environment to overcome their fear of the novel and test the waters of iconoclasm tentatively, if not bravely!
Meaty and good! December 22, 2009
J. Hoelscher (Texas)
I loved this book. Berns doesn't dumb his material down, he just breaks it down into easier to digest chunks. A lot of the popular manuals for how to be more effective in business or relationships are based upon one or two theories of psychology interpreted by someone who doesn't really get the material for an audience they assume isn't interested in getting to the science. Berns gives us enough of the science to follow along as well as a non-neuroscientist can. While the book focuses on iconoclasm, it still gets in depth enough into the three (very complex) components of iconoclasm that the reader can get a good handle on the subject matter and start applying it in daily life. This is not a book full of fluff stories and lists of slogans. The stories have points and the real info is handed to the reader with respect.
The books point, overall, is clear from the cover. It is a discussion of why some people become great by thinking in revolutionary terms and how we can capture some of that method for ourselves. Unlike many self-help books or motivational programs that get people pepped up and that's it, this book tempers its advice. Iconoclasts do things, think in certain ways, that are useful and which we can learn to use, too. The true iconoclasts often pay a heavy price, though, so most of us will get what we want by being something less than history-making. Sound advice built on a sound foundation.
Fascinating Insight! December 7, 2009
L Miller (Utah)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The author, while quoting more about the brain's biological functions than I would have deemed necessary, does an excellent job of explaining how to think differently. The author's use of examples clearly illustrates his points. The book was worth reading to hear the stories of those that changed the thinking of a 'status quo' populous.
Showing reviews 6-10 of 71
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