Customer Rating: 
Summary: Well worth the price
Comment: I'm the author of "Thinkertoys: A Handbook of Creative Thinking Techniques" and pretty much read everything that is published in the creativity field. I find this book useful, entertaining and enlightening. Buy it. It's well worth the price.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Makes you fully aware of the pitfalls of patterning in our minds & to encourage you to constantly challenge your assumptions!
Comment: 75 Cage Rattling Questions to Change the Way You Work: Shake-Em-Up Questions to Open Meetings, Ignite Discussion, and Spark Creativity
by Dick Whitney, Melissa Giovagnoli
This book has been around for almost a decade. I have found it to be a very good book as it teaches readers how to break the normal thinking patterns in the mind. To use a popular neuro-linguistic term, how to do a 'pattern interrupt'!
Patterning is one of three principal operating principles of the human mind. (The other two: selective recognition & self-organising.)
The good thing about patterning is that you don't have to relearn the same pattern if you are comfortable with it or it works for you, e.g. riding a bike or driving a car or using a piece of software. The bad thing about it is that you may get stuck with it, especially when the old pattern doesn't work any more. In the same vein, the patterning makes it hard for a new idea to get fair treatment in your mind.
Edward de Bono, the father of lateral thinking puts it very beautifully: "The mind is habitually uncreative - it is usually preoccupied with organising masses of incoming data into convenient patterns. Once the pattern is established, then the mind tends to rely upon that pattern in future situations, in order to facilitate decision making & action in an otherwise complex world."
Dr David Perkins, author of 'Outsmarting IQ: The Emerging Science of Learnable Intelligence', explains further: "...As we go through life, puzzle out problems, & gain experience, we store up patterns that work well for us. In meeting new situations, we automatically try to make a match to what we know & select a pattern from our storehouse that might apply. This matching process gets influenced not only by what patterns we have stored up, but also by our goals, prejudices & passions."
So, how does one break old patterns or get out of complacency? On workable method is to pose to ourselves challenging, thought-provoking questions. Better still, wild & crazy ones!
Why such questions?
Well, for one thing, they set off processional effects that have great impacts beyond your imagination. Questioning your limitations is what tears down the walls in life - in business, in relationships. I believe growth & progress are often preceded by new & challenging questions.
This book offers 75 outrageous, thought-provoking questions that can clean out the cobwebs in your minds & get you working in new & productive directions.
The essence of the book is not so much using the 75 field-tested "cage rattlers" to shatter the complacency. I feel that the primary objective of the two authors is to make you fully aware of the pitfalls & dangers of patterning in our minds & to encourage you to constantly challenge your assumptions!
This book has 75 short chapters, fully corresponding to the self-described 'cage rattling' questions. Each chapter opens with the question, provides you with some ways to use the question, shares a war story & gives you further tips for using the particular question.
Frankly, I would encourage readers to formulate your own list of 'cage rattling' questions to be used in your own different situation. Certainly, you can make use of the book's questions as a springboard.
Sometimes, the questions to be asked don't even have to be 'cage rattling'. All you need to do is to reframe the question. For example, in problem solving, I always like to ask myself, 'what else can I do?' instead of 'what can I do?'; 'what has not yet happened here?' instead of 'what has happend here?'...
Customer Rating:
Summary: Questions and More!
Comment: This book has 75 short chapters, one for each of the self-described "cage rattling questions." Each chapter opens with the question, provides you 3-5 ways to use the question, shares a "war story" and gives you some tips for using this particular question.
I have long been a proponent of, and encouraged people to build lists of questions they could use in different situations. This book would be a good place to start your list if you are a trainer, consultant, facilitator, or team leader. You will find many of these questions useful to spark conversations, trigger new ideas and build synergy.
Look at it this way... if you got only one great question that you use to great advantage it would be worth the cost of the book. I'm sure you will get at least several more than that
Customer Rating: 
Summary: You can come up with these
Comment: I wouldn't disagree with any of the other reviews, but it's a matter of personal preference where I spend my money. I wouldn't spend it on this book. Once you focus on what you want to accomplish (ie., "shake-em-up"), you could come up with a lot of these challenges. "If your company were a car...If your company were a footbal team.." and so on. In a word, analogy. I've found in workshops I've conducted, whether they're on Creativity, Problem-Solving, Leadership, or other topics, I'll use this "provocative" technique maybe once or twice in a full day. Beyond that the novelty has worn off.Much of the text that accompanies each question is also a little repetitious - the "war stories" all start to sound alike.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Actually useful
Comment: I was surprised at how useful this book is. When I first looked at it, I thought the questions looked obvious and simplistic, but they work very well to start off team meeting sessions. The authors provide lots of good ideas about how to use them, and little anecdotes to inspire you to believe that the questions can actually change the way you do business. I've used them for meeting kick-offs and to jump-start moribund discussions.
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