Originals

Adam Grant

Synopsis

"How non-conformists change the world"

Individual actions: 
  1.  Question the defaults 
  2. Triple the number of ideas you create 
  3. Immerse yourself in a new domain
  4. Procrastinate strategically
  5. Seek feedback from peers
Voicing original ideas
  1. Balance your risk portfolio 
  2. highlight reasons NOT to support the idea
  3. Make your idea familiar (repetition&analogies) 
  4. Speak to a different audience
  5. Be a tempered radical 
Managing Emotions
  1. Motivate yourself differently when you're committed (how much left to go) vs uncertain (how far you are so far )
  2. Don't try to calm down, rather excite yourself 
  3. Focus on the victim, not the perpetrators
  4. Realize you're not alone 
  5. Remember that if you don't take initiatives, status quo persists 
Leader Actions:
sparking ideas: 
  1. run an innovation tournament 
  2. picture yourself as the enemy
  3. invite people from different functions and different levels ( mid-management alone is anti-innovation) 
  4. Hold an opposite day 
  5. ban the words like, hate, love
building cultures of originality 
  1. Do no hire on cultural fit, but  on cultural contribution
  2. shift from exit interview ( what they would have like the company to have, would have kept them ) to entry interview
  3. Ask for problems, not solutions ( better to acknowledge everything ) 
  4. Do not assign devil's advocate, find them 
  5. Welcome criticism 
 Parent&Teachers actions: 
  1. Ask Children what their role models would do 
  2. link good behavior to moral character
  3. explain how bad behaviors has bad consequence for others
  4. Emphasize values over rules
  5. create novel niches for children to pursue 

My take

That was a great book. Thoroughly researched and yet lots of fun anecdotes

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