Discover the essential thinking tools you’ve been missing with The Great Mental Models series by Shane Parrish, New York Times bestselling author and the mind behind the acclaimed Farnam Street blog and “The Knowledge Project” podcast. This first book in the series is your guide to learning the crucial thinking tools nobody ever taught you. Time and time again, great thinkers such as Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett have credited their success to mental models–representations of how something works that can scale onto other fields. Mastering a small number of mental models enables you to rapidly grasp new information, identify patterns others miss, and avoid the common mistakes that hold people back. The Great Mental Models: Volume 1, General Thinking Concepts shows you how making a few tiny changes in the way you think can deliver big results. Drawing on examples from history, business, art, and science, this book details nine of the most versatile, all-purpose mental models you can use right away to improve your decision making and productivity. This book will teach you how to: Avoid blind spots when looking at problems. Find non-obvious solutions. Anticipate and achieve desired outcomes. Play to your strengths, avoid your weaknesses, … and more. The Great Mental Models series demystifies once elusive concepts and illuminates rich knowledge that traditional education overlooks. This series is the most comprehensive and accessible guide on using mental models to better understand our world, solve problems, and gain an advantage.

EBOOK: Introduction to Mass Communication: Media Literacy and Culture

Describes influential business philosophies and marketing ideas from the past twenty years and examines why they did not work.

What if almost everything you know about creating a culture of innovation is wrong? What if the way you are measuring innovation is choking it? What if your market research is asking all of the wrong questions? It's time to innovate the way you innovate. Stephen Shapiro is one of America's foremost innovation advisrrs, whose methods have helped organizations like Staples, GE, Telefónica, NASA, the U.S. Air Force, and USAA. He teaches his clients that innovation isn't just about generating occasional new ideas; it's about staying consistently one step ahead of the competition. Hire people you don't like. Bring in the right mix of people to unleash your team's full potential. Asking for ideas is a bad idea. Define challenges more clearly. If you ask better questions, you will get better answers. Don't think outside the box; find a better box. Instead of giving your employees a blank slate, provide them with well-defined parameters that will increase their creative output. Failure is always an option. Looking at innovation as a series of experiments allows you to redefine failure and learn from your results. Shapiro shows that nonstop innovation is attainable and vital to building a high-performing team, improving the bottom line, and staying ahead of the pack.

Functional stupidity can be catastrophic. It can cause organisational collapse, financial meltdown and technical disaster. And there are countless, more everyday examples of organisations accepting the dubious, the absurd and the downright idiotic, from unsustainable management fads to the cult of leadership or an over-reliance on brand and image. And yet a dose of stupidity can be useful and produce good, short-term results: it can nurture harmony, encourage people to get on with the job and drive success. This is the stupidity paradox. The Stupidity Paradox tackles head-on the pros and cons of functional stupidity. You'll discover what makes a workplace mindless, why being stupid might be a good thing in the short term but a disaster in the longer term, and how to make your workplace a little less stupid by challenging thoughtless conformity. It shows how harmony and action in the workplace can be balanced with a culture of questioning and challenge. The book is a wake-up call for smart organisations and smarter people. It encourages us to use our intelligence fully for the sake of personal satisfaction, organisational success and the flourishing of society as a whole.

"The Allen Carr method has helped millions quit smoking. Now its experts are determined to tackle the UK's obsession with digital devices" - Daily Express "You'll be aware off how your devices affect you and most of all, you will enjoy the feeling of regaining control" - Daily Mirror Do you pull out your phone at every idle moment? Do hours slip away as you mindlessly scroll? Has your smartphone added a level of detachment between you and the outside world? Sadly technology which should be a wonderful boon to us has started to blight our lives. The average adult spends nearly ten hours a day looking at digital screens, leading to unprecedented levels of stress, isolation, procrastination and inertia. The fact is that digital dependence is an addiction and should be treated as such. Allen Carr's Easyway is a breath of fresh air when it comes to addiction treatment. Tried and tested as an incredibly successful stop-smoking method, its principles have since been applied to other addictions such as alcohol, gambling and caffeine with outstanding results. Here, for the first time, the Easyway method has been used to overcome digital addiction, and it really works! Smart Phone Dumb Phone rewires our relationship to technology. By unravelling the brainwashing process behind our addictive behaviour, we are freed from dependence and can reassert control over our time and productivity. Including 20 practical steps to help you along your way, this wonderful guide will release you from the clutches of your smartphone and allow you to live in the moment. It truly is the easyway.