Practical Intelligence: The Art and Science of Common Sense

Karl Albrecht

Retail Price: $19.95 LS Price: $13.57 You Save: $6.38 (32%) Availability: Usually ships within 24 hours Format: Paperback, 416pp. ISBN: 9780470444320 Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: February 24, 2009 Average Customer Review:

Order This Book!   Secure Order Guarantee Item No: 9780470444320

Learn How to Think More Clearly and Effectively

Karl Albrecht's bestselling book Social Intelligence showed us how dealing with people and social situations can determine success both at work and in life. In Practical Intelligence, Albrecht takes the next step and explains how practical intelligence qualifies as a key life skills and offers a conceptual structure for defining and describing common sense. Throughout Practical Intelligence, Albrecht shows how people with practical intelligence can employ language skills, make better decisions, think in terms of options and possibilities, embrace ambiguity and complexity, articulate problems clearly and work through to solutions, have original ideas, and influence the ideas of others.

"Karl Albrecht has done an excellent job of integrating the many dimensions of practical intelligence into a coherent, sensible framework. This is an eminently practical book."

—Daniel Pink, author, A Whole New Mind

"What could be more important than helping people, at every age and stage of life, learn to use their minds more successfully? Karl Albrecht has given us a terrific resource for doing just that. His four 'software upgrades' and four 'mega-skills' provide a wonderfully comprehensive framework for practical intelligence."

—Dr. Sidney J. Parnes, co-developer with Alex Osborn of the Creative Education Foundation

"This brilliant, ebullient, and brainy book brings us new means to gray matter. At turns high-minded and hilarious, Practical Intelligence will remain the source book for many years of the best thinking about thinking well."

—Jean Houston, author, The Possible Human

Dr. Karl Albrecht is a management consultant, executive advisor, futurist, researcher, speaker, and prolific author. In his twenty-five-year career he has worked with many kinds of businesses, government, and nonprofit organizations in a wide range of industries world-wide. He has consulted with senior executives and lectured to conferences on all inhabited continents. He is the author of more than twenty books on various aspects of individual and business performance, including Brain Power: Learn to Improve Your Thinking Skills; The Northbound Train: Finding the Purpose, Setting the Direction, Shaping the Destiny of Your Organization; The Power of Minds at Work: Organizational Intelligence in Action; and co-author of the best-selling Service America!: Doing Business in the New Economy, widely credited with launching the “customer revolution” in the U.S. and abroad, which has sold over a half-million copies in seven languages. He devotes much of his effort to finding and developing promising new concepts for both organizational and individual effectiveness. His research and development activities have spanned a wide range of issues, from individual creativity all the way to corporate strategic vision. He is widely regarded as a key thought leader in the field of emerging strategic business issues.

Preface. About the Author. 1. A Problem and an Opportunity. Accidental Intelligence:The Terminal Assumption. The Widening “Smart Gap”. The Dumbing of America and the Culture of Amusement. Knows and Know-Nots:The New Social Divide. Who Cares? Who Needs to Care? 2. Multiple Intelligences: The Possible Human. IQ Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story. There Are at Least Six Kinds of “Smart”. Building Out: Applying Theories to Everyday Life. Build-Out 1: Emotional Intelligence. Build-Out 2: Social Intelligence. The Next Build-Out: Practical Intelligence. 3. What Is Practical Intelligence? Thinking Is a Bodily Function. MeetYour Biocomputer. Brain Cycles, Brainwaves, Brain States, and the Daily Trance . Mindmodules:You Have Many “Minds”. Mindmodels:Your Portable Reality. Four Habits That Unlock Your Mental Capacity. Four Dimensions of PI:Your Mega-Skills. Getting Started: Upgrading Your Mental “Software”. 4. Mental Software Upgrade 1: Developing Mental Flexibility. Are You a Finished Product? Dynamic Thinking and Archaic Thinking. You Might Be a Mental Redneck . . . The Creative Paradox. The “Beginner’s Mind”: Innocence and Humility. The “Plexity” Scale. There Is No Truth—Only Your Truth, His Truth, Her Truth,Their Truth . . . How I Learned to Stop Arguing with People. A New Way to Think About Opinions. Three Phrases That Can Keep Your Mind Open. 5. Mental Software Upgrade 2: AdoptingAffirmative Thinking. Cleaning Out the Attic: Mental Decontamination. “Sensorship”: Choosing What You Will Allow intoYour Mind. Resistance to Enculturation, a.k.a.“Crap Detecting”. Cleanse Your Mind with a “Media Fast”. Re-EngineeringYour Attitudes. The Attitude of Gratitude. The Attitude of Abundance. Practical Altruism. Meditation, Mindmovies, and Affirmations. 6. Mental Software Upgrade 3: Adopting Sane Language Habits. Language as Mental Software:What You Say. Is What You Think. How Language “Packages” Your Thoughts. Jumping to Confusions: Inferential Thinking. “Clean” and “Dirty” Language: Strategies for Semantic Sanity. Expressions You Can Remove from Your Vocabulary. The Self-Conversation: Cleaning Up Your Internal Dialog. Snappy Comebacks:The Language of Funny. 7. Mental Software Upgrade 4: Valuing Ideas. Do You Have Lots of Good Ideas? (Almost Everyone Does). “It Slipped My Mind . . .” (Almost Everything Does). The Greatest Thinking Tool Ever Invented. Thinking in Pictures. Are You a Yes-Person or a No-Person? The P.I.N. Formula: Protecting Ideas. Using Your Magical Incubator. “Metaboxical” Thinking: Breaking the Boundaries. 8. Mega-Skill 1: “Bivergent” Thinking. The Divergent-Convergent Polarity:The D-C Axis. Process Consciousness: Managing the “Pivot Point”. Groupthink:The Collusion to Fail Brainstorming: More Often Talked About Than Done Systematic Creativity:The Balancing Act. 9. Mega-Skill 2: “Helicopter” Thinking. The Abstract-Concrete Polarity:The A-C Axis. Visionaries and Actionaries:We Need Both. Connecting the Dots:You Have to See Them to Connect Them. Painting the Big Picture: Mindmapping. Explaining the Big Picture: Using the Language of Ideas 10. Mega-Skill 3: “Intulogical” Thinking The Logical-Intuitive Polarity:The L-I Axis Thinking Styles:Yours and Others’ Sequential Thinking: Re-Owning Your Logical Abilities TrustingYour Hunches: Re-OwningYour Intuitive Abilities The “Zen Mind”: Flow and Mindfulness 11. Mega-Skill 4: “Viscerational” Thinking The Rational-Emotive Polarity:The R-E Axis First We Decide—Then We Justify: Irrational Thinking Explained We’re All Neurotic, and That’s OK The Five Primal Fears We Live By: The Psychology of Risk Signal Reactions: Disconnecting Your Hot Buttons Emotions and Health: If It’s on Your Mind, It’s on Your Body Can You Motivate Yourself? The “Popeye Point” 12. How to Become an Expert Problem Solver Forget Those “Five Steps” They Taught You Using Heuristic (a.k.a. Natural) Problem Solving Your Five Key Mindzones The High Speed Problem Solving Process 13. Success Programming: Causing the Outcomes You Want Using What We’ve Learned Mindmovies:Who’s Producing Your Life’s Story? Alpha Programming: Making the Movies You Want Your Life Wheel:Taking Stock, Setting Priorities, and Making Changes Appendices A Answers to Thinking Exercises B Fifty Tips for Better Thinking C A Vocabulary for Practical Intelligence D A Code of Intelligent Discourse E Learn to Meditate in “One” Lesson: The Harvard Mantra Index

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Success