This is almost a handbook for the reader to relearn to make choices for themselves instead of trying to fit into this specific bubble created especially by social media that most of us at some point try to fit into.
This book has a lot of sections that require the reader to work on themselves and figure out who they are and what choices they are making and why,
It's not a book that you read and never look back or reread every few years to remember what it taught you the firsttime.
It's more of a book that you take a long with you until you learned everything it can teach you.

I do have to say that some sections are a bit overly dry and lengthy, as well as academic feeling. But if you get through them it's filled with good advice and helpful tips!

They say we stay inside of our own social media bubbles, never truly pushing ourselves to explore what is outside of our comfort zone. This book is a thoughtful, quiet instruction manual on how to break out of your own bubble of repeated thoughts and learn new models of thinking. While a bit academic, Riel has a patient voice and guides readers on what mental models are. This isn't a book to be read once and then gather dust on the shelf. Rather, if you are truly putting this book to its intended use, you'll pick it up over and over again to push your boundaries and find ways to grow. Riel includes plenty of "Try This" thought experiment instructions and helpful illustrations for you to put the book to work in your own life.

CREATING GREAT CHOICES

In his 2007 book, The Opposable Mind Roger Martin argued that the ability of the human mind to thresh out contrasting ideas is what enables creativity and innovation in the face of challenging situations. This, in a nutshell, was what he dubbed "integrative thinking," that unique ability of holding sometimes diametrically opposed concepts in one's mind and deriving new possibilities from these.

Together with co-author Jennifer Riel, Creating Great Choices further develops Martin's original framework by providing a volume that is for all intents and purposes a handbook for teaching the principles behind and process that underlies integrative thinking.

Indeed, Creating Great Choices is neatly divided into those two dimensions of integrative thinking. First, there is a short section on the theory of integrative thinking that revisits the concept and makes the case for its importance. The authors' paradigm is simple: that every person approaches problem solving and decision-making with a predetermined mental models that are necessarily flawed and incomplete. Thus, the only way to make better decisions is to overcome these limitations through metacognition (understanding the flaws and biases in our models), empathy (seeing things from other people's perspective), and creativity (precisely, coming up with new ideas).

Given this, the second and much lengthier section of the book provides a step by step guide to the process of integrative thinking: understanding the problem, examine pre-existing yet competing mental models for approaching the problem, then identifying and trying out entirely new ways to solve the problem.

Aside from the various examples Riel and Martin invoke to bring the concept and process of integrative thinking to life, what is also impressive about Creating Great Choices is how it draws from and is situated within the broader literature on business and decision science. The contributions of various authors are either cited or referenced in Creating Great Choices–such as Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, Dan Ariely, Dan Roam, Eric Reis, and Tom and David Kelley to name a few–which serves to drive home the point that integrative thinking isn't yet another management fad.

Ultimately, Riel and Martin's key takeaway is simple: that one need not settle for the choices presented when confronted with a decision, and that it's wrong to think of decisions in general as "either-or" affairs only. Sometimes what initially appears as "either-or" can very well end up being "and," if not something completely different informed by the original set of choices. It's this key insight that makes Creating Great Choices a useful reference for business executives and executive coaches alike.

The good thing about this book is that it presents its idea clearly through grest explanation and examples. The ideas in itself is very helpful for anyone who is grappling with choices be it in business, family, community, or personal.

I got this book fresh off the Harvard Business Review (HBR) press and I was looking forward to learning new ways to think and pursuing new theories.

It had a slow start to it but once it ramped up, it was easy to follow the writers’ train of thought and problem solving approach.

Academic in its approach, the book presents 4 methodologies to create great choices by implementing an integrated thinking process:

1) Articulate the models by framing the problem and teasing out two opposing models to solve the problem.
2) Examine the models.
3)Explore the possibilities.
4)Assess the prototypes to test different possible answers before moving ahead.

I particularly liked the different points where readers are encouraged to try the methodologies offered and the prepared set of templates to help document what has been tried.

Favourite Quote: “But when we adults propose an idea at work that gets killed, we tend to blame politics, other people’s lack of vision and institutional cowardice. We rarely examine the role of our own approach to sharing the idea played in its failure.”

Thank you for the book, but I can't review it because I can't read it, the spacing is very confusing. Thank you