More 1.5 stars than 2. In the vein of Alchemy, it had some general ideas and beat them to death. Worse, it shrouds its ideas in jargon both existing aMore 1.5 stars than 2. In the vein of Alchemy, it had some general ideas and beat them to death. Worse, it shrouds its ideas in jargon both existing and invented and has multiple numbered systems (i.e. 6 paths, 4 actions framework, etc.) that cause most of the actual meat of the ideas it has to simply melt away.
Only rounded up to 2 because at least it has more than 1 idea and no narrator could ever be as insufferable as Rory Sutherland....more
Sometimes the logical solution is not the best one.
Congratulations! You've now acquired all the information that this book has to offer. Pat yourself Sometimes the logical solution is not the best one.
Congratulations! You've now acquired all the information that this book has to offer. Pat yourself on the back and save yourself a lot of time.
Oh - you mean this wasn't news to you?
Alchemy, or "Think Outside the Box Sometimes: The Book," chooses as its thesis the shocking and revelatory idea that sometimes, you need to think creatively to solve difficult problems (and to market better, but the book covers both marketing and big ideas in the rest of the world).
The problem, to put it bluntly, is that this isn't really something that people didn't know already, and it's certainly not something that takes nearly 400 pages to explain. It's a quote you hang on the wall: "Think Differently."
Now, some of the examples are cool. But they get tedious very quickly. Unfortunately, the book is just far too many chapters that take as a jumping-off point some permutation of "think differently" and then provide several examples of times when that worked.
This leads me to another problem: This book is plagued by selection bias. There are many times where rational ideas are in fact the best ones. There are plenty of times where logical thinking trumps emotional thinking. And there are also times where I questioned his evaluation of what constitutes an overreliance on logic and what constitutes, ahem, Alchemy.
For example, in one of the most baffling (and uh, borderline tasteless) anecdotes right near the end of the book, he discusses the Challenger disaster. He claims the disaster could have been averted by asking a better question than "Are we really going to delay the launch again?" Instead, he says the question that should have been asked was "Regardless of the temperature at the launch site now, what temperature do you believe is the minimum safe operating range of the equipment?"
The anecdote was providing an example about the importance of understanding social pressure. Fine. But the problem is that this latter question is extremely logical and rational, while the problem quote he claims was uttered (notably, I can't find this confirmed anywhere) is unequivocally emotional, not rational. In this case, seemingly without knowing it, he's advocating for even more logic so as not to fall victim to emotions wrought by social pressure.
Look, I'm not saying the big idea here is bankrupt. It's true that sometimes we get caught up in overly logical thinking and forget that humans are very silly, dumb, and emotional animals and often do what they do for silly, dumb, and emotional reasons. This is important to keep in mind especially, I would say, in marketing. But that single big idea is really all this book has to offer.
It takes a lot for me to give up on a book, or to skip ahead if I'm reading nonfiction. I didn't with Alchemy, but I really wish I had. I hope I can save someone the trouble of making the same mistake. You won't miss much....more
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