Open to Think

by Dan Pontefract

While it may not occur to us on a daily basis, there is a widespread cultural tendency toward quick decisions and quick action. This pattern has resulted in many of our society's greatest successes, but even more of its failures. Though the root cause is by no means malicious, we have begun to reward speed over quality, and the negative effects suffered in both our personal and professional lives are potentially catastrophic.

Best-selling author and Chief Envisioner Dan Pontefract offers the solution to this predicament with what he coins "Open Thinking," a cyclical process in which creativity is encouraged, critiquing leads to better decisions, and thoughtful action delivers positive, sustainable results. He proposes a return to balance between the three components of productive thought: dreaming, deciding, and doing.

Based on organizational and societal data, academic research, historical studies, and a wide range of interviews, Open to Think is an appeal for a world of better thinking. Pontefract introduces tangible, actionable strategies to improve the way we think as organizations and individuals.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Leadership, Personal Development

320 pages, Hardcover

Published April 10, 2018

About the author

Dan Pontefract is a leadership and corporate culture strategist and an award-winning author with over two decades of senior executive experience at SAP, TELUS, and Business Objects.

Since launching Pontefract Group in 2018, he has worked with organizations worldwide, including Salesforce, Amgen, Nestlé, Autodesk, Manulife, BMO, Nutrien, and Virgin Media O2.

He has presented at four TED events and delivered over 600 keynote talks in Australia, the Middle East, Europe, the US, and Canada.

He is the author of Work-Life Bloom (winner of the 2024 Thinkers50 Best New Management Book and the Axiom Business Book Awards Gold Medal), Lead. Care. Win., Open to Think, The Purpose Effect, and Flat Army.

He writes for Forbes and Harvard Business Review and is an adjunct professor at the University of Victoria’s Gustavson School of Business.

Named as one of the Thinkers50 Radar Class of 2018, HR Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in HR, and Inc. Magazine’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers,

Dan lives in Victoria, BC.

Reviews

[Barnabas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid summary of the 3 steps of Open Thinking.
Dan makes a great summary and analogy of the fallacies of "Closed thinking" with the manually made popcorn example
- Indifferent - resulting in a Fire on the stove (without the popcorn popped),
- Inflexible - Hot oil and kernels, due to rushing in
- Indecisive - Burnt popcorn due to delaying decisions

On the other hand the Open thinking requires 3 other elements:
- Creative thinking (Dream),
- Critical thinking (Decide)
- Applied Thinking (Do)
So the mantra for Open Thinking becomes: Dream. Decide. Do. Repeat.

The book is full of business examples - one of which, a personal example from Dan was very memorable for me: In a team practice, a few teams had to build a paper tower for given specifications, but they were lacking some elements (each teams were lacking different items).
Out of 400 people - no one started the task by asking: Why don't we start collaborating with the other teams?
This shows that people tend to apply competition, rather than collaboration instinctively.
On the creative thinking side he talks about Tom Hanks' character in Castaway, where he initially is a inflexible thinker (doing everything immediately), then becomes a creative thinker over time, by his own learnings.
Another example is John Lasseter of Pixar, who was initially fired from Disney when promoting computer animation - ...and ended up as Pixar's Chief, and Disney had purchased the successful company for 7.4 billion dollars in 2006.

As for Critical thinking we need to be able to weigh our alternatives and think not only about the immediate benefits of a decision, but long term consequences.
Some things We need to think through by ourselves - no Siri, Alexa or Google Assistant will make a decision for us.

In Applied thinking there is a great example of NASA's rigid push for launching the Challenger on time - resulting in 7 lost lives, just because they did not show any flexibility during the launch in spite of written protests from suppliers of the so called "O-rings".

Overall, a nicely written, easy to follow book, that emphasizes the need to
- set aside time to think on a regular basis,
- put this into our calendar and follow through without interruption.
- slow down before making a hasty decision, considering alternatives and long term consequences
- then execute with flexibility, if the situation changes.

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Be mindful, be attentive, be ruthless, be humane. Sticking to those key points should help you be successful and happy.
This book provided me with good reminders on things that I’ve researched and tried to our in practice. The book made me smile, laugh and think. I particularly enjoyed listening to it and I think that from now on, I should listen to non-fiction/ research style books to increase the enjoyment factor.

[Charluff · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the recommended resources on our leadership training program that is worth the read.

A simple strategy for clear thinking and better decision making and lots of examples of these “open thinkers” and their accomplishments.

Though nothing new and not super structured, it’s a good refresh on the importance of quality thinking based on a simple and easy to remember framework. And of course being an open thinker is tightly coupled with being agile and flexible, some popular soft skills nowadays.

————
Take away:

Train your thinking and spare time for quality thinking.

1. Pause
2. Reflect
3. Question everything and be open to new ideas
4. CREATIVITY (bold ideas and deliberation - including your teammates), JUDGEMENT (informed reasoning, analysis and decision making; be aware of your biases and challenge your thinking) and ACTION (how will you do it?)
5. Always free your time (most valuable resource) to use it on the big picture (make sure your team does it as well)

[Margarita · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book takes on a more conversational rather than formal approach stylistically and as such, what it gains in accessibility, it loses somewhat in structure. That said, a series of well-articulated, common sense suggestions are presented along with several engaging examples. The difficulty I often have with reads such as these, is that in order for the suggestions to gain any traction, the right corporate culture and buy-in by the right people is first needed. Rarely are suggestions given on how this essential base layer can be built or developed. Without the necessary fundamentals, any suggestions presented on how to improve “X” will often sound great in theory, but struggle in practice to properly take root and grow.

[Dey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Had a hard time getting into and staying with this book, though I agreed with the idea that there are multiple kinds of thinking and we need skills for each. Not sure I’ll remember enough to apply it.

[Palmer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read! Lot of insights and frameworks to apply in life. Would highly recommend.

[Ceil · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book had a ratio of anecdote to insight that was too high for my taste, it's built, like all of Dan's books, around really important ideas. I love the things he cares about, the way he puts things together. Open to Think felt less substantive to me than the first two books in the trilogy - I'll be looking for the articles and presentations in which he crystallizes what looks like a very good model for reflection, application, and creativity, for thinking slow to think fast.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book, well worth reading and thinking about...

[Alagappan AL · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Good Read! Loved this quote, “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”