Grass Roots Leaders: The BrainSmart Revolution in Business

by Tony Buzan, Tony Dottino

Tony Buzan, Tony Dottino and Richard Israel pick up a theme they first introduced nearly a decade ago in The Brain Smart Leader and document a way of fundamentally changing the perspective and behaviour of leaders and employees in your organization.

Their approach shows how to:
* use the brain's capacity for solving problems and implementing innovative plans to make the organization's vision a reality;
* adopt a three-speed technique - first gear to slow down and allow new learning or support for difficult transition periods. Second gear shifts up to a productive work outcome, and then third gear revs up to champion innovation and change;
* apply a series of proven models for dealing with information overload, making the best use of scarce resources, such as time, and keeping sight of successful outcomes as they are developed.

258 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Tony Buzan was an English author, educational consultant, and pioneer of the mind mapping technique, which he developed to enhance learning, creativity, and memory. Born in Middlesex in 1942, he studied psychology, English, mathematics, and science at the University of British Columbia and later became a graduate student at Simon Fraser University, where he served as the inaugural president of the student society. Buzan was a strong advocate for mental literacy and radiant thinking, drawing inspiration from figures like Leonardo da Vinci and Albert Einstein. He authored or co-authored over 80 books, including the bestselling Use Your Head, The Mind Map Book, and The Speed Reading Book, and gained international recognition through his 1970s BBC series Use Your Head. Buzan co-founded the World Memory Championships, the Mind Sports Olympiad, and the Brain Trust Charity. His legacy lives on through his books, seminars, and iMindMap software.

Reviews

[David Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book I read to research this post was Grass Roots Leaders by Tony Buzan et al which is an excellent book which I bought from kindle. Apparently when this book they planned on doing an updated edition of one of their previous books but there have been so many discoveries in things like how the brain works and things like how to learn something that they realized they had to write a completely different book. This book does look at speed reading, mind mapping and the best ways to learn but it's a business book so most of it is about things like empowering employees. An important concept in business is giving employees a problem and letting them solve it which is often referred as empowering them. There is a case study in the book about Holiday Inn Arena who couldn't compete with the luxury rooms and their rooms were normally quite small. They got around this by describing their rooms as cosy in brochures and made sure the staff were very friendly and solved any problems that came up. They tried people really enjoyed staying at their hotels. This is something that often comes up in business that something that you might think is a disadvantage can be turned into an advantage by looking at it from a different angle and looking at what your company can excel in.