Customer Reviews

Brainsteering: A Better Approach to Breakthrough Ideas

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Kevin Coyne and Shawn Coyne respond to that question by providing in this volume an abundance of valuable information, insights, caveats, and recommendations that quickly identify the "what" and then focus intensively on the "why" and "how" of what they characterize as "a better approach to breakthrough ideas." Heaven knows there are dozens (hundreds? thousands?) of books already in print that make the same claim. My own opinion is that the Coynes' approach is comprehensive, cohesive, and cost-effective...and one of the best I have as yet encountered.

Their approach is research- and results-driven, based on two core principles: (1) "If you ask the right questions, answers and good ideas soon follow" and (2) The right process for consistently generating breakthrough ideas looks very different from what [most people have] probably been taught." In other words, asking the right questions and following the right process will "steer" the brain to the right answers.

It is worth noting that the material provided is based on revelations generated by more than 200 McKinsey client projects, refined further by real-world applications of insights and practices. The Coynes come across to me as being diehard pragmatists who are determined to share everything they have learned about establishing and then sustaining a process by which to generate new and better ideas all day, every day, and even on demand.

The exemplary breakthroughs they cite include easily portable personal computers (How to create one that fits into an overhead bin on an airplane?), direct sales of personal computers (How to by-pass costs and complications of the retail channel?), and large-scale "category killer" stores (Can hardware and office supplies be sold the same way Toys R Us sells its merchandise?) The visionary founders and co-founders of the most successful start-ups (e.g. Apple, Google, Facebook) all claim that they knew which questions to ask, how to answer them, and then how to apply effectively what the answers revealed.

The Coynes organize their material within four Parts: First, they explain how to know what the right questions are and how/where to answer them; next, they explain how to maximize what they call "personal ideation skills" such as MECE (see Pages 72-73) and using analysis to identify anomalies; then they explain how to "lead others to great ideas"; and finally, in Chapter 10, they explain how to develop "your own billion-dollar idea." They identify and then discuss four principles that can help to guide and inform the development of a breakthrough idea, whatever its monetary value proves to be.

Along the way, the Coynes explain what differentiates the Brainsteering approach from any others. For example, they note that it "exploits two tendencies that cause most people to miss certain kinds of insights. The first tendency is to be biased toward believing that any well-functioning process doesn't bear questioning...The second tendency is to simplify a complex world through norms and averages. People's lives are complicated. In fact, every element of their lives seems complicated."
I think the Coynes made a shrewd decision when they decided to frame their material within a series of questions that serve two separate but related and especially important purposes: They stimulate, indeed require disciplined thinking by their reader and thus encourage the reader to interact with the material; also, the questions serve as examples of the kinds of questions - and sequences of questions - that must be asked and then answered, not only about how to generate breakthrough ideas but also about a book such as this that claims to offer a better process to do that.

Early in the morning of 13 February 1692, in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution and the Jacobite uprising of 1689 led by John Graham of Claverhouse (`Bonnie Dundee'), an infamous massacre took place in the Valley of Glencoe, in the Scottish highlands. The Massacre of Glencoe, or in Scottish Gaelic, 'Mort Ghlinne Comhann' (murder of Glen Coe) can still rouse passion today. The massacre began simultaneously in three settlements along the glen--Invercoe, Inverrigan, and Achnacon--although the killing took place across the glen as fleeing MacDonalds were pursued. Thirty-eight MacDonalds of Glencoe were killed - by guests who had accepted their hospitality ( two companies of the Earl of Argyll's Regiment of Foot), on the grounds that the MacDonalds had not been prompt in pledging allegiance to the new monarchs, William and Mary. Another forty women and children died of exposure after their homes were burned.

In this novel, through two main characters - one an historical figure, the other a semi legendary one - the story of the massacre is told.

Charles Leslie, an Irish Jacobite, wrote one of the few detailed contemporary accounts of the massacre `A Letter From a Gentleman In Scotland'. In the novel, he is gathering evidence about the massacre and travels to Inveraray where Corrag is imprisoned. Corrag is apparently a witness to the massacre and has also been condemned to death by burning as witch.

While Leslie is initially disgusted by Corrag and her squalid cell, he agrees to a bargain with Corrag. Corrag will tell him what she knows if he will first listen to her story from the beginning. The majority of the novel is taken up by Corrag's story of how she fled to north to Scotland, and eventually to Glencoe, after her mother, an herbalist, was condemned as a witch. Once in Glencoe, Corrag becomes involved in the lives of Clan MacDonald and is called on as a healer. Corrag's narrative is interspersed with Leslie's commentary in the form of letters to his wife.

As Corrag tells her story, Leslie becomes more sympathetic towards her and more respectful of her. Her joy in the natural world is an important part of this story and by the time the telling of the massacre occurs, Corrag's life is as important as the events of Glencoe.

I loved this novel: it is full, it is complete and Corrag's voice deserves all of the words it uses. It is work of literary historical fiction: as remarkable for its language as it is for its story.

`Who we were is not who we are, these days.'

Jennifer Cameron-Smith