How to Move Up When the Only Way is Down: Lessons from Artificial Intelligence for Overcoming Your Local Maximum

In How to Move Up When the Only Way is Down, the author seeks to help business owners, organizations, and individuals reach what he terms their global maximum. To him, this is basically making the best decision to ensure the best results. All too often he thinks we get caught up in what he calls our local maximum. A sub-optimal position, which had we come up with a novel way of looking at our problem, we could be inspired to find better, more rewarding solutions.

The author explains that often it appears that we are at the top of a local mountain, our local maximum, when all along we should be striving for a different higher mountain that will allow us to accomplish more in the long run. But how do we get down from one mountain without wasting time climbing up another one? To do this he suggests that we must look at examples from artificial intelligence and think outside the box by asking what he terms A, B, and X questions. The goal is to avoid wasting time on answers that might only get us one step further on our journey and instead discover the unexpected path that will allow us or our business to soar.

This book is not only well written but will give you some new and inspiring ideas about problem solving that are both practical and inspiring. I loved the fact that the author provided a lot of vivid and engaging personal accounts and examples about how he approached a lot of challenges in his own life and career. I enjoyed learning about his time in the Israeli army and how he dealt with difficult situations. I found the information he provided about Tech Career, an organization helping Ethiopian immigrants access technical training and thereby better job opportunities, very interesting.

The work is quite thought-provoking and will help readers understand the importance of planning and vetting their decision-making process. It will encourage you to question what you know and allow for uncertain or unexpected events to be incorporated into your personal or business plans. I did, however, sometimes think that the author went around the world to say something that could have been summed up quite simply and quickly. Although, that’s not to suggest that I didn’t enjoy or appreciate this work. It just seemed to stray a bit from the main point occasionally.

Overall, there are some great points within that can help us overcome our local maximum and help us achieve our goals by embracing new ways of thinking and problem-solving.