Why Didn't I Think of That? Think the Unthinkable and Achieve Creative Greatness - Hardcover

Charles W. McCoy Jr.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0735202575 ISBN 13: 9780735202573

Publisher: Prentice Hall Press, 2002

Synopsis

Accompanied by self-tests, interactive exercises, tips, and techniques, an innovative guide to unleashing creativity and adopting new standards of thinking provides practical step-by-step instructions for making decisions that require observation, accuracy, and anaylis to determine the best possible outcome and to improve performance IQ.

About this title

About the Author

Charles W. McCoy, Jr., a judge at the Los Angeles Superior Court, California's highest court, has been published extensively in law journals throughout the country. He is an adjunct professor at Pepperdine University School of Law and Southwestern University School of Law.

Reviews

McCoy, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge and professor at Pepperdine, isn't afraid to admit his mistakes. He opens this book by discussing one of his first cases: the plaintiff had what appeared to be significant brain damage following an accident. It seemed that he would get a sizable judgment until opposing counsel produced a videotape of the man exercising. He had fooled his attorneys as well as McCoy, who learned a valuable lesson: no one judge, attorney or businessperson can afford to make haphazard and lazy judgments without examining all the facts. In this guide to achieving professional success via creative methods, McCoy prescribes various exercises, including some in hypothetical situations, to show how readers can enhance their powers of observation and perception. For example, McCoy suggests that readers "[o]btain a clear view of reality," "[d]oublecheck observations" and "[s]tudy both the forest and the trees." While McCoy's advice is solid, the book is so busy that readers will probably have difficulty absorbing its practical content. He intersperses mental exercises between straight text and chapter summaries. Adding to the confusion is McCoy's overly energetic use of business, historical and political case studies, which end up obscuring the useful content.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

McCoy, a California judge and adjunct law-school professor, aims to empower by teaching readers how to think more clearly, creatively, and comprehensively. His eight chapters deal with perception, concentration, high-level thinking, a systematic approach, imagination, intuition, empathy, and anticipation. McCoy's approach is lively: he blends anecdotes from his experiences on the bench; tales of smart (and not-so-smart) decisions in business, politics, science, and other fields; brief but systematic outlines of the elements of each of his main subjects; and classic brainteasers. McCoy's book is no guarantee that readers will qualify for Mensa, but it should make most of them more aware of careless mental habits and overly narrow mental processes that they'd like to improve. Mary Carroll
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Prentice Hall Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0735202575
• ISBN 13: 9780735202573
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256