Rating:  ☆☆☆

Recommended by:

Author:   Adam Grant

Genre:  Non-Fiction, Business, Psychology, Self Improvement

326 pages, published February 2, 2016

Reading Format:  Audio Book

Summary

In Originals, author Adam Grant studies different types of originality and explores how can to develop new ideas, policies, and practices while minimizing risk.  Grant relates anecdotes from the worlds of business, politics, sports, and entertainment and investigates how to recognize a good idea, speak up without getting silenced, build a coalition of allies, choose the right time to act, and manage fear and doubt.  He also discusses how parents and teachers can nurture originality in children and how leaders can build cultures that welcome dissent.

Quotes 

“Argue like you’re right and listen like you’re wrong.”

 

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world,” E. B. White once wrote. “This makes it difficult to plan the day.”

 

“To become original, you have to try something new, which means accepting some measure of risk.”

 

“If originals aren’t reliable judges of the quality of their ideas, how do they maximize their odds of creating a masterpiece? They come up with a large number of ideas. Simonton finds that on average, creative geniuses weren’t qualitatively better in their fields than their peers. They simply produced a greater volume of work, which gave them more variation and a higher chance of originality. “The odds of producing an influential or successful idea,” Simonton notes, are “a positive function of the total number of ideas generated.”

 

“Timing accounted for forty-two percent of the difference between success and failure.”

 

“Having a sense of security in one realm gives us the freedom to be original in another.”

 

“In the deepest sense of the word, a friend is someone who sees more potential in you than you see in yourself, someone who helps you become the best version of yourself.”

 

“Procrastination may be the enemy of productivity, but it can be a resource for creativity.”

 

“Overall, the evidence suggests that liking continues to increase as people are exposed to an idea between ten and twenty times, with additional exposure still useful for more complex ideas.”

 

“Being original doesn’t require being first. It just means being different and better.”

 

“Shapers” are independent thinkers: curious, non-conforming, and rebellious. They practice brutal, nonhierarchical honesty. And they act in the face of risk, because their fear of not succeeding exceeds their fear of failing.”

 

“If we communicate the vision behind our ideas, the purpose guiding our products, people will flock to us.”

 

“When we use the logic of consequence, we can always find reasons not to take risks.”

 

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”

 

“The least favorite students were the non-conformists who made up their own rules. Teachers tend to discriminate against highly creative students, labeling them as troublemakers.”

 

“This explains why we often undercommunicate our ideas. They’re already so familiar to us that we underestimate how much exposure an audience needs to comprehend and buy into them.”

 

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” George Bernard Shaw”

 

“People who suffer the most from a given state of affairs are paradoxically the least likely to question, challenge, reject, or change it.”

 

“Entrepreneurs who kept their day jobs had 33 percent lower odds of failure than those who quit. If you’re risk averse and have some doubts about the feasibility of your ideas, it’s likely that your business will be built to last. If you’re a freewheeling gambler, your startup is far more fragile. Like the Warby Parker crew, the entrepreneurs whose companies topped Fast Company’s recent most innovative lists typically stayed in their day jobs even after they launched. Former track star Phil Knight started selling running shoes out of the trunk of his car in 1964, yet kept working as an accountant until 1969. After inventing the original Apple I computer, Steve Wozniak started the company with Steve Jobs in 1976 but continued working full time in his engineering job at Hewlett-Packard until 1977. And although Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin figured out how to dramatically improve internet searches in 1996, they didn’t go on leave from their graduate studies at Stanford until 1998. “We almost didn’t start Google,” Page says, because we “were too worried about dropping out of our Ph.D. program.” In 1997, concerned that their fledgling search engine was distracting them from their research, they tried to sell Google for less than $2 million in cash and stock. Luckily for them, the potential buyer rejected the offer. This habit of keeping one’s day job isn’t limited to successful entrepreneurs. Many influential creative minds have stayed in full-time employment or education even after earning income from major projects. Selma director Ava DuVernay made her first three films while working in her day job as a publicist, only pursuing filmmaking full time after working at it for four years and winning multiple awards. Brian May was in the middle of doctoral studies in astrophysics when he started playing guitar in a new band, but he didn’t drop out until several years later to go all in with Queen. Soon thereafter he wrote “We Will Rock You.” Grammy winner John Legend released his first album in 2000 but kept working as a management consultant until 2002, preparing PowerPoint presentations by day while performing at night. Thriller master Stephen King worked as a teacher, janitor, and gas station attendant for seven years after writing his first story, only quitting a year after his first novel, Carrie, was published. Dilbert author Scott Adams worked at Pacific Bell for seven years after his first comic strip hit newspapers. Why did all these originals play it safe instead of risking it all?”

 

My Take

Not surprisingly, there were some original (and counterintuitive) ideas in Originals.  I was surprised to learn that many of the most successful entrepreneurs were people who kept their day jobs rather than throwing everything they had at their new idea.  It was also interesting to learn that the sheer volume of ideas created led to more original and viable outcomes (this is similar to the argument made by the author of Peak that geniuses are created rather than born).  While not super-compelling, there are some interesting ideas in Originals that are worth a read.