UNCONVENTIONAL WISDOM: Twelve Remarkable Innovators Tell How Intuition Can Revolutionize Decision Making

A journey into the decision-making process of twelve of today's most creative and innovative thinkers. Provides powerful tools and techniques for unlocking those same sources that are contained in everyone. DLC: Management-Case studies.

Contrary to the conventional definition of intuition as "the power of knowing without recourse to inference or reasoning," Schultz, president of Creative Services Group, here develops a discipline for cultivating and enhancing intuitive apprehension through experience and "thought-training." He cites a dozen decision-makers (only two of them are women) who say they follow their hunches or "gut feelings." Among them are Apple computer CEO John Sculley, who agreed to air a controversial and attention-getting commercial in 1984; Time-Warner Enterprises CEO Robert Pittman, who challenged the common wisdom in creating MTV; NASA director of mission operations Eugene Kranz, who guided the Apollo 13 crew through a life-threatening crisis. However, having noted Carl Jung's comments on the malleability of the mind, Schultz concludes that intuition "is only as good as the knowledge and experience that feed it." The case histories are interesting, but the data presented are sometimes contradictory, which can raise readers' doubts.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Mixing Jungian psychology and New Age physics with the homespun philosophies of successful entrepreneurs, business-writer Schultz (coauthor: Cashing Out, 1991--not reviewed) concludes that if you want to succeed in life, you have to be willing to follow your gut when making decisions. Interviewing over a dozen successful types from Apple's John Sculley through wine king Michael Mondavi to commodities trader R.E. McMaster, Schultz reveals the offbeat, often mystical-sounding tricks of their various trades. Sculley, who made history when he formed a partnership between Apple and its archrival IBM, says that all great marketing decisions are based on intuition. Robert Pittman, the 37-year-old MTV creator and president of Time Warner Enterprises, claims that some of the great solutions to problems first start out as jokes, while ACLU executive director Ira Glasser makes hiring decisions based upon how prospective employees play basketball. If commodities guru R.E. McMaster wants to check out the integrity of a deal-maker, he takes the guy out to meet his llamas who, he claims, are foolproof judges of character. Meanwhile, supercomputer magnate John Rollwagen makes his decisions by flipping a coin--not to do what it says but to discover what he really wants after the coin drops. And president of Fox Children's Network Margaret Loesch claims that her willingness to make mistakes diminishes the mistakes she makes. Self-help exercises in the last two chapters promise to help budding innovators activate the intuitive process. You've heard all this New Age-speak before, but the individual stories--most of them lively and fresh--save Schultz's rendering from being trite. -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Schultz describes how 12 different innovators use intuition in their work to enhance their decision making. Entertaining chapters focus on a wide range of individuals and their achievements, from Harold Williams's participation in the Getty-Texaco/Pennzoil takeover and John Sculley's restructuring of Apple Computers to Gene Kranz's direction of NASA's mission operations. All of Schultz's examples show how intuition and "right-brain" thinking have aided in making crucial decisions. Schultz, who heads his own mangement group, concludes his study with exercises to enhance the "intuitive mind" and reprints a Jungian personality test to help readers determine their potential for intuitive thought. While the book is subjective in tone and provides no solid proof of the author's hypothesis, the selections are interesting and readable. Well recommended for public libraries.
- Kathy Shimpock-Vieweg, O'Conner-Cavanagh Lib., Phoenix, Ariz.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.