September 13, 2010
Haseltine's studies of the brain have aided him in senior positions with the NSA, Disney Imagineering, and Hughes Aircraft and make this a scholarly, packed analysis. Relying on his own experiences and case studies of pioneering companies like IBM, Disney, and Wal-Mart, Haseltine makes a convincing case that our short-term, put-out-the-fire mentality makes us miss opportunities that come from long-term thinking. In compelling, well-researched examples from a number of fields, Haseltine demonstrates how the successes of today were once the dream projects of visionary leaders who broke their ideas down and organized them into daily increments that allowed them to be approached methodically. Walt Disney, Haseltine points out, understood that "speaking to the heart works much better than speaking to the mind," because our conscious mind is "a Post-it note" compared to the unconscious, which he likens to the "Library of Congress." It's not what we do on a daily basis, he argues, but how we do it.