Last night Mihnea Moldoveanu launched his new book, Diaminds: Decoding the Mental Habits of Successful Thinkers at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.
In Diaminds, Mihnea Moldoveanu and Roger Martin, creators of the Integrative Thinking curriculum at the Rotman School of Management, draw upon case studies and interviews – as well as theories and models from cognitive psychology, epistemology, analytic philosophy, and semiotics – to offer a new conception of successful intelligence that is immediately applicable to business situations. The ‘diamind’ (or dialogical mind) is characterized by bi-stability (simultaneously holding opposite plans, models, courses of action in mind while retaining the ability to act), meliorism (increasing the logical depth and informational breadth of one’s thinking processes), choicefulness (retaining the ability to choose among various representations of the world, the self, and others), and polyphony (thinking about the way one formulates and solves a problem while at the same time thinking about the problem itself).
It was a great turnout and Roger Martin, co-author of the book, kicked off the event with a warm welcome for his “thinking buddy” Moldoveanu. Moldoveanu gave an enthusiastic introduction to the idea of the dialogical mind, without giving away any tidbits from the book. Moldonveanu described the evening as providing the readers a way to finish the book, rather than ruin it. Moldoveanu provided examples of integrative thinking, including the algorithm involved in testing ice cream ratios, which made me hungry for ice cream!
Moldoveanu fielded questions at the end of his talk, one reader posing the riddle: can a successful thinker continue to think successfully if they are aware that they use techniques of succesful thinking?
A reception followed the launch of Diaminds, with a steady stream of people waiting for an autograph from Moldoveanu, and a steady stream of mini pulled pork sandwiches into my hands.
The evening was a success! It was even described as spectacular! And if you’re sad you missed it, don’t be! Here’s a link to a video of the launch! Note: link does not include autograph or mini pulled pork sandwich.
