Beth Courtney

Sr. Sourcing Specialist at ComputerPeople

A few years ago I read an interesting and thought provoking book called Freakonomics.  Written by Stephen J. Dubner and Steven Levitt, it exposes the hidden side of just about everything.  It is a fun book to read and covers topics like “What do Schoolteachers and Summa Wrestlers have in Common?” and “Why Do Drug Dealers Still Live With their Moms?” In full disclosure, one of the authors, Stephen J. Dubner, is my youngest brother.  That being said, I would enjoy this book even if we weren’t related.  It challenges the reader to think outside the box and look at the world from a different perspective. The authors use unconventional analysis to come up with new ways of looking at data from philanthropy to sports to politics to current events.

For those of us whose brains don’t normally analyze things in an “outside the box” fashion, Dubner and Levitt’s latest book, Think Like a Freak provides a look inside their thought processes.  They teach us all to think a bit more productively, more creatively, more rationally—in other words, to think like a Freak.

Some of the steps toward thinking like a Freak as outlined in this book include:

• First, put away your moral compass—because it’s hard to see a problem clearly if you’ve already decided what to do about it.
• Learn to say “I don’t know”—for until you can admit what you don’t yet know, it’s virtually impossible to learn what you need to.
• Think like a child—because you’ll come up with better ideas and ask better questions.
• Take a master class in incentives—because for better or worse, incentives rule our world.
• Learn to persuade people who don’t want to be persuaded—because being right is rarely enough to carry the day.
• Learn to appreciate the upside of quitting—because you can’t solve tomorrow’s problem if you aren’t willing to abandon today’s dud.

One of my favorite parts of this book is their description of how children see the world.  Children have such a natural curiosity about everything which leads them to ask so many questions. They explain that children don’t have a set point of view and are eager to learn by asking questions.  Adults often dismiss these questions when it might be valuable to see the world through a child’s eyes and challenge opinions or thoughts that are set in stone in our adult minds.  Overall, Think Like a Freak is a funny and intriguing book that serves as a good resource to learn to think differently and to see problems from more than one preconceived point of view.

Check out the Freakonomics website here!

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Beth is a Senior Recruiter and Sourcing Specialist at Computerpeople with over 20 years of experience sourcing hard to fill technical positions. Her primary focus is finding exceptional talent in software development, networking, database management, web development, business analysis, project management, help desk/tech support, data architecture, Information Security and IT Management.