Dare to Think Differently

Professor Gerald Zaltman’s pioneering research methods for understanding the unconscious desires of customers are used by companies around the world. Dare to Think Differently uses the same groundbreaking methods to explain the deep and innovative thinking used by highly successful executives.

Multiple forces, not just a brain, collaborate to produce a mind, and much of our creativity is locked in our unconscious. Highly effective decision-makers are able and willing to go beyond their conscious thinking and surface powerful, creative, unconscious thoughts and feelings. They candidly ask whether what they feel they “know” is actually warranted, opening their minds to new alternatives. Harvard Business School professor Gerald Zaltman has conducted myriad one-on-one in-depth interviews with highly creative leaders around the globe, and drawn on research findings from neuroscience literature, to develop six powerful techniques for daring to think differently, including “befriending your ignorance,” “serious play,” “chasing your curiosity,” asking the right “discovery questions,” “panoramic thinking,” and using the “voyager outlook.” The techniques constitute a research-based approach to decision-making that goes beyond the existing literature on “thinking smarter. They have also proven highly effective, helping Zaltman’s students at Harvard, and his executive clients at Apple, P&G, Chase, and many Fortune 100 companies, tap into the creative power of their unconscious. Mirroring Zaltman’s Harvard Business School classroom practice, each chapter opens with an exercise that helps readers surface the mental processes and biases that unconsciously close minds and constrict thinking. This creative surfacing is the crucial foundation for any leader operating in a complex, uncertain environment, who needs unconventional solutions to challenging problems.

Author Biography

Gerald Zaltman is an emeritus professor at the Harvard Business School, and a former member of the Executive Committee of Harvard University’s Mind, Brain, and Behavior Interfaculty Initiative. Zaltman pioneered the use of tools and insights from cognitive neuroscience, art therapy, and linguistics to understand subconscious customer thoughts and feelings.