Long Fuse, Big Bang: Achieving Long-Term Success Through Daily Victories

by Eric Haseltine

“If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” —Henry Ford

As one part of your brain processes these words, another part of your brain is urging you to put the book down and focus on something more pressing. Get back to work on the budget due tomorrow. Answer e-mails growing stale in your inbox. Get off your rear and update that rÉsumÉ.

We’re all guilty of it, especially in the business world. From Fortune 500 CEOs to assistants, we work to solve the most urgent problems first. That’s because evolution has hardwired our brains to focus only on the immediate future, a survival technique that worked extremely well when predators were lurking at every turn.

But that was then, this is now. In the modern world, where life expectancies are long and physical perils rare (at least for people who buy books), it's not only possible to build a strong tomorrow without sacrificing today, but to actually increase the number of here-and-now victories by pursuing distant wins.

That’s where Long Fuse, Big Bang comes in—to help you work with that instinct to create and foster ideas that will lead to explosive professional results. Through proven case studies and personal experience, Dr. Eric Haseltine shows you how to neutralize the quick-fix way of thinking and actually use that desire to improve your chances of an enduring success. Rather than fight our most basic thought processes, this book will teach you how to work with your brain to light the long fuse, keep it smoldering, and ignite that “Big Bang” that will make history.

272 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Dr. Eric Haseltine is an author, futurist, and neuroscientist. He has held several senior executive positions in private industry and the public sector. He was the associate director and CTO for national intelligence at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the director of research at the National Security Agency, an executive vice president at Walt Disney Imagineering, and a director of engineering at Hughes Aircraft Company. For the past few years, he has been developing completely new forms of digital media, entertainment, and advertising, in addition to cutting-edge cyber and industrial security solutions.

Eric has authored or co-authored 15 patents in optics, special effects, and electronic media. In addition, he has published more than 100 articles in Discover magazine, on Discover.com, and in journals such as Brain Research and Society for Neuroscience Proceedings. He maintains a blog on Psychology Today. Eric’s book, Long Fuse, Big Bang, shows how to prevent the tyranny of the urgent from trumping the pursuit of the important. He is co-author of The Listening Cure, with Dr. Chris Gilbert.

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long Fuse, Big Bang: Achieving Long-Term Success Through Daily Victories
by Eric Haseltine
from the library
Hardcover and audio edition of 10? cd's

I am not a fan of evolutionary psych. I think better, less imaginary dynamics could be used to explain various experimental outcomes. Lots of good bio/psych reporting (storytelling).


Contents:
The ancient script -- The brain's playbook -- Pursuing the distant win -- Blinkers and blind spots -- Turning others' failures into your successes -- Secret weapons -- Bringing big bangs back from the future -- The language of the heart -- Light long fuses and leave -- In defense of tribalism -- Lighting fuses as a way of life -- Keeping long fuses lit.

[Bob Laubach]

A neuroscientist's take on corporate leadership. The author made an interesting comparison of medicine and business management. the author speaks of both thinking OUTSIDE the box conceptually, with his example of Sam Walton's success from experimenting with new ideas; AND others thinking INSIDE the box where the box is a graphical concept plotting reward and punishment against both good and bad behavior.

[Shane · Rating 4 out of 5]

My kind of business book - focused on structural and psychological supports for innovation and R&D. This book and its unique insights are helpful for individual productivity and organizational mission alike.

[Benjamin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This follows the usual business-self-help-book model of interesting anecdotes that are supposed to support some broad, but usually ill-defined, thesis. There's already plenty wrong with that approach, but it helps if the stories are told well and if the different anecdotes have a consistent point. Haseltine is hit-or-miss in the first case and falls flat on the second. At different times, he espouses first firm control from the top of the company and later careful cultivation of mavericks. Likewise, he is sometimes in favor of incremental change toward a permanent future goal, sometimes in favor of incremental change toward a hazy, shifting goal, and sometimes in favor of revolutionary changes. Of course, there's a time for each of these, but "whatever works" doesn't quite fit into the promised thesis. Finally, as a nitpicky aside, a guy whose PhD gives him the right to endlessly quote evolution as evidence for his arguments shouldn't use group selection amongst such evidence. I'm not a biologist, but I was under the impression that this is a theory that was debunked half a century ago. Even if you allow for some recent reformulations, it certainly is not the commonly-accepted fact that he presents.

my favorite quote: "Our brains believe we'll starve to death if we think too much."

[Makereal · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is Eric through and through. This is an unveiled memoir in the guise of a business self help book. Useful technique.
Conversationally written and more ambitious than the cover implies.
A very important topic for Americans at this time in our history:How to nurture innovation?

Here I am commenting on this book after 7 yrs since I worked with and for Eric for 10 years at Imagineering. Can't help but evaluate my own experience by the yardsticks in the book.

I enjoyed re-hearing the admonitions: "Throw the rope out as far as you can." "Invent something ten times smaller or larger." "Invent the future."

Not sure the business audience makes time for a book chock-a-block (with some slightly stretched)future-inventing cases to make a point.

Eric writes about his government service with analysis and not blame. Useful. The story about allowing a wiki to be an underground tool resonates. Same exact experience at Disney maybe 10 years before with Alan Kay's group at R&D.

I read the keystone case about John Monnett and the EU and mentioned to my Francophile children who said "oh yeah"...they knew. Who knew?

Give this a 3 because of the nature of the book "in the grand scheme of things."

Thank you Eric

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

i agree with the authors idea that long-term success is achieved through daily victories. But I wish that I could more easily put into words how to personally do that from reading this book, but the autor doesn't do a good job doing that. It was enjoyable to read... but to sum it up, do less of putting out "urgent" fires, and more "important" but non urgent tasks that over time produce improved results.... and even a long fuse that leads to a BIG BANG!

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

a Gladwell type book with interesting examples and research that I hadn't seen elsewhere. Haseltine has a varied background Disney,working as a government consultant in Iraq, a brother in law at the forefront of Aids research, interviewing the founder of Matrix who found a way to reduce the cost of AID drugs by a factor of 10. Not a perfect book but interesting.

[Jonathan Guerrera · Rating 3 out of 5]

Meh. Some decent insights on how our brains approach challenges, and our bias towards instant gratification. Way too much of the book is dedicated to the author's accomplishments -- I had this on audiobook so I couldn't skim past those parts.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eric Haseltine serves on my company's board of advisors, so I thought that I better check out his work. I'm not much of a self-help reader--but this book was enjoyable and easy to read. I liked reading about his experiences.

[Elizperez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. Made me think a lot about my own work place and experience.

[Marty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Examples of long term thinking and how important it is to think about where we are headed, reducing the tyranny of the urgent.

[Wes Sivley · Rating 3 out of 5]

The stories are great. Noteworthy references good for presentation materials or speaking points. Put this toward the bottom of your list.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

A genius approach to business and life

[Rachel Winchester · Rating 4 out of 5]

My clients are profiled in this (random trivia)

[Manoj Balraj]

The author is a brain scientist who worked as a disney executive, an intelligence officer and an aerospace manager. Obviously, the man has stories to share. And some of them are outstanding. One of them is about Prasad Nimmagadda- the brain behind Matrix Pharmaceuticals and how he turned it around. Then the brain scientist in the author takes over and tells us a few things about amygladas, temporal lobes,mirror neurons and all that esoteric stuff- while ensuring he does not tax the reader's brains. This book wont become a bestseller.But this book has solid lessons to deliver.